app-08
Chapter 08. Derek’s ordeal begins
Derek King’s retirement at 61 had arrived smoothly and they were happily ensconced in the old farmhouse under the hills in Shropshire. With their daughter living in Birmingham and son in Bristol they were ideally placed for family visits. For years they had spent weekends and holidays in a rented cottage nearby in the Shropshire hills, where several spots had become his favourite places for quiet contemplation and these were now only a short drive away, although their new garden offered plenty of scope for contemplation.
Their great ordeal began on the morning of Monday November 10 2003 with a 7AM knock on the door by seven West Mercia police officers, backed up by members of the nearby notorious West Midlands Police. As these morning raids have already been described, little more will be added here except that a woman police officer took Eleanor to one side and tried to grill her about Derek’s sexual inclinations. As Eleanor remarked later,” Our only consolation was that our children had grown up and left home.”
They still resided mentally in the semantic world where such things do not happen to ordinary, decent folk ‘like us’, where there were good cops as well as a few bad ones, where ‘The Bill’ on television several nights a week demonstrated how decent and fair most cops were, and if it ever happened that you needed them there were good solicitors and, in the final instance if it should be reached, the courts where wise judges saw through errors and injustices. So, as Derek’s PC and CDs were bundled up and taken away for inspection, their reaction was one of total shock and the certainty that it was all a mistake. Of course, going through Derek’s mind was the worrying thought of what porn sites he had surfed, so even when suspicion of ‘child pornography’ was mentioned as one reason for the raid, there was no immediate way he could be sure that what he had looked at could not be interpreted as an underage image.
The real ordeal began on Saturday, February 21, 1994. From that day, it has been known within the King family as ‘the crisis’. Derek was putting the final touches to a granite wall and barbecue on a new patio behind their farmhouse, when Eleanor came to the back door with the beginnings of some terrible news. One of the young leaders in a youth club that Derek had been associated with back in London had just telephoned to say that the police had been interviewing some of the former club members. When Derek heard this shocking news, he dropped his tools and went into the house. The completion of the new patio was supposed to mark his ‘official retirement’.
Despite this ratcheting up of the problem of the implications of the earlier raid, Derek still believed that it was merely a further misunderstanding or a police blunder that would soon be sorted. He went shopping alone that afternoon and when he returned Eleanor announced that the police had just called to the house, and that he was to go to the police station. The great ordeal had now truly begun.
Later Derek spoke of his wonderment that since this catastrophic event he has not being able to remember his thoughts on that short, dark February evening’s journey as he drove to the police station. For many years he had mused about the philosophical implications of a journey which takes place before a momentous event. Like making a routine trip to an airport perhaps to pick up somebody, in an appointment that turns out to have a profound affect upon one's life, where the magnitude of what is about to happen is not even suspected in advance. On that journey to the police station, he was anxious, yes, but with no anticipation of the enormity of what lay ahead. He was going there to clear the matter up, as simple as that.
He was placed seated in a dingy room in front of a desk, behind which a male and a female officer, each about half his age, prepared for his interrogation. The young woman was wearing a severe black uniform, while the man, whom he assumed to be a detective, was in plain clothes. So shocking were the woman’s initial words that only a semblance of them remained.
“Having found evidence that you used your credit card to access a child pornography web site, we began an investigation into your background for any other evidence of child sex abuse. We found out about your involvement in a London youth club and began extensive investigations by interviewing former club members. As a result of hearing about our raid on your home in connection with the child pornography, one mother who wanted to be sure that nothing had happened to her daughter brought her to a counsellor where the first revelations were made.
"We now have here a series of serious allegations against you." And as if those words were not shocking enough, he saw at least six separate handwritten sheets of official documents under the hand she was about to read from. What was happening and who was about to accuse him?
She continued: "It has been an extensive investigation and I have interviewed a number of people and the facts as they stand are very serious."
At this stage the detective broke in. "You don't have to say anything, but what you do have to say may be used in evidence against you." How often he had heard this on television and in movies!
She went on: "You are not under arrest and you are free to leave this station at any time."
"I understand." Then, menacingly, from the detective: "You have the opportunity to make a statement first and then hear the allegations. Do you want to make a statement?"
"I cannot make a statement before knowing what the allegations are."
"I repeat! You have the opportunity to make a statement first and then hear the allegations. Do you want to make a statement? I invite you to make a statement; then you can have the allegations read to you. Do you want to make a statement?"
"I cannot make a statement before knowing what we are talking about."
She began to read from her first sheet. Derek opened a notebook he had brought with him. Seeing him begin to write, the detective interrupted. "I will be writing down your responses to the allegations, not you. What are you doing?"
“I'm going to write down everything that I think I should.”
The detective repeated, almost grudgingly, “I'm the one supposed to be doing the writing, not you” and then left it at that.
She began to read.
The first was from Matilda and her friend, both former members of the youth club. The police had done a trawl and found the worst ever helper, expelled nine years earlier from the club after her one and only weekend away, for a litany of bad behavior, including drinking and unacceptable activities with local boys. The accusation now being read was that one night on that weekend away he had fondled her breasts, while her friend alleged that later on the same night he had touched her thigh. They also claimed that on the first night of the weekend he had given an ‘embarrassing’ first aid course to them and other new helpers, and, while this was highly unlikely, he could not at that moment remember whether or not it was true. Out of hundreds of members in the club over twelve years, they had unearthed the only really bad egg and her companion.
"Well, what do you say?" the policewoman demanded.
"I did not fondle Matilda’s breasts or touch (the other’s) thigh. I don’t believe that I ever gave an embarrassing first aid course, because other trained young leaders handled that.”
She moved to the next allegation. This was much more potent. A twenty two year old slightly handicapped woman, who had been a club member for ten years, and was still a member under its continuing management, was the one who had been introduced to a counselor. With that counselor’s help she experienced a recovered memory that she had been indecently touched by Derek ten years before. Since her revelation, the police had discovered a neighboring slightly mentally impaired girl who as a club member had allegedly disclosed something similar to her parents ten years earlier. If the second girl or her mother had known about this first allegation, they had either waited for ten years enjoying the benefits of the club or had actually experienced the recovered memory that explained the wait; but, whatever, now the police had unearthed the corroborating evidence they required for either allegation.
“And now, since these events!” The policewoman paused dramatically. “We have found the evidence that you accessed child pornography on your computer - from the American Landslide web site.”
This was almost a relief after the earlier accusations, for it appeared to end the list of allegations of real abuse.
“Can I see the images I was supposed to look at?”
“No way!” replied the detective. “They were acquired in the Operation Ore raid on your home and thousands of men have been already raided and charged under Ore. No one is being shown these images, such is their content, but, believe me, we have them and they will be shown to the jury if necessary, unless you want to spare them and your family and the press from that ordeal by telling us now that you were aware that you downloaded them.”
Across the desk, the two waited for his answer.
"I am not aware of any child porn or Landslide material on my computer and I did not touch those girls. That is my answer.”
They just stared at him for a moment and then the detective went back to his laborious recording, copying each allegation, followed by each response.
Derek added, "I'm sure that you are aware that these two girls are both friends and neighbors, living a few doors from each other, and that the second girl’s mother, would have known about the first allegation for ten years."
The policewoman retorted instantly. "There is no connection between them. Neither family knows about the allegation from the other."
After an agonizing wait for the recording to finish, the detective looked up, all business-like. Now it was his turn.
"Why did you start this club?"
He wanted to reply, ‘Because I'm a pervert’.
"What were your qualifications?"
"My main qualification was that I was a parent."
"It was said that you should have used qualified nurses for the residential weekends and holidays."
"I would not have been able to get nurses or afford them if I could get them. Even the bus drivers from the schools attended by the kids refused to let us use their vehicles at weekends unless we hired them as drivers, and paid them overtime, so we had to find voluntary drivers, and borrow or pay for our own buses.”
"So you used teenaged girls instead of qualified nurses - - -."
She interjected. "They were called 'Derek's girls'."
"Some parents called them that." He did not add that the parents of the deprived teenagers loved them being cared for and hugged by a bunch of bright energetic, highly motivated teenaged girl helpers, who were the pick of the local schools. Most of the parents that was, for unfortunately there were a few who had a deep sense of victimhood about their lot.
The detective continued: "Right. Now, I have some numbers here. On a typical residential holiday, you'd have three adults - you and - - -."
"John and his wife."
"Why not your wife?"
"Few people could have survived weekends, and a summer holiday week away, with over fifty teenagers. My wife could not."
There was a short whispered exchange between the two and Derek got an impression that she was telling him that another allegation on the papers in front of him did not relate to him.
Finally, the report was finished, except for one last thing. "Now to close off. I understand that you are a retired senior manager and you used to be a university lecturer. You’ve also published articles. I need these details. I also need to know how long are you married, and how many children you have?"
Derek gave a brief description of his writings and various jobs, and then went on: “I’m thirty five years married, and we have one son and one daughter.”
At this point, the deep shock hit him. Oh dear daughter! How was he to tell her about this?
There was barely room at the bottom of the sheet for the detective to fit in these details. His life and his curriculum vitae had become a mere postscript to a sordid police charge sheet.
The detective stood to give his final summing. "This report now goes to the Crown Prosecution Service, and it is up to that office to decide if it should go forward for trial. The weight of evidence is against you. It’s quite strong. You will have to wait several months as we have a large number of these cases going through at the moment."
And then a revealing remark. "All these things are only coming out in the open now."
Two hours of dull horror had ended. It might as well have been the ending of his life. He had come to the police station hoping to clear up misunderstandings, and he was now the subject of a criminal investigation and had been told how bad his case was. In court, the recovered memory woman could be depended upon to say something stupid, and obviously untrue, but they now had a child porn accusation wherever that had come from to back up the main assault on his character. But, as with so many other casualties of Ore, the details of whether or not one could prove one’s innocence were irrelevant, because in the climate of hysteria that raged Derek did not have the strength or will to go through any ordeal of trial and defence.
Eleanor was at the front door, worried and about to call the police station to ask about him. After a lifetime of fixing things for her and the family he had no fix.
"It's bad, I'm sorry to say."
"Come in and sit down. Your drink is waiting."
He sat and he began to read to her from his notes. It seemed that their world of forty-one years together, thirty five of them married, was at an end.
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