New name and (NOT) an anniversary

1. Introduction

Last week we were going to speak about something but then decided not to.

After all, only 3 days would have passed regarding what we wanted to highlight and we thought it best to let another week pass to see if it was really happening or not.

And, a week later we have confirmed that it had indeed happened.

We are obviously speaking of the almost total and absolute silence surrounding the 1st anniversary of Ben Needham’s official death, announced on October 17 2016 by the South Yorkshire Police then with a very significant echoing both on the MSM as in the social media.

If not for a single low-key article in the Sun by Holly Christodoulou and Natasha Rigler, published 16th October 16 2017, 10:35 (updated that day 12:15) “'THIS IS NOT HOW IT ENDS' Ben Needham’s mum reveals terrible anguish over whereabouts of her missing son as she speaks of her desperation to bring him home”, the silence in the MSM would have been absolute.

In terms of the social media, the Help Find Ben Needham published the following:

On Oct 14:

https://www.facebook.com/helpfindben/photos/a.668866263141785.1073741831.166769390018144/1795979467097120/?type=3&theater

On Oct 16:

https://www.facebook.com/helpfindben/photos/a.168569909838092.40923.166769390018144/1382789711749433/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/helpfindben/photos/a.668866263141785.1073741831.166769390018144/1798140776880989/?type=3&theater

https://www.facebook.com/helpfindben/posts/1798428830185517

In one of the Oct 16 posts, the replica of the sandals and the toy car is shown:

“Help Find Ben Needham

16 October at 10:16
There are lots of memories that October holds...

Items relating to to Ben being found and identified as belonging to Ben, hanging on to every word from the live news reports from Kos hoping for the news we were all longing to hear, the amazing Hellenic Rescue team's hard work, the search for Ben coming to an end, and news we really didnt want to hear that little Ben was dead.

But Bens body still needs to be found and returned to his family...

Although this case is no longer active it is NOT closed.

Please contact
Helpfindbenneedham@gmail.com
with any information.
#BringBenHome 💙 #HelpFindBen”

And as can be seen, what is also shown is the Dino Barkas digger, very clearly implying that the family believe he is the one who killed Ben.

Not a single query to the South Yorkshire Police to clarify what they think has happened. Not one request to the public to help the police solve the mystery of Ben’s death in any way.

All the family wants to know, and has wanted to know since a year ago, is where the body may be. Not who killed him, nor where, nor when.

What can be considered as a total void on the subject in the MSM, we think much worse happened in the social media.

No blog or forum mentioned it that we are aware of and with the exception of the above, on Facebook we saw only an entry by our friend Lorraine Holden on her page on October 24 at 18:00, sharing our perplexity:

“And still that poor man's name hasn't been cleared. I was recently having coffee with my mum and her friends they said that truck driver killed Ben Needham typical media fed people who believe and look nowhere else for information”.

A year ago, the same social media was filled with damning messages to the McCanns, showing them how a really distraught mother reacted to the knowledge of her son being dead. And the reaction of the grandmother who seemed to take the news much more emotionally than her daughter, as the images showed Kerry supporting her and not the other way around.

A year ago, a nation cried profusely together with a mother and a grandmother holding white flowers. After all, one of its most famous sons, a little boy allegedly abducted in the island of Kos in Greece, had just been officially declared dead.

A year ago, when we wrote our post “The road of no return and apologies” and suggested that we thought there was foul play in whatever game the South Yorkshire Police was playing, we were mercilessly then clobbered by some who just wouldn’t hear it or have it because, it seemed, that we had shown an unacceptable disrespect for a family that in their opinion deserved to have their plight revered saintly under the penalty of excommunication just because they were, according to them, the exact opposite of the McCanns.

Only a year has passed and Ben Needham is totally and completely off the radar. Why?

The appeal to help find his remains does not seem to have the same impact as the appeal to help find a living child and interest in the case appears to be waning very significantly.


2. The non-anniversary

It seems that for Britain after a year it was more than enough to accept what it was told by the South Yorkshire Police then (our caps):

“However, based on the information that I have now, as a result of an extensive and thorough investigation, it is without doubt that the current line of enquiry is the most probable cause for Ben’s disappearance.

My team and I know that machinery, including a large digger, was used to clear an area of land on 24 July 1991, behind the farmhouse that was being renovated by the Needham’s. It is my professional belief that Ben Needham DIED AS A RESULT OF AN ACCIDENT NEAR TO THE FARMHOUSE in Iraklis where he was last seen playing.

The events leading up to and following that incident have been explored by my team of experts to great lengths. The fact that we HAVE NOT HAD A DIRECT RESULT during this visit to Kos does not preclude the facts that we know to be true.

An item found on Saturday, which I have shown personally to some of Ben’s family, was found in one of the targeted areas at the second site, very close to a dated item from 1991.

It is our initial understanding that this item was in Ben’s possession around the time he went missing.

The recovery of this item, and its location, further adds to my belief that material was removed from the farmhouse on or shortly after the day that Ben disappeared.”

The official version was just a vague one about whatever may have happened and even more vague about who could have caused the alleged accident that allegedly killed Ben.

The press put out a name, we all know that, but we are still waiting for the South Yorkshire Police to come out and confirm it was him or if they don’t think it was him, then tell us who they think it was.

But, apparently, the official version completely filled UK’s appetite about it wanted to know about the issue.

Either that, or one has to conclude that Britain is either scared to speak about it or it simply doesn’t care about Ben any more.

Britain, about this little boy, has become a British manor from Imperial times.

When one of the family of the manor did something wrong, those in the servant quarters or who worked in the fields didn’t need to know any of the details about it.

The secret was secured within the Lord of the manor, the Lady of the house and the family.

The masters saw no need for the servants to know and the servants thought that it was none of their business and it would be something only their superiors should know and handle.

Those 2 worlds were never meant to overlap. One would hold the knowledge and the other be resigned to ignorance. Or have it imposed on them.

Britain is a typical British manor from the Imperial times just like in the cinema, only in 2017.

Everyone in the entire manor knows something has happened but no one speaks about it.

Note that in that same October 17 official note, it says the following (again our caps):

“AN ITEM found on Saturday, which I have shown personally to some of Ben’s family, was found in one of the targeted areas at the second site, very close to a dated item from 1991.

It is our initial understanding that THIS ITEM was in Ben’s possession around the time he went missing.

The recovery of THIS ITEM, and its location, further adds to my belief that material was removed from the farmhouse on or shortly after the day that Ben disappeared.”

Clearly ONE item only referred to and we know that DI Cousins was speaking about the toy car allegedly found in the second search site about half a mile from the farmhouse.

But in July we got to know that there was a sandal (we don’t know if the entire sandal or just a part of it) that the authorities deemed crucial to the discovery as to what really happened to Ben Needham.

Most important, this confirms that for the authorities the official version is not their final one as they are, it seems, still trying to find out what really happened. We will wait patiently for the results.

But, if on October 17 2016 the South Yorkshire Police had 2 objects of interest (toy car and sandal), why refer OFFICIALLY to only one of them?

If the sandal vestige was found in the 2012 digging, then why did it take it so long for it to be considered officially an item of interest?

A sandal, a bloody one at that, miraculously appears out of nowhere in July 2017, 9 months after the announcement of Ben’s death and everyone just keeps quiet and is complicit.

A year has passed and the fact is that all is quiet on the UK front of the Ben war. Eerily quiet, compromisingly so.


3. Boris Johnson

In the comments of our last post “Invoking ridiculousness”, Anonymous 23 Oct 2017, 14:42:00 brought to our attention, and who we thank for having done so, an article titled “Madeleine McCann saga reflects our society” written by a certain Boris Johnson, then an MP, published on Sept 13 2007, a few days after the McCanns had been named arguidos and literally pulled out of Portugal.

We published the article in its entirety in the comments of that post.

The entire article is completely ‘Biltonesque’.

In the sense that it follows the logic used by Richard Bilton for his BBC documentary to mark Maddie’s disappearance’s 10th anniversary: whatever one may think of the McCanns, and it may be bad, supposedly once one looks seriously and analytically at what is there to condemn them, there’s really only one conclusion that one can arrive to and that is that if one thinks the McCanns are guilty of anything more than neglect than one should feel absolutely guilty.

Both products making a significant effort to appear balanced but being anything but.

Both products start with the premise that it’s ok to think that the McCanns are bad. Not only natural but even expected.

Boris Johnson says his sympathies have been manipulated and “first I had a pretty clear idea of what happened to poor little Maddie McCann” and “in a creepy way, it is almost as if we desire to establish the guilt of the parents” but then also adds “all these horrible rumours started to emanate from the Portuguese police”.

In other words, making us believe that he, Boris Johnson, sincerely thought the McCanns were involved but then…

Bilton says he was offered 30 silver coins from people near to the McCanns, which means he made us believe that he started his supposed investigative journalism thinking the McCanns were involved but on looking in detail at the evidence, concludes “the theory was falling apart. Goncalo Amaral was removed from the case”.

In other words, making us believe that he, Richard Bilton, sincerely thought the McCanns were involved but then…

Boris Johnson in 2007 said: “I don't know what happened, but I find it very hard to see how they could have concealed a body for nearly a month before putting it in the boot and then taking it off for burial in some roadworks, and then - if these leaks from the Portuguese police really represent the latest theory - exhuming the body and taking it somewhere else, while they have had camera lenses the size of howitzers trained on them the whole time.”

And Richard Bilton at 00:22:16 of the documentary: “Is it plausible that Kate and Gerry McCann? in the full glare of the world's media? Hid their daughter's body, pretended to be looking for her and then, a month later, moved the body? There were cameras with the McCanns on the very day the police suspected they moved their daughter's body.”

See the differences? We don’t.

Both using the ridiculous excuse of a married man justifying not having an affair by using photographs of him taken by his lover, “…look honey, how can I could have been cheating on you when Suzy was there with me the entire time as these photos show? Don’t be ridiculous…”

Note how Johnson, like Bilton, does his best to undermine the credibility of the PJ with his “if these leaks from the Portuguese police really represent the latest theory”.

In fact, he practically starts his article with this undermining, in the third paragraph (which is basically the first as the 2 before it are just one-liners):

“Then all these horrible rumours started to emanate from the Portuguese police, and my emotions lurched off in the opposite direction; and then there would be a pretty compelling counter-rumour, and a learned essay from some expert in forensic science explaining that DNA tests were not all they were cracked up to be, until I have reached the position at 5.30 on Wednesday afternoon - the latest I dare to sit down to write this piece - when I frankly haven't got a clue what to think.

I look in vain for guidance to the tabloid press, with its legions of reporters in Praia da Luz and long expertise in knowing which way to fan the hysteria of their readers. Which is it?”

Note how for Boris Johnson rumours emanate from the Portuguese police while the British tabloid press is looked upon by him to provide reliable guidance.

Much to Mr Johnson’s unhappiness, such guidance wasn’t there in the tabloids. He does complain that he didn’t find it but the fact is that he looked there for it.

And for him apparently what the native police would be saying was just a very unreliable source of information.

One must ask who was spreading those supposedly unreliable rumours that Mr Johnson attributes to the Portuguese police? It was the credible, or so considered by him, British tabloids.

To Mr Johnson, an MP, a British politician, the British tabloids were clearly much more credible than the Portuguese police.

One must then assume that for Mr Johnson it is quite clear from where the manipulation came from when he says “I can’t stand it any more. I can’t stand the dizzying manipulation of my sympathies”, and it wasn’t from the tabloids.

Another fascinating thing about the above from MP Johnson is him stating “and a learned essay from some expert in forensic science explaining that DNA tests were not all they were cracked up to be”.

We would really like to know which “learned essay from some expert in forensic science” was Mr Johnson referring to otherwise one is allowed to think that his research has as much credibility as Gerry McCann’s on the cadaver dogs.

Gerry McCann said the dogs are unreliable and Mr Johnson says that “DNA tests were not all they were cracked up to be”. A serious statement to make by an MP, taking into account that they have been used on many sentences passed on by the British courts. Is Modern law ignorant?

And how did Mr Johnson know what DNA tests were being conducted in the Maddie case to trust that particular essay about forensic science would apply to the Maddie case?

He does seem familiar with the details of the case otherwise why make such a statement?

The forensic evidence at that point in time was being dealt only by the PJ and a British lab.

How on earth would an MP have access to such information?

If he had access to such sensitive police information, why did he? He was just an MP.

Was the information being sent by the PJ – which one must not forget were leading the investigation – being handed out in the British parliament for all to read?

By the way, it is quite odd for Mr Johnson to say that he tried “to work out if they could have done it, given what we know about the alleged timetable”.

What alleged timetable was known in September 2007?

Then, all the public knew was that the couple supposedly dined with their friends in the Tapas bar every night, allegedly left their children in the apartments and did what they claimed to be routine checks on them. And that on one of these nights, in between these checks, someone entered apartment 5A and took Maddie.

What is not feasible about such a straightforward timetable that left Mr Johnson wondering if they could have done it?

Yes, since August the forensic dogs had appeared on the scene and blood mentioned but the known “alleged timetable” had not been in anyway altered nor any of its details revealed. So what is Mr Johnson talking about?

Boris Johnson sums it all up in his article with:

“Are the McCann parents a brace of cold-hearted child killers who have managed to concoct a gigantic fraud involving the police forces of western Europe, the Papacy and hundreds of yellow ribbon-wearing British MPs?

Or are they loving and normal parents who have fallen victim to a terrible crime, and who now see their agony compounded by a half-baked stitch-up operation conducted by Portugal's equivalent of Inspector Clouseau?”

Reading the article, it seems to us that between the 2 hypotheses, to Boris Johnson it’s quite clear that the McCanns are “loving and normal parents who have fallen victim to a terrible crime”.


4. A new name to add

We have said here that we consider that the Maddie case has become a game between the government, and the other side, which we have called ‘the other side’ and have only detailed previously as the “Daily Mail people” or as the “Brexit elite”.

And as whenever we use the “Brexit elite” as the other side, we are careful to reinforce the fact that it’s independent from the ongoing political process per se, as we firmly believe that many who voted to Leave are fierce defenders of the truth about what happened to Maddie.

For us, this Brexit elite are those in or with direct influence in the various corridors of power. Those we believe are concerned that the interests of those they know were in Luz swinging in that fateful period are not jeopardised.

As we said in the comments of our last post when we replied to our reader David, it’s up to each one to decide for themselves on whether Boris Johnson is connected or not, directly or not, to that Brexit elite:

“Textusa 23 Oct 2017, 21:49:00

David, 

Agree that it was the language used by the UK media but certainly it was not one, for obvious diplomatic reasons, used then by the politicians and Boris Johnson was then an MP.

The fact that he so clearly took then a side allows one to make the assumption that he had a side to take and wanted to be seen taking it.

In terms of time, it's interesting because it's between the time when the McCanns were named arguidos and flown out of Portugal but were still being "hunted" by the British tabloids.

The period we call we-don't-know-what-to-do-but-as-soon-as-we-know-we-will-do-something, which ended with the decision to create a wall of fear around the McCanns, materialised by the nomination of the clown, Clarence Mitchell.

About the importance of the paragraph it depends on each reader's opinion about Boris Johnson.

If one thinks he's in any way connected with what we have here been calling the 'Brexit-elite', then his words are important, especially taking into account he seems to be spearheaded to replace Theresa May in case she decides, for whatever reason, to abandon Nº10.

If you think that he's not, then the words are irrelevant.

We have our opinion about that which we prefer to keep to ourselves.

We just thought we HAD to highlight them, so readers could make up their mind about them.”

We also think readers should decide for themselves that taking into account that Boris Johnson does currently belong to the government, on whether he plays for it – in terms of wanting the outing of the truth – or if he plays for the other side – in terms of wanting the hoax to perpetuate.

This is quite important in terms of evaluating what the fate of the Maddie case will be, in case Boris Johnson replaces Theresa May as Prime-Minister.

If we can judge from his 2007 words, it seems quite clear:

“Whatever happens, there will now be people dissatisfied with the outcome. If no charges are brought, or if the McCanns are eventually exculpated, there will always be people who will tap the side of their nose, just as there will always be people willing to defend the couple's innocence to their last breath.”

But, not wanting to influence anyone’s mind, what seems to be clear to one person may not be so for another, so will ask the readers to interpret for themselves what the words above mean.

We have said that the game is summed up in the name of one person: Theresa May.

We suggest that another should be added and that would be Boris Johnson.

And if he, just as an MP, deeply researched the subject, as he says “I found myself reading acres of print, and looking at big diagrams of the Mark Warner holiday complex, and trying to work out if they could have done it, given what we know about the alleged timetable”, then one can only imagine how detailed his knowledge of the case must be now that he’s currently the foreign secretary.

And before we are accused of accusing Boris Johnson to be leading the ‘other side’ we are NOT saying such a thing.

What we are saying is that if, and we stress that if very much, Boris Johnson moves into Nº10 he will become a very relevant player in the Maddie game.

But then we are not saying anything new. All Prime-Ministers since Maddie disappeared have been very relevant players in the case, with maybe the exception of Tony Blair but that was because when it happened he was already on his way out and it had already been determined he would be replaced by Gordon Brown in July.

So even though Tony Blair was then Prime-Minister, he would say he was only one simply ‘on paper’ and think that this political issue was immediately handled by Gordon Brown.


5. Conclusion

When one googles “10 biggest UK exports” one gets this result:

1. Machinery including computers: US$60.3 billion (14.7% of total exports)

2 Vehicles : $51.7 billion (12.6%)

3. Pharmaceuticals: $32.6 billion (8%)

4. Gems, precious metals: $27.5 billion (6.7%)

5. Electrical machinery, equipment: $27.1 billion (6.6%)

6. Mineral fuels including oil: $26.2 billion (6.4%)

7. Aircraft, spacecraft: $20.7 billion (5.1%)

8. Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $17.2 billion (4.2%)

9. Plastics, plastic articles: $11.2 billion (2.7%)

10. Organic chemicals: $10.8 billion (2.6%)

We would concur as the list seems to take into account only the financial aspects of each in comparison to others below the list.

We would think that due to the relevance and international projection of the issues, somewhere on that list should be “British children allegedly abducted in Southern Europe”.

And if one were to add up all the media coverage, both on paper and on TV that both Maddie McCann and Ben Needham have sold since 2007 we believe that it wouldn’t be very far from making the top 10 list above.


Post Scriptum:

We hope to start posts soon about the visit of one of the members of the team, in the case myself, to Luz this year.