Maurice Kirk’s alleged conspiracy to kidnap Musa kids

Regular readers might recall our reports last month on the African adventures of Sabine McNeill’s friend Maurice Kirk, who refers to himself as “the Flying Vet”: he managed to crash land several times while tagging along with a vintage aeroplane rally, before finally ditching in South Sudan. The story was picked up by several media outlets as a “human interest” item—headlines along the lines of “Daredevil pilot’s ordeal after South Sudan crash” sprouted across the internet.

We’ve mentioned some of the less savoury aspects of Mr Kirk’s adventures over the years, including various convictions for common assault, death threats, and destruction of property, not to mention his being struck off as a veterinarian due to conduct that would bring the profession into disrepute.

Mr Kirk is also known as the McKenzie friend of the Gloria and Joseph Musa, whose children were removed from their care because of their extreme cruelty:

From The Telegraph, 14 August 2012:

Two cruel parents convicted of a decade long campaign of abuse against their kids after Coronation Street star Michelle Collins gave evidence against them were jailed for seven years each today.

The Nigerian couple, who claimed their kids were possessed by evil spirits, beat them with brooms, hoovers and wires and even gave their baby a morphine overdose just days after her first birthday.

The kids were finally rescued after their eldest daughter threw a heart-wrenching SOS note out of a window….

…The abuse came to the attention of police in April 2010 when their nine-year-old wrote an SOS note and threw it out of her bedroom window.

The heart-breaking plea read: “My mum is the worst mum ever because she can’t cope with five of us, her broken hand and being pregnant. She always leaves me out so I always starve and I am forced to work.

“If I don’t get enough house work done, I am beaten without mercy with the wooden end of a broom. I have scars all over me to prove it. I can’t stay here. I would like a new mum.”

It was found by a neighbour who called the police, and when officers attended the address they found the children living in messy conditions with “dirty” and “dishevelled” clothing.

Revealing scars the eldest said her mother had hit her with a cable, a broom, and a hoover and her father had dangled her by her feet down the stairwell of the house, tied her hands behind her back and her legs together “to get the devilish spirits out”, prosecutor Emma Smith said.

Her sister, who was seven at the time, had a stick shaped bruise of her thigh and after a few months in care, she drew a series of pictures showing her dad beating her and her being left home alone and including a speech bubble saying ‘I’m hungry.’

The children were left home alone for hours, sometimes days on end, with the elder kids forced to look after the others.

They had even been forced to lie to a charity and social services that they were living alone with their mother in one room and had no idea who their dad was so they could scam benefits.

We wonder whether the media outlets that wrote with such amused admiration about Mr Kirk’s bullheaded determination to fly across Africa might have been a bit chagrined to learn about another trip to Africa which he is alleged to have planned in 2011:

Yep, Maurice Kirk was charged with conspiracy to abduct the Musa children, the plan apparently being that he and the parents would locate the children in their foster homes, and he would then fly them back to Nigeria.

In this “witness statement” which he sent to the CPS, he manages to say very little about the actual charge of conspiracy to abduct children, but he does give away a few interesting facts:

• He states that he went to actress Michelle Collins’ house (she had assisted the Musa children in escaping from their parents), and implies that Ms Collins is involved in child trafficking.
• He claims that Haringey lawyers “caused Mrs Atkinson to have me jailed”.
• And he blames everyone but himself for his predicament: it’s the UK Courts, the South Wales Police, Michelle Collins, Haringey lawyers, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy who have caused his predicament, not his own behaviour.

Reading Mr Kirk’s blog account of the matter, it’s difficult to tell exactly what happened: like Sabine, his accounts tend to be riddled with factual errors, delusional leaps of non-logic, and bizarre asides which may or may not pertain to the case:

Ultimately, as we know, the Musas were found guilty of child cruelty, and we believe the conspiracy to abduct charges were dismissed, though we can find no official record of this having happened. If anyone knows of a more reputable source than Mr Kirk’s own blog, we’d love to see it.