12. Matt Quinn, Mark Daly, the BBC and the Hollie Greig case!

12. Matt Quinn, Mark Daly and the BBC.

In this past week’s ‘postbag’ of tripe I’ve mostly been accused of being ‘in cahoots’ with the likes of Mark Daly, the BBC and of being a ‘mainstream media’ shill.  So I’ll spend a little time first of all on educating the morons who come up with this trash…

Firstly, your emails don’t really get read in any detail, you’re not ‘getting to me’ and I have nothing to fear ‘from’ the idiot wind that wafts  from conspiracy central like the toxic air from a room full  of chronic flatulence sufferers.  Those who occupy that space  simply need educated for their own good; before they wind up getting into the same sort of bother as Robert Green, Tim Rustige or Sabine MacNeill…  ‘Sacrificial lambs’ to the money machine that (for instance) sees some occupy £1.3M houses with no visible means of support. And others who turn over twice that, touring the world like rock stars…  

Oh, I don’t paint those willingly groomed for the sacrifice at the alter of conspiracy theory to be innocents any more than I’d paint a street-corner drug dealer as such.  But I do often find myself reminded of the Derek Bentley case, and how Hugh Maw, the educational psychologist who attended him at school, said…  "He was never violent, he was bullied and easily led". When there was trouble at school, it’s noted, the young Bentley would be the one left behind as the brighter boys fled. 

This led to frequent beatings from the authorities…  Sound familiar? Some may recall that Bentley eventually swung for somebody else's crime!

When these emails pop in to my mailbox I can’t avoid the titles and maybe first line or two but basically I just hit the ‘block sender’ button and get rid of it all. One or two sensible people WILL get a response from me – and they obviously know who they are – but for the most part I’ve just not got the time for the nut-job agenda which seems to define both sides of the divide on the Hollie Greig case… 

It strikes me that the ‘common purpose’ both sides have is to keep the spotlight off the little grain of truth at the centre of Hollie’s abuse…

So…  Me, Mark Daly and the BBC? – Here’s the raw truth of it… I don’t know the guy and he doesn’t know me! 

There was a point (a few years ago) when the Hollie Greig case was ‘on the boil’ where Mark was due to speak at an event in Glasgow where (by coincidence) I was due to supervise the filming. This event was run by a third-party, had essentially charitable aims and deserved no disruption.  Once I realised Mark was the speaker I immediately replaced myself with another Director and advised the organising party as to the circumstances…  

I’m aware that one of my several ‘impersonators’ contacted (was apparently actually a part of!) the ‘Hollie’s army’ group – and the first signs of disruption were mooted…  That individual was - I believe – part of a group of students involved in voluntarily stewarding the wider event Mark’s talk would have been a part of...  

I’m also aware that (consequently or not) Mark recused himself from the event on grounds to which I neither a party or see as any of my concern. He had another reporter take his place, the event went well...   

So – There you have it… The link between me, Mark Daly and the Hollie Greig case. 

And I make no apologies for that. I don’t think it right that an unconnected third-party event with noble objectives should have been at risk of disruption – especially as, in relation to the Hollie Greig case, Mark Daly is (at worst) guilty of nothing more than being overly gung-ho… 

Actually I’m not sure that I’ve ever been in direct contact with Mark Daly… 

To me he’s just another face in the media crowd. And, after 35 years in the trade you get to a stage where certain things pass over you. If I have ever ‘worked with’ Mark it must have been a very long time ago when he was at a very early stage in his career.  If I have (as has recently been claimed) been photographed ‘drinking with him’ it will simply be a case of being in the same pub or event at the same time…  Why not publish the photograph?  As I so-rarely frequent pubs, never go to nightclubs and almost-never attend organised events (unless I’m working at them) I’m sure I’ll be able to give you chapter and verse on what when why and where…  

I’m not actually sure I would recognise Mark in the street nor he me…  We aren’t and never have been ‘workmates’, really don’t know each other and really don’t move in the same circles. I don’t work for the BBC and wasn’t trained by them… My training was done at the now sadly-defunct Thames Television in London. I left the company in 1986 and have (mainly) freelanced ever-since; primarily in the almost-invisible role of ENG cameraman – have kit will travel. I’ve certainly worked for many of the ITV companies, Channel 4, 5 and several American broadcasters but not for the BBC…

I’m REALLY not a ‘fan’ of the BBC either…

In truth, from where I’m standing at least, the BBC comes across as a ‘Brilliant Boy’s Club’ in the fiefdom of what I call the ‘Milngavie Mafia’.  – A wee clique of ‘posh-boys and girls’ who keep all the best toys to themselves.  They don’t like ‘scheemies’ (except for the odd politically-tame one admitted to their inner sanctum) like me. And they certainly ‘don’t approve’ the product of that nasty ACTT’s (The Association of Cinema and Television Technicians) onetime attempts to rationalise training in the broadcast industry - Which was seen as something of a threat to their public school/army camp model at Wood Norton…

But I digress…  Fact is I’ve never worked for the BBC. Nor, I suspect, am I ever likely to… Kicking (as I do) ‘wi the wrang fit’… So no… Mark Daly and I aren’t ‘mates’ and are colleagues only in so far as we work in the same industry…

But I do know something in general about the commissioning process for programmes and the laws relating to matters such as reporting restrictions and defamation. You see I was, for some years, a lecturer in Multimedia and TV production at Glasgow’s Stow College. One of the subjects I specialised in was media law…  Something of course I’d been trained in myself and, as the owner of two production companies, need to maintain a working knowledge of.  I actually wrote the course material used in the delivery of that subject, running it through both my own lawyers and those who were the SQA’s moderators…

I know the law on this subject… And with 35 years in the industry I know how that works too. And I’ll be honest… I’m a little surprised that things went as far as they seemingly did with Mark Daly and the rest of the BBC Team that seem to have been involved.    

According to Robert Green… 

“It was Daly who first contacted me in April 2009, within days of the News of the World running the story that Hollie had been awarded £13,500 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. At this time various other mainstream media outlets were interested in the story but Daly wanted the BBC to have an exclusive and Anne and myself agreed to this.”

This sounds quite plausible… Bearing in mind that Daly would at this point be on the outside looking in, with little more information than the News of the World report.  People often forget that journalists are in competition with each other for content; the BBC is no exception.  Daly, it would appear, moved quickly to secure the broadcast rights to the story for the BBC…

Clearly the fact that Hollie had received compensation was intriguing – and I’ll guess here that Daly might just have been lazy enough to assume a certain level of ‘due diligence’ on the part of the News of the World reporters such that what they published was legally safe and could be taken as read. I’m willing to speculate that he might even have been mislead to believe so by contacts at the paper.

Obviously, this  an error of judgement many of us would like to think we wouldn’t have made – and I’m surprised that Daly, with his level of experience did – but then hindsight is 20:20, and we didn’t know then what we do know now about how the News of the World operated. It’s reasonable to form the opinion that what they published was little more that a spell-checked and grammatically-corrected excerpt from Greg Lance-Watkins’ ‘Stolen kids blog; Green even tells us Watkins was instrumental in the publication of that piece…

Is it believable that Daly told Green that a programme had been commissioned by the BBC?

Two emails, first seen a few years ago, have recently been re-published, purporting to be from Daly – they’ve not been checked for either veracity (i.e. did Daly send them at all) or accuracy (might Green have altered or truncated them) …  

I have redacted the email addresses here…

Subject: RE: Anne and Hollie
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:24:27 +0100
From: mark.daly@XXX.XXX
To: xyzabc green@XXX.XXX

great news. i will be sure to call here tomorrow.

At the moment, it's going to be a BBC Scotland commission for both tv and radio. However, i fully expect it to make national news at the time of broadcast and potentially a Panorama. But for the moment, we press ahead with the BBC Scotland commission for a 30min investigation to be boadcast sometime in the late summer.

thanks for those kind words. talk soon


-----Original Message-----
From: robert green [mailto:xyzabc green@ XXX.XXX  ]
Sent: Mon 4/27/2009 10:44 PM
To: Mark Daly
Subject: Anne and Hollie

Hello Mark,

I`m pleased to say that Anne fully accepts the conditions we discussed and will only deal with you or your colleagues from now on.

I have told her to refer any media requests she may receive to me, so that she`s not put under unnecessary pressure.

If you do get the opportunity to have a brief word with her before you go away, I`m sure it would be appreciated as until now, every door has been shut in her face.

Best wishes to you and your wife-to-be for the future,

Robert 

Now – I’m going to ask you to bear in mind Robert Green’s duplicity with respect to his communication with the First Minister’s office – Factually Green has spent years promoting the lie that there are “missing records” relating to the Hollie Greig case; and he has used this lie to promote his and others' – blatantly swivel-eyed unionist – political standpoint…   

The very same sort of ‘economy of truth’ was apparent when he was up on breach of the peace charges  and, most recently when he faced the court for breaching the non-harassment orders that stand against him. – Green and his cohorts pretended that he didn’t know what he was charged with! 

As a response to Robert Green’s email – which is what it’s represented as - Daly’s alleged reply makes absolutely no sense whatsoever… Daly will call where ‘tomorrow’?  Is it perhaps a ‘typo’? Daly proposes ‘calling her’ (i.e. Anne Greig)?  But what of the first sentence?  

“At the moment, it's going to be a BBC Scotland commission for both tv and radio. However, i fully expect it to make national news at the time of broadcast and potentially a Panorama. But for the moment, we press ahead with the BBC Scotland commission for a 30min investigation to be boadcast sometime in the late summer.”

A fair answer to a question along the lines of ‘what do you hope to do with the story?’… But otherwise a very strange response to the email it’s supposed to be a reply to. I’m inclined to form the opinion that there are parts missing from this conversation…

Now; hindsight is always 20:20…  Mark Daly wouldn’t be the first ‘staffer’ to start imagining he has the keys to the kingdom and seem to promise commissions that were not in his gift. Not the first to become so cocksure of himself he started to assume commissions were simply a rubber stamp…  Not the first to grow somewhat lazy and run with assumptions…  It’s even quite probable that the story by this time would have been approved by one of Daly’s editors such that it reached the ‘pre-commission’ sometimes called the ‘provisional commission’ stage…

It’s quite possible that information was relayed to Robert Green…  A man who seems to hear only what he wants to hear - or at least repeats only what he wants to hear.  A mistake in my view. And I have to say that in teaching this subject I would always impress upon my students the need to be upfront with the subjects and try to leave them with no scope for misunderstanding...  Perhaps Daly was or at least thought he was; Green is - we now know - duplicitous. But when dealing with the public it’s wise to be aware of the fact they very often do hear what they want to hear, and I’d be very wary of ever suggesting a programme had been ‘commissioned’ – let alone hint at transmission dates - unless it was virtually at the stage where the cameraman was charging his batteries!  

In the half-decade or so since Daly made that error of judgement the world of journalism has changed radically.  It was always best-practice anyway; but lessons learned I suspect he and others will be rather more circumspect these days in terms of how they ‘handle’ members of the public; especially those presenting as Robert Green did…  Being quite careful not to give the impression a commission is ‘in the bag’… 

Then of course there is Robert Green’s now proven tendency to misrepresent what is said or written to him. We do not have much of the chain of communication between Green and Daly in front of us. Just a snapshot that paints a particular picture which – when subject to a little critical thought – isn’t at all well drawn… If there is a doubt that anyone is due benefit from it - objectively - must fall to Daly.

Before moving to seek (full) commission Daly would have been required to do the basic due diligence on the story – basically to prepare it for its initial legal audit.  And I suspect that he was somewhat ‘over enthusiastic’ in deploying the resources that saw a BBC team actually visit Anne Greig in early June 2009.  – Personally I wouldn’t even have wasted the petrol!  - But then maybe the BBC can afford to be a bit more thorough…

As Daly pointed out on the fateful Tony Legend show, when the simple checks are done  birth, deaths, and marriage records reveals much about those named as both abusers and Hollie’s co-abused. Some stark realities emerge – (Sheriff) Graham Buchanan has no sister or female relative (a sister in law for instance) that could possibly account for the woman in Anne Greig’s tale. Other characters cannot be found at all or are of such an age now that they could not possibly be the individuals involved. Attempting to cross-check other records and accounts only reinforces what the public records say…   

Beyond a simple point – that of Hollie having probably suffered sexual abuse at the hands of individuals with free access to her – this case just does not stand up to scrutiny.  As Daly put it… “the one allegation that did hold any water has been washed in a deluge of these other, slightly fantastical, allegations”. 

In the hope that it was possible for Anne Greig and Robert Green to ‘straighten up and fly right’ I kept on digging...  Green was encouraged to educate himself in the law relating to reporting restrictions and defamation.  Anne, it was hoped, would ‘reign back’ on the more fantastical part of her account and focus on what could legitimately be explored.  And they were given every 'face-saving' opportunity to place the matter on more rational grounds...

Like Daly I found the facts surrounding the CICA award intriguing. As I did the hysterical reaction of Greg Lance-Watkins; digging into his background revealed a great deal. - Digging into the backgrounds of various others - on both sides – revealed much too…

Some deeply damaged people had been involved in the matter. For instance, one individual who assumed a relatively high profile emerged as a former mental patient; now tacitly masquerading as a ‘BBC journalist’ off, apparently, the back of a single ‘NQ’ video unit completed at a local technical college and a tour of a BBC office - all done as part of their ‘rehabilitation’…   Elsewhere links to the UK’s – and particularly Aberdeen’s - ‘swinging’ scene emerged. – Robert Green, you may recall (some considerable time after the fact) sought to link various high-profile names to the ‘Violate Club’; although he had been ‘sold a dummy’ in terms of the membership list he tried to push, he wasn’t entirely off-base with this.

There were some more sinister characters too...  It was – still is – apparent that the agenda to draw all the heat away from the Hollie Greig case was as multi-layered as it is disturbing.  Matters ranging from the merely ‘grubby little lifestyles’ of assorted weirdos to fairly serious issues that may link to extreme and child pornography start to seep out from the mud that had been thrown around.  Where the authorities are concerned the ‘strange immunities’ that some enjoy as compared to the treatment meted out to Green, give rise to a quite sickening stench for instance… 

But as far as the story – as presented by Robert Green and Anne Greig – is concerned, the Hollie Grieg case is as much a manufactured distraction from the serious issues at the heart of the matter as  anything the ‘Hollie Hoax’ group have come up with; possibly more so…

Returning to Mark Daly’s situation – quite clearly this story was never fully commissioned… In fact I’m a little surprised it got as far as it apparently did. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if - internally to the BBC of course - Daly was given a 'dressing down' for having dragged the BBC into such shallows. But with Robert Green’s track-record of lamely ‘spinning’ and misrepresenting facts, I’ve no real reason to be convinced that the notion the BBC got to any sort of ‘advanced stage’ holds water. 

Was Mark Daly threatened that he’d ‘lose his job’ if he ran with the story? I doubt it… 

Simply - Mark Daly would be fully aware that if he published the great steaming pile of worthless crap that Robert Green was promoting, he’d almost-certainly get sacked! Incompetent people don't keep their jobs...  And it’s entirely possible that Daly has said as much directly to Robert Green. As critical as I am of the BBC, it's never been the shambles many of the red tops are...  Let’s remember that the News Of The World no longer exists, thanks mainly to the wholly unprofessional standards of ‘journalism’ it operated…  

Daly has ‘secret’ recordings of conversations with Robert Green…   

Is it possible that in one of these conversations he angrily ‘faces down’ Green with the complete and utter crap he tried to feed the BBC? Is it possible Daly was less than 'freindly' towards the man who quite frankly had tried to take the piss out of him? Is it possible that in the heat of the moment he explains to Green in no uncertain terms why he isn’t going to put his career on the line to promote a worthless fairy story…

I’ll repeat here that, in my opinion, Anne Greig’s extended allegations are a much a smokescreen from the truth surrounding Hollie Greig’s abuse as anything Watkins or the ‘Hollie Hoax’ crew have come up with…  Recalling yet again how Green has lied about matters such as the ‘missing records’ I’ll leave you with a simple question...

Robert’ Green’s permission is required to release those ‘secret recordings’ that Mark Daly holds.  As Green’s proponents emerge – possibly on his behalf or even at his behest – trying once again to discredit the BBC with the lie that they ‘pulled’ the Hollie Greig story, why won’t Robert Green give his permission for those recordings to be released? 

Strikes me that – rather like the reply he did get from the First Minister’s office – those recordings represent an inconvenient truth…