How Sabine released the videos: New smoking gun provides irrefutable evidence

Almost since the Hampstead SRA hoax began in early 2015, Sabine McNeill has protested vigorously that she absolutely, positively, 110% did not release the original videos of RD’s children onto the internet, in direct violation of the law. It’s been difficult to prove her wrong, since the blogs where she allegedly caused the videos to be published have long since removed all evidence, realising that they could find themselves in serious legal difficulties if they didn’t.

As we said two weeks ago, when Sabine posted the petition, “Return #WhistleblowerKids and #AbuseSurvivors to their Russian Family!” on Change.org on 2 February 2015, she included her email to then-Home Secretary Theresa May on the petition. She also included links to her own Google Drive, through which anyone who wished could view the collection of videos.

And now, one of our brilliant researchers has unearthed a second and even more damning “smoking gun”: the original post from The Tap Blog, dated 2 February 2015.

The post contains the same letter that Sabine placed on the petition, that very same day:

Just below the photo of Mrs Justice Pauffley, Sabine states,

The attached Position Statement was our offer NOT to expose this scandal in exchange of returning the children. Instead, Mrs Justice Pauffley ignored the issues that have been outstanding since Judge Mayer transferred the case to her on 23 December:
1. The justification for an Interim Care Order.
2. The discussion of a Non-Molestation Order.
3. The inequality of Contact.

Now, correct us if we’re wrong, but that sounds an awful lot like a threat of blackmail: “Do what we tell you, give us back the kids, and we’ll stay shtum”.

To gauge the threat accurately, though, one would really need to see the “Position Statement” that Sabine mentions.

Fortunately, we just happen to have a copy of that very statement. Here are the relevant sections:

On the first page, Sabine introduces the threat of “exposure”, including as her targets the “Secret Judiciary, Father, LB Camden, LB Barnet, Cafcass and Met Police, Christchurch Primary and other Schools”.

On the second page, Sabine states that she published a blog post “for less than 24 hours – long enough for the abusive father to recognise himself – and to withdraw his application for committal to prison”: in other words, Sabine believed that she had already “convinced” RD to withdraw charges against her.

Having tested her blackmail strategy, she felt successfully, she made her threats and demands explicit:

To avoid high level embarrassment, the following possible arrangements might be worth considering:
1) Instead of starting public law proceedings against the school, the children are returned – with immediate effect – to live with the maternal grandparents in Russia.
2) Instead of mobilising English and Russian social media, the father is given a non-molestation order for life, anywhere in the world.
3) Instead of joining the Russian government to the proceedings, the children are released to their mother and maternal grandparents with immediate effect.

Courts don’t take well to threats

This “position statement” was in fact presented to Mrs Justice Pauffley on 26 January 2015—and was quite properly dismissed.

Somehow, despite all her years of experience in dealing with the court system, Sabine failed to realise that the courts don’t take kindly to threats and attempted blackmail. Having failed to predict the blindingly obvious, Sabine proceeded to Step 2: the Nuclear Option.

She drafted the email to the Home Secretary, attached the Position Statement and links to the videos, BCC’d it to Henry Curteis at The Tap Blog, and hit ‘send’.

Then she attached the email, complete with links to her Google Drive, to the Change.org petition, knowing that each time a new signatory to the petition shared it to Facebook, the email, position statement, and video links would be spread that much further afield.

Sure enough, within days of this particular bomb being dropped, the videos had gone viral on YouTube, and Hoaxtead was under way. By the time Mrs Justice Pauffley read her judgement on 19 March 2015, she stated:

The subject children have been named repeatedly on the internet. Their photographs and film clips in which they feature have been published and re-published widely. Filmed police interviews of the children have been uploaded on to publicly accessible websites; so, too, intensely personal information relating to both children. As at 10 March 2015, more than 4 million people worldwide had viewed online material relating to this case.

To our knowledge, Sabine has yet to face charges for her part in violating the children’s right to privacy.