Going back over old ground

It started with a question.

A commenter, “C B”, left this message on the live-streamed video in which Flo Destroyer and EC had participated Monday evening:

So did the children appear in court/ or via tv and say they had been told what to say?

Whether this was meant as a challenge or simply a request for further information, it’s hard to say, but it deserved an answer.

Why didn’t the children testify?

We know the children did not testify at the fact-finding hearing, but this is not surprising.

In 2014, following calls from the Family Justice Young People’s Board, who said that for too long children had been dragged through the family court system with little or no say over what happened to them, the government made the commitment that from the age of 10, children and young people in England and Wales could have some say in family court proceedings which affected them.

However, the children in this case were only eight and nine years old.

In criminal cases, while it’s rare for children to be called as witnesses, it can happen. However, as we know, criminal charges were unfortunately not brought against Abraham Christie and Ella Draper, as in their ABE interviews the children had stated that Abraham had not hit them while they were in the UK, but only while they were in Morocco.

Mrs Justice Pauffley came close to criticising the police in her judgment when she said, in reference to the Jean-Clement Yaohirou audio recording,

I say no more at this stage than that the police and social services inquiry could have taken an entirely different course if attention had been given to those recordings. At the very least, the questions asked of P and Q at interview would have been directed towards other areas of interest.

To clarify, she was suggesting that had the police listened to the recordings early in the investigation, they would have known to question the children more closely about their treatment at the hands of Christie and Draper, and that the pair might have faced criminal charges from the outset.

Had this happened, it’s possible that the children might have been called as witnesses; but it didn’t, and they weren’t.

Why is this question important?

When Sabine McNeill first released the videos of the children online four years ago, they quickly became the topic of conversation and debate amongst nearly every conspiracy-believer in the UK. People very quickly became conversant with the details of the videos and other material which was released, and the battle lines were drawn.

Anybody doubting this should take a look at the 1,000+-page discussion on the David Icke Forum: while people might have come to erroneous conclusions based on confirmation bias, they were at least aware of much of the evidence that had been released.

Four years later, we find people who know very little about the details of the case, who nonetheless snap to attention and proclaim, “Those children were not lying—they were abused in Satanic rituals, full stop, the end, amen”.

However, if you ask these people about the details of the case (yes, Tom Dunn, we’re looking at you), it quickly becomes clear that they really know very little about the actual evidence, and most don’t even know that the children retracted their allegations not in court, but during the third and final ABE interviews.

For the record…

Both children stated in their ABE interviews that Christie had hurt them in order to force them to say what he wanted. Draper watched while her children were tortured, and not only did not intervene, but seemed to approve of Christie’s actions.

Here are extracts from the police interview videos of 17 September 2014, which we won’t link here for obvious reasons:

Police interviewer: Okay. So, we spoke a couple of times, do you remember? Obviously the one rule you remembered was tell the truth and don’t lie. Out of all those rules that was the only one you remember. So why is it that you told me something then, which was not true?

Child P: No, because Abraham told me to tell to say that, so then after there was more trouble because they didn’t know there would be more trouble but he told me to say that because I was too scared of him.

Interviewer: Oh, okay. And why are you scared of him?

P: Because he just hit me if I said, if I said, ‘okay’ then he’ll just hit me because he doesn’t believe it.

Later in the same video:

Interviewer: Okay. Um, the stuff that happened in the church and the swimming pool and school, did any of that really happen?

P: No, that was all made up: He told me to say that and I said ‘why Abraham that’s not true though’. But then he said, ‘Yes that is true so don’t lie, so say that to the police’.

Interviewer: How did you think about, because you told me about all like, they all dance round with baby skulls—how did you think of that idea?

P: Because he, because he went like this: ‘They dance around with baby skulls in the church, don’t they? That’s what Abraham told me, and I said ‘No they don’t. And he said, ‘Yes they do, stop lying, you little brat’. That’s what he told me.

Interviewer: Oh, okay, so he’s told you, he’s said…

P: [And then] after I kept on arguing with him that I didn’t, and then he said, ‘I’m not arguing with you, you did do that, stupid little cunt’. That’s what he told me.

And later still:

Interviewer: So, your Dad’s never done anything that you don’t like?

P: No, he’s fine, he’s a good…

Interviewer: Okay. You made this up because…

P: Because of all the stuff, I just remembered what I saw [on a friend’s iPad], everything, but it’s all because of Abraham because he keeps on hitting me, just telling me…

Interviewer: What do you mean ‘keeps on hitting you’?

P: Well, he keeps on like, saying like I’m gonna not live with them, I’m…he’s gonna dig a hole in the field and dig me into it and then just leave me there until I die….Till I drown because they’re gonna pour water over top of me. And after I got too scared.

Interviewer: And where did all this happen?

P: Morocco.

In Child Q’s interview of the same date, he too stated that Christie had extracted the allegations from him with violence and threats of violence:

Interviewer: Have you ever seen a plastic willy?

Q: No. I never ever seen one even in my life.

Interviewer: So how did you think of that idea, was it you that thought of it or…

Q: No, no, I’m the one who thought of it. When he found out I was touching he says, yes em they put real willies in my bottom, Abraham says, he said they put real willies in your bottom. And then I said, ‘No they don’t’, and then he said yes they do and I said no they don’t and then he said don’t argue, yes they do. And then he says, er then um then he says also a plastic willy don’t they? And I said no they don’t, then yes they do, no they don’t, yes they do, no they don’t, yes they do, no they don’t, yes they do, no they don’t.

Interviewer: Okay, so no one’s put any plastic or real willies in your bum. Okay. I heard from one of the doctors one of your ears is hurt as well.

Q: Yeah.

Interviewer: How did that happen?

Q: It’s because he slapped me really hard.

Interviewer: Who slapped you?

Q: Abraham.

Interviewer: When did he do that?

Q: In Morocco, when he slapped me, he slapped me as hard as he could.

Interviewer: Why did he do that?

Q: Because he said, ‘Yes you’re lying’, he said I’m lying, I’m lying, I’m lying.

And later:

Interviewer: And you call Abraham something else as well, don’t you, as well as Abraham you call him something else?

Q: We never call him…well yeah, he says, when I call him Abraham he says don’t be rude, call me Papa. Even he’s not my Dad! First, this is how it was. I first started calling him Abraham and he said don’t be rude call me Uncle Hemp.

Interviewer: Yeah…

Q: And then I kept calling him Uncle Hemp and then he like made me trouble. He said don’t call me Uncle Hemp now, call me Papa Hemp.

Interviewer: Okay.

Q: And he’s not even our Dad.

Interviewer: No…Okay. Do you like Abraham?

Q: I hate him. I got no idea why my Mum and Abraham…no, I know why, my Mum and my Dad broke up.

Newcomers to the hoax, who might not be aware of how the children were coerced into lying, are often shocked by material like this, which casts the entire story in a very different light to the one that’s often found online.

While it can feel like going over old ground for the umpteenth time, it’s new information to a great many people.

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