Hoaxtead FAQ: Updating the hoax timeline

Having created the Frequently Asked Questions section of this blog a year or so ago, every now and then we go back and update some of the pages. This time we thought we’d have a go at the hoax timeline, as several new bits and bobs have come to light since it was last updated. If you have any questions, or if you notice that we’ve missed anything which you think would make the narrative more complete, please feel free to make any suggestions in the Comments section.

2008–2013

Ella Gareeva Draper and her ex-partner Ricky Dearman had been to court more than nine times, as RD sought to have access to their two children. Ella used every possible means to avoid this, including making several false allegations against RD in an effort to cut him off completely from the children. This is alluded to in Mrs Justice Pauffley’s fact-finding judgement of 19 March, 2015:

Over the course of the next six years (after 2008), there was never a time when the children’s contact with their father proceeded smoothly. Countless returns to court achieved very little. If there was an attempt to achieve judicial continuity it failed miserably. Between November 2010 and August 2014 when the case was pending at First Avenue House, High Holborn it drifted between no fewer than seven different judges. None of the nine hearings resulted in a considered judgment on the basis of oral evidence. The essential cause of the problems was never the subject of judicial determination.

In 2013, according to the CRIS report which would later record the police investigation, the children were referred to social services because of “concerns over the children being left on their own as being heard crying. At the time Ella did not appear to have a partner”.

In addition, “there were concerns over the children not having enough food as they were seen to steal food from other children and from the school bins”.

November 2013

An eye-witness reported to Hoaxtead Research that in November 2013, a curious exchange occurred at the McDonald’s restaurant in Hampstead:

In early November 2013, I was asked to be a witness along with one other person, to a meeting which took place in…McDonald’s. The meeting was between Ella Draper and her ex-partner Ricky Dearman. Mr Dearman had asked my friend to come along to the McDonald’s, and my friend asked me to join him. We were to sit near their table and just watch. I wasn’t sure exactly what we were looking for, but my friend said it was important so I went along.

Ella was there when we arrived, and Mr Dearman came along shortly after. She had some papers with her, and she pushed them at him. I could see him shaking his head no, and she kept telling him he had to sign. He had this look on his face like no way was he going to sign those papers, and he was saying something like “I’ll never see them again? You think I’ll agree to that?”

Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out his own bundle of papers. Her eyes got very large, and you could see she hadn’t expected this at all. She was like, “What’s this?”

“I’m taking you to court. I’m serving you with notice”.

Her jaw literally dropped, and she turned bright red, you could see she was just furious. Like the fury of a thousand suns, but she literally looked like she couldn’t speak. She was just staring at him with this look on her face like she wanted him dead. I’ve never seen anyone look like that before, and I hope I never do again.

Mr Dearman would later allude to this in his police statement.

May 2014

In May 2014, RD had contact with his children for the first time since the previous October.

That same month, Ella Draper met Abraham Christie, who has an extensive criminal record, and is a known child abuser. He admitted to having attacked his teen-aged son previously, and his step-daughter has called him “the step-father from hell”, as she had witnessed him beating her younger brother until he wet himself. Abraham wasted no time in moving into Ella’s house in Hampstead, billing himself as the family’s “nutrition advisor”.

Abe and Ella were both very keen raw food advocates, and the children often complained of being hungry. They were often seen rummaging through the bins at school, looking for food. The assistant head teacher contacted social services to report that the children appeared to be having trouble at home, and that they had expressed fear and dislike of Abraham.

4 June 2014

In June, Abraham Christie became involved in an altercation with the staff at Christ Church School, in which he shouted at them that they were “poisoning” the children by allowing them to eat “off-limits” food.

August 2014

In early August, Abe called and left messages for his brother-in-law, Special Constable Jean-Clement Yaohirou, saying he had information regarding the abuse of children. At that time, Jean-Clement said, Abe was not offering specific information, but was trying to “give him justification”. Abe claimed that a church, a school in Hampstead, and a police station in Haringey were involved. Jean-Clement asked whether he had evidence, and Abe said he would get some.

Abe and Ella travelled with the children, first to Gibraltar and then to Morocco, where they stayed on a farm belonging to a friend of Abe.

According to Mrs Justice Pauffley’s fact-finding judgement of 19 March 2015, while they were there

…the children’s minds were filled with ever more elaborate, fantastical and sexually explicit stories. Over time, more and more detail was supplied to the central core of the fabricated story. ‘Brainstorming’ brought about expanded versions of events. More and more individuals were named as participants within the cult. Venues for abusive activities grew in number, spread across Hampstead and Highgate. Ever more sexually explicit details were woven in to the fabric of the fantasies in an attempt to make the children’s accounts believable and seemingly authentic.

By the time the children arrived at the airport for the journey back to England, at Mr Christie’s and Ms Draper’s instigation, they were able to ‘speak to camera’ about the stories concocted during the brainstorming. The obvious purpose of the film clips was to provide ‘proof.’ It was part of a deliberate plan by Mr Christie and Ms Draper. The children do as they are told. They do so forthrightly, without inhibition and with apparent conviction.

4 September, 2014

Immediately upon returning to London, Abe took the children to Jean-Clement’s house. Ella returned to her own home for a shower, and joined them later. Jean-Clement recorded the entire conversation.

5 September, 2014

Alarmed about what he had heard the previous night, Jean-Clement called Scotland Yard the following morning. He gave a copy of the audio recording to a friend for safe-keeping. This friend, upon listening to the recording, recognised the name of one of the parents who was being accused of belonging to the ‘cult’.

According to Detective Inspector Cannon, who testified during the fact-finding hearing, “This friend had looked at the video and recognised one of the parents when they had said the name of one of the parents that they were talking about, and he called up this chap who then took a copy of this video and contacted us. He also contacted, I’m not sure if it was his lawyer or someone, but then we got the copy of that from him“.

This means that from the very beginning, one of those accused by Abe and Ella proactively contacted the police and gave them a copy of the Jean-Clement recording. 

The first thing the police noted upon listening to the Jean-Clement recording was that both the children’s and Ella’s emotional states seemed “off”, considering that she was reporting that her two youngest children had been subjected to the most brutal and horrifying sexual abuse.Barnet police launched their investigation into the allegations.

The officer wrote, “Upon listening to recording the children seem very relaxed and mother does not seem overly concerned, joking and laughing about it”. He also noted that this could be a malicious allegation.

An important point, which has been frequently misstated by those who believe in the hoax: Abe and Ella did not initially go to the police with their concerns; the police, alerted by Jean-Clement and the above-named accused parent, went to see them. From this point on, in the police investigation Jean-Clement Yaohirou will be referred to as “the informant”, which simply means that he was the person who brought the case to the attention of police.

8 September, 2014

An associate of conspiracy promoter Brian Gerrish named Finnbarr Hagan visited Abe and Ella. While he was there, he talked to the little girl, secretly filming their conversation as he did so. He also interviewed the little boy.

Finnbarr had been sent by Gerrish to scout out the case and determine whether it was worth supporting.

During this visit, Abe was audio-recorded discussing his concern that DC Steve Martin was involved with this case. DC Martin, it seems, knew Abe as a child abuser, having dealt with him when he assaulted his own teen-aged son. In the audio recorded by Finbarr, Abe can be heard trying not to panic.

9 September, 2014

On 9 September, the CAIT team received an email from “the informant”—Abraham’s brother-in-law Jean-Clement Yaohirou—which was logged in the CRIS report. This information, Jean-Clement said, had come from Ella Draper, and comprised a synopsis of the alleged cult activities.

11 September, 2014

On 11 September, following an ABE interview in which the little girl reported that Abraham Christie had hit them and that their mother hadn’t cared that he’d done so, both children were made the subjects of a Police Protection Order, and were removed from Ella’s custody.

The same day, approximately three hours after the children were taken into custody, Abe and Ella emailed Brian Gerrish of the UK Column, clearly not for the first time, as there is no introductory information in the body of the email. This email is identical to the one which Jean-Clement Yaohirou sent to the CAIT team on 9 September.

15 September, 2014

On 15 September, RD was interviewed by DC Savage, under Caution plus 3. He stated that the allegations against him were untrue, and that he believed that Ella had been telling the children what to say. He said he had evidence of this on Skype calls which he had recorded, in which Ella could be heard in the background. He said that Ella would like to take the children out of the UK, which he had refused to allow since he feared he would never see them again.

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Also on this date, Brian Gerrish forwarded the email to his friend Bill Maloney, perhaps concerned by its content and wishing for a second opinion as to whether he should get behind Abe and Ella.

Maloney, also concerned, sent the email to his trusted friend at the Met, DC Jonathan Wedger. Now ex-DC Wedger has stated that he began “whistle-blowing” in 2014, and was put on sick leave, which explains why Maloney sent the email to his personal email address, “Nathan Wedger” at <numnut2009@hotmail.co.uk>. (Abe would later notice this detail and add it to an angry commentary addressed to Gerrish, possibly in an attempt to humiliate “Nathan Wedger”, who he blamed for alerting police to the hoax.)

Ex-DC Wedger, realising that this email contained very serious allegations which ought to be investigated, forwarded it to another officer, PC Paul Armstrong, who in turn sent it to Anna Bewley, who worked in the Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) at the Met. From there, the email proceeded to DC Victoria Barnes at the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse (SOECA) unit.

DC Barnes recognised the details contained in the Gerrish email as identical to those in a case currently under investigation by the CAIT, and so she forwarded it to DC Steve Martin on 18 September 2014. This was recorded in the CRIS report.

17 September 2014

On 17 September, the police conducted further ABE interviews. The children, who had been away from Abe and Ella for a week by now, had been eager to disclose something in the car on the way to the interview suite, but DC Steve Martin had asked them to wait until their disclosures could be properly conducted and videotaped.

Once in the the interview suite, the little girl stated very clearly that everything she had told the police about the alleged cult had been a lie, and that she and her brother had been forced to lie by Abraham. The little boy seemed slightly more hesitant to go back on his earlier statements, but when told that he would not get into trouble for having previously lied, he agreed with his sister that they had been made to say things which were not true.

Both children described to police, and later to the psychiatrist Dr Claire Sturge and physician Dr Deborah Hodes the abuse they received from Abe during the time they were in Morocco.

In addition to waking them in the middle of the night to interrogate them about alleged sexual abuse, they said, he had hit them with spoons which he had heated on the stove; he kicked them “as hard as he could” in the privates; he threatened to bury the little girl alive in the desert; he hit the little boy so hard on the head that he ruptured his eardrum. He made them kneel in front of him in their underwear, while he poured water on them. In the videos made en route home from Morocco, both children look tired; bruising and a cut are visible on the little girl’s face.

18 September, 2014

DC Martin received the Gerrish email, which had been sent to him via ex-DC Jon Wedger. He notes that this email  is identical to the one received by the CAIT on 9 September, from Jean-Clement Yaohirou. It is clear from the  email address that this version had originally been sent to Gerrish by “hempstarsdynamics”…that is to say, Abraham Christie. It is even more clear now that Abraham Christie and Ella Draper were behind this hoax, and that they had intended to release details of the children’s abuse to the UK truther community via Brian Gerrish.

20 September, 2014

The police closed the investigation into the case, classifying it as a non-crime incident. In addition to the children’s retractions of their original statements, various inconsistencies were cited, as well as complete lack of physical evidence in any of the locales named.

22 September 2014

CRIS notations read:

From the information that we have, the children’s mother is living alone. Believe that Abraham has moved out of the house in order that she can regain custody of the children. There is no indication that the relationship is over. Abraham has circulated video interviews with the children taken while on holiday in Morocco where it is apparent that he has coached the children into disclosure….

While in Morocco he has hit the children however the assaults do [not?] constitute an offence in this country suitable for prosecution. The children have indicated that they do not wish to return to the family home and are in fear of Abraham. Based on this I would be concerned for the welfare of the children if returned.

Abraham: It is believed that he is circulating videos of interviews of the children giving disclosure to people to raise awareness of the satanic cult. This may continue. … He has convictions for offences against his own children and I would suggest [this may cause] future safeguarding issues with these victims if they returned home.

14 November, 2014

1. Sabine McNeill, a colleague of Belinda McKenzie with a reputation for leaving a trail of doomed and/or botched family law cases in her wake as a McKenzie friend, convened a meeting of people with whom she’d worked in the past, including Meirion Bowen, Yolande Lindridge (aka Yolande Kenward, aka Yolande Gordon), and Mary Rooney. They met at the offices of solicitor Caroline Newman, and according to Yolande, “[Sabine] excitedly broke the news that she had met up with Ella Draper and that she had taken on Ella’s case”. Also invited to that meeting were Belinda McKenzie and Ian Josephs, though it is not clear whether they attended.
2. On the same day, Sabine created a Dropbox file in which she posted a “witness statement” which Ella had made, naming the children, parents, teachers, social workers, police officers, clergy, and businesses in Hampstead that Ella and Abe wished to target. This list gives personal information about the targetted individuals, including telephone numbers, street addresses, places of work, and email addresses.
3. Sabine identified 14 November as the day she was “(c)ontacted by Russian mother of two, then 8 and 9-year-old children, taken into care [custody] by Barnet Police on September 11, 2014 allowing contact with father whom they accused of being the leader of a ‘strange culture’ at a church and school in Hampstead, London”. Sabine’s actions on that day seem strange, since Ella would not sack her legal team for four more weeks. However, it now seems likely that Sabine envisioned her role not as McKenzie friend, but as publicist.
4. On the same day, a conspiracy blogger named Charlotte Ward published a semi-autobiographical e-book called Illuminati Party! under the pseudonym “Jacqui Farmer”. She also took down her relatively successful blog, Conspirituality, at around this time. Charlotte Ward had lived in Belinda McKenzie’s house in 2012–2013, and had supported Belinda during the Hollie Greig hoax.

10 December 2014

Ella sacked, then re-hired, then re-sacked her legal team. They turned over a bundle of materials to her, including the video recordings of the police interviews which DC Martin had conducted with the children in September. As mentioned above, Ella had previously approached Sabine McNeill and Belinda McKenzie to act as her McKenzie friends in her care proceedings as she tried to regain custody of her children.

22 December 2014

Assisted by Belinda McKenzie, Ella filed for a judicial review.

26 December, 2014

Sabine McNeill posted on a now-deleted blog, “Regarding my social life with meaning, I can only hope that this case will become the breakthrough we’ve been working towards. It took me quite a while to get my head, heart and strategic thinking in line with the necessities to respond to calls for court proceedings in the case of a Russian mum whose two children were taken by Barnet police on 11 September 2015 (sic)”.

2 January, 2015

Mary Rooney, a friend of Sabine’s and a Director of at least one of Belinda’s companies (the former Knight Foundation) was witnessed handing out leaflets regarding the “Russian Mother” on 2nd January 2015 at Southwark Crown Court. This seems to be the earliest known evidence of the “Free the Whistleblower Kids!” campaign, and it predated any court decisions.

13 January, 2015

High Court judge Mrs Justice Pauffley became involved with the care proceedings.

26 January, 2015

1. Sabine wrote a Position Statement for Ella to present at her 26 January hearing. This statement contained a thinly veiled threat as to would happen if the children “were not returned to their mother and grandparents with immediate effect.” The consequence, according to this statement, would be “high level embarrassment.”
2. Sabine also wrote an open letter to Theresa May, then Home Secretary. This letter explicitly stated that the Position Statement was “our offer NOT to expose this scandal in exchange for returning the children.”
   Sabine claims that she “accidentally” BCC’d this email, which contained the videos of the children making their initial allegations, to conspiracy blogger Henry Curteis of The Tap Blog. Curteis published the videos on 2 February 2015, and they quickly went viral, with more than 4 million people having viewed them by 10 March 2015. (see below)
3. On or about this date, Sabine also opened a petition on Change.org, titled “The Rt. Hon. Chris Grayling MP: Return the Whistleblower Kids and Abuse Survivors of a London School to Their Russian Family”. This petition received several thousand signatures before it was removed by Change.org for violating its terms of service.

2 February, 2015

1. During a contact visit with the children, Ella provided them with pens and paper and asked them to write a letter to the judge saying they wished to return home. Both children refused to do this. Ella was overheard swearing at the children in Russian, and the children appeared upset but still refused to co-operate with her plan. As a result of her behaviour, the Local Authority chose to suspend contact with the children for seven days.
2. Also on this date, Henry Curteis published Sabine’s email to Theresa May, along with the videos of the children (including the videos made by Finnbarr Hagan), on The Tap Blog. The original post was removed, but an archived version is available here. In the email, which Sabine now claims she “BCC’d accidentally”, she includes the following note: “(TAP – watch these two very brave children describing the awful things being done to them by their father and others. If they were on Youtube, they’d go viral. Someone should upload them)”.

9 February, 2015

Ella published a “witness statement” online, in which she revealed a great deal of false information about the children’s school, their teachers, and other pupils and their parents. In this statement she claimed that the headteacher was leading a “Satanist” cult from the school, and that children at the school were being regularly sexually abused. Her statement contained the home addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and employment information of many of the alleged cult members. It contained allegations that certain children “enjoyed” being sexually abused more than others.

11 February, 2015

Ella failed to attend court when “mandatory and prohibitory injunctions” were made against her. The injunctions specified that she and Sabine were not to continue harassing and defaming RD.

12 February, 2015

According to Mrs Justice Pauffley’s judgement,

On 12 February, police officers attended at Ms Draper’s address. Her car was on the driveway. A gentleman spoke with the police through the letter box and indicated that he was the mother’s lawyer. The police explained they were there to discuss possible offences committed under s.4 of the Harassment Act 1997. They were denied entry to the property. Whilst the police were waiting for the means to secure a forced entry, three people climbed out of a first floor window, ran along the roof line of three or four houses and climbed down onto some nearby garages where they disappeared from sight.

Ella appears to have fled the country at that point, quite likely to Spain.

17 February, 2015

Abe was seen outside the front entrance of the Royal Courts of Justice, as part of a group led by Belinda McKenzie, which was campaigning for the “return of the Whistleblower Kids”. A witness summons was issued requiring his attendance to answer questions on February 20. However, attempts to serve the summons were unsuccessful. He later fled to Spain as well, where he and Ella have been holed up for the past year and a half.

21 February, 2015

In the comments section on one of her many blogs, Sabine states her intention to publish the police ABE interviews with RD’s children.

Shortly afterward, the videos go online, and like the first set of interview videos, rapidly go viral.

19 March, 2015

Mrs Justice Pauffley read her judgement at the High Court. Her final summary of findings was:

• Neither child has been sexually abused by any of the following – Ricky Dearman, teachers at Christchurch Primary School Hampstead, the parents of students at that school, the priest at the adjacent church, teachers at any of the Hampstead or Highgate schools, members of the Metropolitan Police, social workers employed by the London Borough of Camden, officers of Cafcass or anyone else mentioned by Ms Draper or Mr Christie.
• The children’s half brother, his father and stepmother – Will and Sarah Draper – are likewise exonerated of any illicit or abusive acts involving the children.
• There was no satanic or other cult at which babies were murdered and children were sexually abused.
• All of the material promulgated by Ms Draper now published on the internet is nothing other than utter nonsense.
• The children’s false stories came about as the result of relentless emotional and psychological pressure as well as significant physical abuse. Torture is the most accurate way to describe what was done by Mr Christie in collaboration with Ms Draper.
• Both children were assaulted by Mr Christie by being hit with a metal spoon on multiple occasions over their head and legs, by being pushed into walls, punched, pinched and kicked. Water was poured over them as they knelt semi-clothed.
• The long term emotional and psychological harm of what was done to the children is incalculable. The impact of the internet campaign is likely to have the most devastating consequences for P and Q.

May 2017

A reader on Hoaxtead Research raised the question of the alleged tattoos which Abe and Ella insisted the children had witnessed on those who had allegedly abused them.

Ella originally claimed that both her ex-husband and the father of her two youngest children were “in the cult”, which she described as a life-long, multi-generational organisation. If her story were consistent, as life-long cult members, both men would have received “devil or monster” genital tattoos at a young age. However, Ella, who had had children with both men, either noticed absolutely nothing unusual about them.

When asked about this, Abe evaded the question for several weeks, but eventually came back with the following explanation: This makes no sense, as according to the original story, all cult members received their tattoos at a young age. In addition, it says nothing about Ella’s first husband, who she accused of being the “financier” of the cult.

Abe and Ella’s inability to answer this question created a large rift in their dwindling community of supporters.

June 2017

Shortly after the tattoo question, Ella disclosed to one of her interviewers, Nathan Stolpman of Lift the Veil, that in fact she had “been mistaken” in including her ex-husband, his current wife, and Ella and Mr Draper’s son in the list of cult members. According to Mr Stolpman,

“I saw in her original, er, charges or document that she drew up with, er, something called McKenzie Friends – and I’ll talk to you about that – erm, that’s a little bit of a psy op too – and, er, she mentioned that Mr. Draper, her ex-husband, was also involved with the cult, the Satanic cult. I’ve spoken with her now since and asked her about it and she says now she doesn’t believe that was the case and that was maybe something she was prompted into coming up with at the time when she was under duress.”

This admission called into question the videos of the two children, in which they stated that their older brother had been a “cult” member, and that he had participated in sexually abusing them.

It seems likely that Ella made this statement in an attempt to placate her ex-husband, who had previously been her only source of income, until the 18th birthday of their son. Ella may have removed her son, his father, and his new wife from the hoax narrative in hopes that she might be able to beg for some money, as she and Abraham are currently without an income.