1. Hollie Greig. - Closing the book

1. Hollie Greig. – Closing the book!

I have not commented publicly on the Hollie Greig case for some few years now - in around 2012 or early '13 I think it was, the original 'can of worms' blog was hacked into. To this day I cannnot recover it despite having access to both the associated email accounts. But by the time it was 'stolen' the blog had served its purpose anyway.  The Hollie Greig case was taking some pretty bizarre turns, and there were some fairly dodgy characters setting its tone... 

It was a time for silence - to move on with other investigations and other projects. To leave this disturbing case to the tinfoil-hatted nutjobs who had claimed it as theirs...

I shall please no-one by breaking my silence now; for I have no side to take, no dogma to feed. I seek to stroke no egos and am part of no group or clique. I won't conform - I have absolutely no reason to. The record needs to be set straight, thoughts gathered and lines in the sand drawn. 

For various reasons it’s time for this to happen now, that’s all…  To those about to have their cages rattled I have one thing to say - you just wouldn't leave it alone would you?  As ye sow and all that...

If you’re looking for great revelations or titillating details this is the wrong place. Expect me to be deliberately vague about names, dates and places. I shan’t be entertaining you with freshly cooked forensic analysis hot off the rings of a Tricity Tiara nor decoding the mystic symbolism hidden in the serial numbers of the fire extinguishers at Aberdeen Sheriff Court…

I'm also likely to be disinterested in what you have to say.  This is my account of my position, take it or leave it.

Those with something cogent to add to the matter will already know how to contact me. But most of the semi-literate tripe that  turns up in my inbox gets deleted and the sender blocked at server level. - I really don't give a damn what David Icke says, ain't going to sit through your three-hour-long incoherent home movie and have no interest in what the space aliens told you the last time they popped in to your house for a cuppa...

Hollie’s case is a sad and serious matter that should never have become the plaything of the various fruit loops, spivs, weirdos and wideos that have pawed over it this past few years.

It’s with a heavy heart that I write... Closing the book on a case involving child abuse, where the perpetrators have gone free, and will most likely never answer for a particular crime, is not easy. There is very little that is positive to report here and I fully expect to be attacked for publishing this material. Perhaps physically and/or politically (as, despite my un-bought silence, has been happening in the recent past); but certainly with rancid, rabid hysteria in words by those keyboard warriors of the conspiracy theory circuit and others who have something to hide or (as is more usual) sell… 

The baby is though, welcome to its bottle.

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If you’re reading this at all I suspect you will already be at least slightly aware of the Hollie Grieg case; the disturbing tale of a Down's Syndrome sufferer supposedly ‘used’ by a ring of paedophiles for a decade and a half. When Hollie finally spoke out, it’s alleged, she became the subject of a cover-up stretching from the lowest of the low to the highest officials in the country. “Hollie Greig was abused, paid off, never investigated then covered up” screams the headline on one particularly manic website as it claws desperately in the air…

The real story is quite different of course. But not-quite the picture painted by some quarters of the press or the authorities. And certainly not that promoted by some suspiciously over-keen detractors. There is smoke – a lot of it – and at the heart of the matter a fire does burn. 

That fire is not what anyone seems to expect though… 

There is little serious doubt that Hollie Greig was at some point in her life sexually abused. But that abuse seems to have been of a sickeningly-common and routine type (not that this makes it any less wrong). The authorities that did express concerns at the time were actively deflected from investigating further by the intervention of both Hollie’s parents. That is not to absolve those authorities from all responsibility; but it does tend to explain much of why the matter was never contemporaneously pursued... 

By the time the matter was properly raised with the authorities in the form of a complaint there was very little they could do… Many years had passed. No forensics existed to tie any victim to any suspect and Hollie’s testimony itself was – and remains - not detailed or coherent enough to move the case towards any prosecution. 

Matters were made even more difficult by the fact that Hollie’s Mother, Anne Greig, had set about embroidering the facts surrounding her daughter’s abuse. She had created a fantastical tale of a well connected paedophile ring and admixed this to the sordid reality of Hollie’s suffering; coaching the poor girl to ‘parrot’ what she could recall of the tale. As one of the key tactics any lawyer defending an alleged rapist will adopt is to discredit the complainer and their evidence, Anne Greig’s admixed fairy story provides the main security for the individuals who violated this particularly vulnerable young girl. The law could now do nothing for Hollie except acknowledge her suffering; consequently she received the award of a five-figure sum of money from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.  

Not satisfied with that, Anne Greig took to the internet to set off an online scandal, with what end in mind is not exactly clear… 

Some twenty-two or so people were named as sex offenders by a ‘team’ of individuals that promoted the case under the flag ‘Google Hollie Greig’. Some of this team were acting in good faith, others under illusion and some with clearly malicious intent. This team was originally led by one Greg Lance-Watkins, a serial fantasist and self-promoter with somewhat ‘swivel eyed’ political ambitions and a past conviction for firearms offences. Watkins exhibits a particularly sick fascination for the seedier side of life. And it was he who, it would appear deliberately, steered the case along a highly dubious path before ‘turning turtle’ and becoming its main detractor… 

As the case moved on ‘down the rabbit hole’ of conspiracy theory, the vortex it created started to suck in various others, including Alex Salmond, the man who sought to free Scotland from the grip of a Westminster now sinking fast under its own ballast of sexual abuse. Notions of justice for Hollie Greig long-forgotten; the case was adopted for purposes such as political character assassination, and rabid commercial gain. Hollie Greig became a ‘poster girl’ for conspiracy theorists and a valuable commodity for those that make a fat living from that particular circus...

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It strikes me as most unfortunate and misguided that Hollie’s legal guardian chose to place or even simply permitted her name to be put out in the public arena; for by rights you should not know Hollie Greig’s name at all… 

As an alleged victim of sexual abuse she should have the benefit of lifelong anonymity.  

There are laws and reporting restrictions which are supposed to protect the identities of victims of sex crime; society having long-since established that is the best way to ensure these people have a way of ‘moving forward’ with their lives relatively unfettered by the stigma of having been used and abused.  This is why such cases are normally explored in the press with the names of alleged victims redacted. These laws extend to victims and alleged victims alike, and hold fast even if it is discovered that no actual abuse took place…

It is in short generally considered illegal to attempt to name or label anyone as a sex abuse victim unless they themselves waive that right to lifelong anonymity… Hollie’s Mother took that step on her disabled daughter’s behalf, and I feel that was very very wrong of her. 

There is also unfortunately some technical ambiguity affecting how those laws operate from Scotland – a loophole if you like. But I can think of no credible reporter or campaigner or worker in the field who would seek to circumvent those restrictions. They are, for anyone with a legitimate concern, a welcome ‘brick wall’ that no one of good faith has any intention of scaling. It is well understood how the stigma of having been a victim of abuse can be a weapon used by abusers to cause further harm to their victims.

So I will be candid here in saying that – even though his audience was limited to just a few dozen people – Robert Green was also very much in the wrong when, in the somewhat obscure Aberdeen district of Ferryhill, he sought to make Anne Greig’s story public; causing fear and alarm in the neighbourhood to such an extent he was eventually – and extraordinarily - jailed for breaching the peace… 

If the truth be told Green – although he has paid the dearest price for it – was very-much a minor player in creating the Hollie Greig scandal. Quite simply, he has the ‘front’ the loud mouth and love of attention, but not the technical skill. And in reality the audience he personally gathered (and was eventually jailed for alarming) would not fill a decent-sized coach trip to Blackpool! He also seems to be easily lead in so far that during every phase of the Hollie Greig case there has been at least one other figure actually pulling the strings… First it was Greg Lance Watkins, later Belinda McKenzie – various other bit players flit around like light-bound moths. Green was never really in control here; and the evidence of that sits with the man who originally was assigned the whip hand in this case…

As much as the laws on naming alleged victims of sex crime from within Scotland may be flawed, there is no such ambiguity for those working from within England or Wales. For those with malicious intent though, this boundary is meaningless… 

In what appears to many people to be a very clearly illegal act, seven other people were named as rape victims along with Hollie; their names published to the world via the internet. If it’s doubtful whether Hollie herself should ever have been named; it is absolutely certain that these other alleged victims gave no hint of permission for their rights to be waived and that the act of naming them was utterly malicious, intimidatory and aimed to place these people in a state of fear for their personal safety. 

The man who actually did that, Greg Lance-Watkins, has never been charged or censured.  

To be clear – and this is what makes the act all the more troubling - Watkins did this from his home in Chepstow where the law on naming alleged sex crime victims is unambiguous. But, despite the fact that Watkins carried out this apparently illegal act from within the jurisdiction of England and Wales, and therefore locus of the alleged offence was within their area, his local police point-blank refuse to investigate; deferring the matter to the Scottish Police… 

For clarity I can find nothing in the relevant law which makes the locus – or in this case the alleged locus – of where the alleged abuse took place material to the offence of naming a sex crime victim. Watkins was, it is known, reported to his local police by a number of third parties. And all reports were given the ‘brush off’.  As the alleged crime complained about took place took place from within England and Wales I can see absolutely no reason why the Scottish police would have any jurisdiction in respect of it. And similarly, I can see no justification for the English/Welsh forces refusing to investigate… 

Is there really a loophole in the law that means Scottish victims of sex crimes can be named from England and Wales and do not enjoy the same level of protection as other abuse victims in this so-called ‘United’ Kingdom?

Could it possibly be that an unscrupulous ‘Red Top’ editor (or in this case a malicious fool) is technically free to torment the victim of a sex crime if they happen to be Scottish and/or they were raped in Scotland? Seriously? It certainly goes against all my training as a journalist! 

No-one, it seems, is interested in protecting Scottish rape victims from English miscreants who would rob them of their dignity. And frankly this is not only unacceptable, but deeply suspicious. 

It seems every effort is being made to protect this man – but why? What is it that gives the dubious and bizarre character of Greg Lance-Watkins this ‘special protection’? What is it that gives this vile little man a particular exemption from the laws of the land?  Who does he ‘have the goods on’ or influence over? 

In contrast Robert Green – a foolishly quixotic man who was mouthpiece to the campaign – has been physically, emotionally and financially ruined – rounded upon by the Scottish authorities. Not, I stress an entirely innocent man in all this. Certainly the author of his own misfortune and probably his own worst enemy!  But equally well the actions of the Scottish justice system have been quite bizarre, not in the public interest, and a strong contrast to the ‘light touch’ applied to various individuals in positions of power and authority  that have been found indulging in grossly deviant behaviour …

Misguided and wrong-minded Robert Green may be… 

But at the end of the day what his protest is all about is the protection of Scottish children from sexual deviants who would use and abuse them. What he seeks is for Scottish justice to be seen to take a stance against the stream of filth that infects our society.  He’s gone about it badly, and is deeply misguided yes!  But why demolish this particular man while others that present the most appalling affronts to common decency are treated with kid gloves? 

The contrast between the treatment of Robert Green and Greg Lance-Watkins alone evidences that there is something very wrong here…  We read of a “devastating fantasy: the impact of an internet scandal”… Quite so; but why is no-one addressing the fact that the actual author of that internet scandal sits free and easy while its Aunt Sally is pilloried? It’s like shooting the dummy because the ventriloquist is holding a live grenade with no pin! 

By this means the Hollie Greig case has brought the Scottish justice system into the most serious disrepute, and not just with the mad peoples of the conspiracy theory circuit. There is a clear chilling effect in placing some above and beyond the law while hounding others…