The NSPCC Needs To Be Stopped. Full Stop

Richard Webster's new book on the Bryn Estyn affair is out. In it he describes "the greatest series of miscarriages of justice in recent British history – how innocent lives have been destroyed, the public deceived and millions of pounds wasted in a witch-hunt against innocent people".

More detail on his excellent site, as well as the title link, to Dea Birkett's demolition of the NSPCC.

As readers may have gathered, I'm not a big fan of social workers. Indeed, when then-Southampton manager Dave Jones was accused, I thought 'Social worker. Liverpudlian' and would have given him ten years on those two counts alone (mea culpa - he actually seems to be a fine chap and conducted himself with tremendous dignity during his ordeal). But the more I read of Mr Webster's work the more convinced I am that grave injustice has been done to hundreds, if not thousands of social workers, who are, after all, God's children.

Webster's book is released as in Rochdale, an apparently innocent man is murdered after being accused of being a paedophile.

Naturally the Independent is blaming 'the right' for the killing.

Rising hostility toward minority groups, clamour for tough sentences against offenders and a sinister desire for retribution are being driven by an increasingly prevalent right-wing agenda.

Yet I don't remember the Indie, who have contributed towards the jailing of dozens of innocent people, and the wrecking of the lives of hundreds more, campaigning against false accusations of paedophilia at children's homes. Indeed, in 1994, a retired police officer was awarded £375,000 against the Independent On Sunday after they implied he was a paedophile. The Observer repeated the allegations.

The Independent was a key player in the Bryn Estyn affair.

In a powerful campaign, carried out over a period of some three months, the Independent now published a series of news stories, features and leaders whose apparent aim was to create a sense of national outrage over what had happened.

Largely because of the campaign conducted by the Independent, a sense of crisis gradually developed, and, on 17 June 1996, an evidently reluctant government was forced to announce the public inquiry which had been demanded.

The BBC is also implicated in false accusations.

You can get the true believer's view, so assiduously fed by the Independent, as sensible sites like this one, or at David Icke's.