False Start Foundation: Same shit, different day

Last April we began tracking a new organisation which was claiming to represent the interests of survivors of child sexual abuse. The “Fresh Start Foundation”—yet another “foundation” with a name which could easily be confused with a number of others, rather like the “Knight Foundation”—had a very interesting list of founding officers, many of whom were already known to us: Christine Margaret Gow, Neil James McKechnie, Andrew Christopher Peacher, Penny Pullen, David Scott (UK Column’s “Albion Rover”), and Alexander Smith. Mr McKechnie is a friend of Belinda McKenzie, and Christine Gow has done her fair share of posting illegal posts about RD’s children.We note that Andy Peacher and Alexander Smith were dropped from the board of directors last month, and replaced by three new directors (Janine Danielle Rennie seems to have been listed twice in error).

And what would any dodgy non-charity “foundation” be without the blessing of Belinda McKenzie?

At the Fresh Start Foundation’s inaugural conference last year, invited speakers included Robert Green and Wilfred Wong, with video contributions from Brian Gerrish, David Icke, and Kevin Annett. Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!

The Fresh Start Foundation had its own crowdfunding page (of course!), though that seems to have gone tits up after only three donations (including one from Penny Pullen).

Recent misbehaviour

To be honest, having noted the existence of the thing, we hadn’t really paid it a great deal of attention until last month, when we noticed that one of the directors, David Scott, had directed a particularly ugly UK Column video at a grassroots child sexual abuse survivors’ organisation, ShatterBoysUK. After noting that Daniel Wolstencroft of ShatterBoysUK sits on the Victims and Survivors Consultative Panel (VSCP) in the IICSA inquiry, Mr Scott focussed on the fact that Mr Wolstencroft’s name had somehow been misspelled in the organisation’s Companies House page. Quel horreur!

Brian Gerrish: How can Daniel have a different name on Companies House and different name when he is representing CSA survivors at the Independent Inquiry?

David Scott: Well this is the question, we have asked this question, we haven’t had an answer. We’ve had answers but no justification. It was claimed to be a spelling mistake, and then it was claimed to be a spelling mistake by a lawyer, then it was claimed to be a spelling mistake by the lawyer’s typist, but there’s nothing been provided to substantiate this.

Mr Scott extrapolates from the fact that someone somewhere along the line misspelled Mr Wolstencroft’s name to…well, it’s not completely clear. He makes some rather vague allegations about ShatterBoysUK being dodgy in some unspecified way, and states that there was once a fraud case involving someone with the same name, and hey, who knows, it might have been the same Daniel Wolstencroft, but who knows? (It’s not.) The issue is left hanging, the smear complete.

This was the shot across the bow. As Outlaw Jimmy put it on his blog at the time,

These claims have now spilled over onto social media, and from what I have been observing myself, and from what a number of sources are also telling me, it now appears that a closely-linked group on social media have now picked up on this, and ganged up on Mr Wolstencroft, surrounding him like starving jackals, demanding that he explains to them personally how the spelling error occurred on the Companies House Website, and if he is in fact the person that UK Column have referred to as having been involved in a fraudulent insurance claim.

Mr Wolstencroft has I believe, ‘blocked’ those accounts now, and UK Column as I understand it are now backtracking on the claims they made in their video.

A group of Twitter users, fronted by David Scott and his wife Lesley Scott, who goes by the name “Cat Scot” (aka WildCat or CalamiTcat) online, have led the charge, in a blatant attack on Mr Wolstencroft, ShatterBoysUK, and anyone who tries to support them.

When regular HR commentator Sheva Burton attempted to stand up for Mr Wolstencroft, she too was targetted:

The question is, why would the “Fresh Start Foundation”, which bills itself as a voluntary organisation devoted to “CSA support, recovery, seeking truth & justice”, see fit to attack genuine advocates for survivors of child sexual abuse. The answer may be partially uncovered in their mission statement, found on their web page:

The Fresh Start Foundation (FSF) is an Independent Peoples Inquiry into all forms of Child Sexual Abuse in Scotland. Having witnessed the failures of existing authorities to protect the children of this nation, and having seen the loss of confidence in the official enquiry, we have concluded that ordinary Scots must stand up to this challenge. The resignations from the official enquiry, and the governmental interference cited as reasons for those resignations, were the last straw. We, the people, will investigate what has happened and what is happening. Our governments, and those institutions charged with delivering justice, have failed. We will no longer endure that failure. We have decided to act.

This investigation will not be limited only to abuse within an institutional context but will look at every form of abuse that has occurred and is occurring. Thus we are determined to address abuse within institutions, Satanist Ritual Abuse, trafficking and abuse for commercial gain in the sex industry, abuse by informal networks, multi-generational abusive families and any other form of sexual abuse reported by victims and survivors.

In acting we seek the truth. We investigate to discover the truth. The truth, it has been well said, will set you free.

In other words, they have aspirations to unseat the current Independent Inquiry and replace it with their own, and anyone who gets in their way will be targetted. Mr Wolstencroft had the utter temerity to get himself appointed to the VSCP…how very dare he!

In the broader sense, this kind of attack represents the aims of a small, fanatical group of believers in the myth of “Satanic ritual abuse”, whose goal is to undermine and destroy other narratives and replace them with their own. It’s ugly and brutal, and yet it also may serve to shine a light on the behaviour of the Hoaxtead mobsters and their friends.