Abe designed hoax to order for Maloney, Gerrish

Yesterday we shared two comments by Abraham Christie that demonstrated the fundamental fallacy that Ella Draper was “forced” to release the videos and written allegations due to a “police cover-up”.

(Hint: you can’t call it a cover-up until the police have stopped investigating and have attempted to sweep it under the carpet. Up to that point, it’s just called “exploiting your children for fame and gain on the internet”.)

The second comment from Abe in yesterday’s post contains more though: it also shows us exactly where Abe got the idea of the infamous tattoos, why he thought they would clinch the deal with Brian Gerrish and Bill Maloney, and why he was so utterly incensed when that didn’t happen.

To understand this reference, we need to dig into a bit of ancient (in internet terms) history. Back in January 2014, a huge kerfuffle erupted when Bill Maloney breathlessly revealed to Lou Collins of the UK Column that an alleged victim of Leon Brittan, a man going by the name of “Andrew”, had identified Leon Brittain by a tattoo on his groin, and that “Andrew” had drawn the alleged tattoo for the police. According to Maloney, this astonishing information was conveyed to the Daily Express in some sort of world exclusive. We were unable to find any such article, but it’s possible that it was published and then removed due to its libellous and scurrilous nature.

According to an article on “Before It’s News” (which we prefer to call by its acronym, BIN),

Having filmed the ‘Sun Sea and Satan’ documentary on child-abuse and murder on the Queen’s Island of Jersey, Bill Maloney understands more than anyone, the nuclear bomb he holds in his hands, “The victim and witness is a very vulnerable person and also a very brave man for coming forward. He has a disabled partner who is a carer for as well. He suffered immensely himself. A child was killed in a bed next to him by Xxxxxxxxxx. Xxxxxxxxxx then went onto continue to use this victim (Andrew) who didn’t die to perpetrate and turn him into one of them. Xxxxxxxxxx made him film a snuff movie, and when it was done said, “Now you are one of us!”

Well really, what more proof could he have wanted? [Ooh, the sarcasm is strong with this one. —Ed.]

How would Abe had known all this?

We have absolutely no evidence that Abraham was at all interested in conspiracy theories prior to the summer of 2014 when he and Ella tried to create a DIY version. However, it’s very unlikely that their mentor, Belinda McKenzie would not have known about this, as it was Big News in the land of conspiraloons.

When we first read Abe’s long diatribes about how “Brittan’s victim saw that he had tattoos, so Gerrish and Maloney must have known that the children’s allegations were true”, we admit we were puzzled. What did Brittan have to do with the price of eggs in Egypt? How would his having or not having tattoos relate in any way to Hoaxtead? It seemed like just another of Abe’s meaningless rants.

But reading it in the context of what we know now—that the hoax was never intended to be investigated by police, that it was meant to have been released directly to the internet—it makes much more sense.

It seems very likely that as Abe and Ella fashioned the Hampstead SRA hoax, Abe and Ella would have had their intended audience in mind, much as a writer might consider what his or her publisher would require in a new book:

“Oh, if that chap who accused Brittan saw tattoos, we should make sure the cult members all have tattoos, eh? Maloney thought the tattoos were important, and Lou Collins was practically wetting herself.”

“Good thinking. That’ll make it seem more authentic. Here, I’ll draw a body, and we’ll get the kids to fill in the devils and monsters and upside-down stars and whatnot”.

“Brilliant. They’ll love it.”

Abe and Ella have waved the “tattoo evidence” about like a flag, claiming that it represents “absolute proof” of the veracity of the children’s original claims.

What it really demonstrates, though, is their childlike grasp of how evidence works. Saying that “Person X saw tattoos on Person Y who he claims sexually abused him, and therefore anyone with tattoos must be a sexual abuser…oh, look, the children claim that these people have tattoos, so they must be sexual abusers!” makes approximately no sense whatsoever.

Abe and Ella’s naïve belief that the tattoos claim would persuade both Maloney and Gerrish that the case was for real is laughable when it’s laid bare. The tattoo element had been specifically designed to resonate with Maloney and Gerrish, and yet it had had no effect at all.

This helps explain Abe’s seemingly inexplicable impotent rage when both Gerrish and Maloney turned the case down—in fact, turned it over to the police. After all, he and Ella had gone to so much trouble to make the cult seem real—training the children, getting them to remember details like the number of baby skulls and how to cut a baby’s head off, drawing the tattoos, putting together a full list of cult members, letting that wheezy Finnbarr bloke vet them—and now Gerrish and Maloney had the gall to turn their backs on them? Inconceivable!

We know now that Abe and Ella forgot a few important details, such as how Ella could have managed to miss seeing the tell-tale tattoos on not just one but two long-term sexual partners. And in the course of attempting to extricate herself from this conundrum, Ella managed to admit that the children had been forced to lie about their elder brother being involved in the cult…but all that would come later.

During the earliest days of the hoax, when Abe and Ella were attempting to “sell” it to Maloney and Gerrish, the tattoos were an important part of the package on offer.