Why did Maloney spurn the Hampstead SRA hoax?

It seems to be the nature of the Hampstead SRA hoax that one can retread the same well-covered ground many times, and yet each time discover new bits and pieces which help us make sense of how and why this hoax was perpetrated.

For example, a few days ago one of our alert readers noticed this comment from our old friend Araya Soma (aka Araya Manna aka Laurence Lavie) on one of Brian Harvey’s YouTube videos: 

…when the mother and step dad Abraham from hampstead (sic) case asked me for help 6 months before case came into the media (Abraham is the ex of my best friend) I tried to reach out to bill (sic) as heard he would be able to help, but it was all to be kept hush hush, as court case had not happened yet, he never got back to me and none of his so called admins wanted to help either, they wanted names which I could not give as court case had not happened yet as I said. All I wanted is to know what route to take who to talk to and make sure it comes to light the right way, not a dicky bird. 

This matches up with Facebook posts from Araya, dated November 2014—months before the hoax went viral in early February 2015:

This bears out our belief that not only was the hoax planned well in advance, but various people with contacts in the UK conspiracy community were recruited and tasked with helping publicise the case once the legal case was finished, to “make sure it came to light the right way”.

In other words, the goal was to seize control of the narrative well ahead of time. To do that, those who planned the hoax needed accomplices, and Bill Maloney seemed like a good candidate.

Where did Maloney go?

It’s interesting to us that Bill Maloney, who is known for his aggressively vocal support of allegations of sexual abuse against a wide variety of folk, seemed suddenly shy about supporting the Hampstead hoax.

Only a few days after Abe, Ella, and the children arrived back in London, Ella sent an email to Brian Gerrish, clearly outlining all the salacious details which he could hope to offer his listeners. As we’ve previously stated, this email was a follow-up to a meeting they’d held in person with Gerrish; he had also sent Finn Hagan to interview the children more fully prior to the email being sent.

However, when Gerrish received the email, he sent it to Bill Maloney for a look-see.

This is where things get complicated. As we pointed out a few days ago, Maloney would have immediately recognised the allegations that each of the “cult members” sported monster or devil tattoos in intimate places. This was the very allegation which he had concocted against Leon Brittan only months earlier, and he was well aware that it was not true. (Ironically, Abe had inserted the tattoo detail to demonstrate that the Hampstead hoax was true.)

We can’t say what must have gone through Maloney’s mind, but it seems likely that he would have known that if he became involved in promoting the hoax (and he knew it was a hoax—the lie, after all, was his own!) the police would immediately know where the unusual “tattoo” allegation had originated, and he’d be in trouble up to his neck.

We do know, however, what his next actions were:

1. He forwarded the Gerrish email to his friend Jonathan Wedger, who was then still employed as a police officer;
2. He made himself unavailable to Araya, and refused to get involved with the hoax.

As to why he sent the email to Wedger, again, we can only speculate. We can think of at least one reason: Maloney wanted clear of this thing, which bore his fingerprints even though he hadn’t created it.

Sending it to his friend the police officer would show that he had “done the right thing” and reported it to police, rather than using it for his own ends. Ironically, this is similar to the tactic taken by Abraham, who immediately took the children to visit his brother-in-law the Special Constable, so he could claim to have “reported it to police”.

For Wedger, who does seem to be a true believer in SRA, the email would have been both horrifying and exciting: according to his own statements, he had lost credibility among his colleagues and superior officers, and had at least once been ordered to take the summer off, in hopes that the rest would clear his head.

So he forwarded the email to his colleague PC Paul Armstrong, but used his personal email address—’numnut2009@xxx’. We don’t know whether Wedger was already on sick leave at this time, but it seems likely, as otherwise he would probably have used his work email.

Paul Armstrong’s response is recorded in the police CRIS document for the case. He sent the following email to Anne Bewley at the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards: PC Armstrong sounds distinctly upset by the contents of the email, and clearly took it quite seriously. This could have been why Wedger chose to send it to him in the first place: he’d want to send it to someone who was likely to believe the story.

From there, the email made its way to the desk of DC Steve Martin, who could not have helped but notice that it was identical—to the word—to an email which Ella had sent him two weeks previously. As we’ve said before, it was Wedger who drove one of the final nails into the Hampstead SRA hoax’s coffin.

Ironically, in attempting to rid himself of the Hampstead case, Maloney inadvertently ensured that his name would be linked to it forever.