Inquisition 21
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Mechanisms of repression
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Mechanisms of repression
Sarah’s story
Brian Rothery
This is the first story of an Operation Ore casualty published on this web site. Permission is given to copy and re-publish it, but please give the web site reference.
Sarah’s is 39, a US citizen living in England, twice married, with two children by her ex whom we will call Joseph, and one by her present partner, whom we will call Simon.
I will start her story in her own words as it unfolded from that fateful March 2003 Tuesday morning, a time that will also be remembered by other Ore casualties. It may be helpful when reading what follows to be aware that the charges used by the Operation Ore police were largely fraudulent and that this information is only now emerging. That fact however is largely irrelevant to this story, such was the injustice and brutality meted out to individuals and families during this particular sinister police and social services operation. What happened to this woman is a woeful warning to all.
This is Sarah now speaking:
It was two minutes past seven in the morning on that Tuesday in March 2003. The children and I were up and my husband had already left for work when the doorbell rang. My daughter answered the door, and I heard the question.
"Is your daddy here?"
"No he’s gone to work, “she replied, but then followed this with an urgent “Mum, come quick!” Then some garbled message about police.
I looked out through the bedroom window. My God! There must be twenty or more police down there. And not just police, but police in full riot gear, two waiting vans, big empty bags in hand, traffic on the road stopped, neighbours standing and staring.
Bemused, I go down the stairs. "Does Mister (my husband) live here?"
“Yes.”
"Where is he?"
“He’s gone to work.”
"Get him back here now!"
“What has he done?”
"Can't tell you. But we have a warrant to search your house." I hardly needed to be told this, as they were already fanning out all over my house, armfuls of Disney videos already being thrown into the bags. The computer equipment was also being hauled out.”
I try again. “This is my house- you will tell me why you are here."
This time he was more menacing. “We don't have to tell you a damn thing- just get out of our way and get your husband back here now!”
I ring my husband. “You have to come home now- the police are here.” There is a stunned silence. “Do you hear me? Come home now.” He says that he is turning the car around and will be back ASAP.
I say to myself think, think, think! What is this about? Then oh no, I'm going to be late for work and have only been there 3 weeks! And fuck, the nanny will be here any minute, making her way in through the crowd. Maybe the neighbours will tell her what’s going on. Bet she'll be pleased! What kind of people does she work for? Great, now I'll have to find new childcare- fantastic! If only I’d known then that these were the least of my problems.
There were two in suits, a man and a woman detective obviously. So it’s big stuff. Maybe FBI? One of them approaches me.
“Have you rung him?” God, this must be serious! National security maybe.
“He’s on his way back from London. Look I am sure there has been a terrible mistake. If you just tell me why you are here, I am sure we can straighten this out.”
He was deadly serious. “No, there is no mistake.”
I get courageous. “So tell me why you are here.”
“None of your business!” he snaps. Courage goes.
Think, think, think. Go out to the back garden. Phone my boss. But umm, won't be in today. They must have us confused with the drug dealers down the block. There will be such a simple explanation and then we can all have a laugh. But I was trembling.
My office answers. Just let your staff know you won't be in. A member of my staff comes on. I have a problem - can you come over?
“You got cops! What – that many? You must be joking! What if the press turn up?”
I think. Cheers guy, that's your annual salary review out the window.
Back from the garden into the house, and there a very surprised nanny has arrived.
“Please can you change the baby for me because as you can see I am a bit distracted?”
I run back up the stairs and what I now see has for much of the time since remained with me. Although the children were downstairs, the woman in the suit was sitting on my daughter's bed, smoking a cigarette with my daughter's boom box on full blast. Since when do the police like Destiny’s Child and Justin Timberlake? The sight of her there, dominating, invading our most intimate space, infuriated me. “Okay, why are you here?”
“None of your business - get downstairs!” she snapped. Any illusion that I had remaining rights was gone. It was a portent of what was to come.
I go downstairs. The other suit was talking to the older two children. He was trying to take the piss out of Justin Timberlake to my daughter.
She replied, “You’re a moron!” It was the first time I did not tell my children off for being disrespectful to an adult.
My mind was now trying to come up with possibilities.
I say to this suit: “You know we were burgled six months ago?”
“Yes we know.”
I go on thinking. “Then you also know about my disgusting ex husband whom you have had to caution in the past for making malicious allegations of child abuse, benefit fraud and anything else he can chuck at us - which, by the way, if you check every single one has been found to be lies and malicious in nature?”
“This has nothing to do with your ex husband.”
Suddenly about ten of them leave, but then another ten, this time including women PCs come. If one more of these fuckers says, I know this is hard my love, I am going to deck someone.
”Can I at least get the kids some clothes?”
“Not yet, no.”
“Can I have a shower?”
“Yes.”
“Well then I need my clothes.”
“Okay, just some for you, but you must be accompanied.” I go to my bedroom.
What I see enrages me again. “What are you doing? Those are my things - get out of there! Those are my credit card statements! That is my credit report. Get out of my property! You may not go through my life without a search warrant about me!”
The response was swift. “You have thirty seconds to get down those stairs or I will have SS here in twenty more seconds to take your kids away and then we’ll put you in jail for obstructing a police investigation."
A long time later I realized that he had used the expression ‘SS’ to describe social services. How well he must have known!
Obediently, I went downstairs. In the shower I try again to think, think, think. Computers, credit card statements, videos, DVDs CDs? Once out of the shower, I confronted suit number one again.
“You think that he has done something illegal don't you? What are you going to do when you have gone after a computer nerd who watches Star Trek and plays Dungeons and Dragons?”
“Well, that matches the profile of the man we are looking for.”
”Can I get the children's clothes now?”
“Yes as long as you are supervised. Oh, and another thing, where’s your ladder?
Then they were up in the loft. Think, think! What’s up there? Oh no! My friend used to store gay porn there. Shit! Shit! These guys don't look like they want gay people living with children.
”We need to search your car.”
“Why? Is it covered by your warrant?”
“It’s not but we can just go and get one anyway.”
Temptation is to say- yes go and get one, but too scared. “Oh, okay, have a look but you won't find anything.”
“Where’s your laptop?”
“I left it at work last night.”
I turn around. Why is that woman wearing rubber gloves to go through my medicine cabinet? You know we don't do heroin? I walk outside. Is there a reason they have removed the door to our shed? What are they looking for? What is going on? Back into the house. Why are they going through my freezer and my pots and pans?
I go upstairs and overhear them talking. “Do people really own this many books?” one says.
There they are, four of them, again with rubber gloves, flicking through every book we own. Why? What is happening? Somebody tell me what is happening!
Then I hear the front door open downstairs. At last! I run down to meet my husband.
“Are you Mister X?” they ask him.
“Yes I am.”
“Come in the dining room.” I start to follow, but they stop me. “No you can't come in.” But I see through the door that he is shaking his head and that he has no expression on his face. What is going on?
Suddenly the children come downstairs, and exactly at that point two officers, one holding each arm, lead him to the front door.
They start crying. “Where are you taking him? What has he done? Daddy, daddy, where are you going? Daddy what has happened? Daddy why are they here?”
He calls back. “Don't worry everyone, everything will be fine.”
The children and I watch him go in the back of the car.
I turn around to the nanny. “Please take the children out. I will deal with them.”
She replies, “This is not true. This is not real. Watch them!”
She leaves and I sit and begin chain smoking. I still find some courage to speak to the cop in charge, or am I simply breaking? “When will you be done? We do have a life.”
A curt response: “As long as it takes!” I should have said that we used to have a life.
Finally, after almost six and a half hours, at 1:20, he announces that it is all done and I must sign some sheets.
I say, “I can’t because you didn’t let me see what you took.”
More belligerence. “Sign them or we won’t go!”
“Can I sign to say it is under distress and I don’t know what you took because you wouldn’t tell me?”
“Simple. No sign and we won’t leave!”
I wanted them gone, so badly, so I started signing, all 28 pages. But when I had finished they gave me only 21 sheets.
When I had finished I just sat there, feeling terror. That I had been raped. Later, a long time later, I was to come to know that my life indeed had been raped, and I also came to understand how many men’s lives and honor can also appear to be raped.
They finally left. I was all alone looking at the wreckage. Should I phone my husband? I tried but his mobile was switched off. Another unanswered question. Surely he can talk to outside world? What shall I do?
Daddy and Mommy have connections. Surely this can be made go away! I dial.
Immediately I am crying hysterically. “Daddy help me! Simon has been arrested!”
I hear his deep sigh. “Why?”
“I don’t know but they said all kinds of bad things and threatened me and the kids. Daddy what do I do?”
“Well first of all stop having babies by jerks!”
(End of Sarah talking directly to us. Sarah will continue talking to us shortly as she is able to.)
The story continues
Under extreme duress that included extortion-type threats and psychological torture, Simon was forced to plea bargain and accept responsibility for 43 of the images the Operation Ore team claimed were on his hard drive. He spent time in prison as a result.
Sarah learned that the reference to the SS was not a joke. Social Services took away her three children, and the police took her passport. She and Simon lost their jobs and their home. Although he did not want the children, her former husband added to the police and Social Services case against her that she was a bad parent, with great vindictiveness.
As Operation Ore is now collapsing, its central frauds revealed, Sarah has joined a group of Orees now fighting back against the corruption and injustices carried out under the name of Ore.
We will add to this story as it develops.
Reactions to Sarah’s story
The reactions to Sarah’s story came swiftly. ‘Horrific’ is the word best expressing the first responses. But help and advice have come swiftly also. It appears that the way Sarah was treated breached both the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the UK’s own 1984 PACE code of practice for police for searches of premises and seizure of property.
First the UN Convention
Article 1
1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person - - -.
Article 16
1. Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which do not amount to torture as defined in article I, when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.
Next the Police and Criminal Evidence Act PACE 1984
It states:
1.3 The right to privacy and respect for personal property are key principles of the Human Rights Act 1996.
1.4 In all cases police should exercise their powers courteously and with respect for persons and property.
1.5 If the provisions of PACE and this code are not observed, evidence obtained from a search may be open to question.
6.10 Searches should be conducted with due consideration for the property and privacy of the occupier and with no more disturbance than necessary.
6.11 A friend, neighbour or other person must be allowed witness if the occupier wishes unless the officer in charge has serious grounds for believing that the person asked for would seriously hinder the investigation or endanger officers or other people.
Commentary
While the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment could be applied to how Sarah was treated in her own home, it has more bearing on how her husband was later browbeaten into plea bargaining and the later treatment given her which culminated in the removal of her children.
PACE however is quite relevant to what happened in her home that morning.
The police showed little care for her right to privacy and respect, either in the way the raid was carried out publicly or in related releases to the media which resulted in her house being attacked. Far from acting courteously and with respect towards her, they treated her inhumanely by being deeply insulting to her. Far from acting with due consideration and with no more disturbance than necessary, they turned it into a show raid for all to see, ensuring her public disgrace and humiliation, a hallmark of Operation Ore. No friend, neighbour or other person was allowed to be a witness or a supporting presence. The way the police behaved turned neighbours against her and her children.
That Operation Ore itself is collapsing should add weight to the case against empowering police to monitor human morality. It should also illustrate how the crimen exceptum of child sex abuse is being used as an instrument of repression.
Have you suffered under Operation Ore?
If you have, why not join her and others now in confidence by contacting Nemesis?
Sarah and several other Operation Orees have also told some of their stories on Madbadorsad.
Mechanisms of repression
One click and you’re out - Pervcheck
Free speech in Britain under threat
The US lurches to the right
Sarah’s story
Kafkaesque from the National Crime Squad
More Big Brother building blocks in place
How porn is being used to quash dissent
Book burning in Canada given Royal Assent
And the net draws tighter.
Response to AOL
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