Some time ago, October 2015, to be exact, I published Bits & Pieces 13.10.2015: Assembly 2016, Reputations, Vattenfall, Cardigan Castle and, almost en passant, I mentioned Empower-Support for the Voluntary Sector, of Cwm Cynon, which I likened to a case of big fleas having little fleas because Empower seems to feed on third sector and other publicly-funded bodies.
Empower SVS is owned and run by Beverly Elizabeth Garside and I wrote of her, “One mystery though is why, on her Linkedin profile, Bev tells us that she has been director of Empower since January 2001, yet Companies House tells us that Empower was not Incorporated as a company until February 18th 2004.”
I can now explain this confusion, and more, by telling you where Beverly Garside was and what she was doing in the years prior to 2004, but first I want to take a peek at Empower.
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EMPOWER SVS
Go to the Empower website and the ‘About Us’ page. On the right you’ll see the staff.
Bev Garside on top and below her we find Owen Davies of whom I know nothing because we are told “Full profile coming soon”. And it’s the same for Pamela Davies below him. For James Davies there is a profile, and it tells us after working in the planning departments of Swansea and RCT councils he spent eight years with Planning Aid Wales before joining Empower in April 2015.
Next up is the dashing figure of polo player Ashley McMahon, ex-military and still barking commands at that fine body of men the Glamorgan Yeomanry. Ashley is the Marketing and PR Manager.
Next on the totem pole we find young Alex Railton, a Marketing Assistant, for whom Empower couldn’t even be bothered to put up “Full profile coming soon”.
These six I assume are based at or work out of Empower’s office at the Feel Good Factory, Abercynon Road, Ynysboeth.
The others, described as Associates are almost certainly not employees. Liz Tyson is based in Manchester, and her passion would appear to be animal welfare. Ashan Malik is in Bradford. Bryan Collis is in Swansea where his full-time job is with All Wales People First, yet another third sector outfit stuffed with people taking advantage of the public funding bonanza.
The final Associate is Dawn Davies (née Minifey), whose day job is Director of Communities Connected Consultancy Ltd of Bridgend, where we also encounter Bryan Collis again. Though it looks as if Bryan and the others listed are associates. Communities Connected seems to do the same type of work as Empower . . . and no doubt 37 other companies.
Why do I say that? Well, because when Communities Connected was Incorporated with Companies House 14 September 2016 there were two founding directors, Dawn Davies and Paul Stepczak. ‘Who he?’ you cry. Here’s a clue.
In a previous existence young Paul was “lead cluster officer for Communities First in Glyncoch”. How know I this? From my regular reading of the Church in Wales website, which I recommend unto you all. Stepczak left Communities Connected 12 October 2017, so Dawn Davies is now alone at the helm.
Staying on Empower’s ‘About Us’ page we see, bottom left, a grouping of logos under ‘Our clients’, and an eclectic mix it is, though hardly impressive. For a start, we see Communities First again, that disastrous programme that had its plug pulled last year.
But not before it had consumed £300m of public funding and provided lots of meaningless jobs like ‘lead cluster officer’ in Glyncoch. And of course much of the Communities First funding found its way to consultants and advisors. And while I’m not for one minute suggesting that all those who worked for Communities First were Labour Party supporters, nor that the consultants and advisors were on good terms with the bruvvers, let’s say that Labour Party connections definitely helped when it came to getting your milking pail under this particular cash cow.
Another client that caught my eye was Ambassador Training Wales. As far as I can make out, this Swansea-based outfit trains guides for the tourism industry. I’m not sure what advice Empower provided but Ambassador Training Wales is teetering on the brink and about to be struck off by Companies House.
Then there’s Cynnal Cymru/Sustain Wales, though whether it’s a client is debatable because it seems to be in the same line of work as Empower. Either way, Bev Garside gets a mention under the heading, ‘A story of networking, cars and sustainability‘.
Scroll down to read the fragrant Bev herself say: “The nature of a busy consultancy means I am always on the road; I regularly drive the breadth of England and Wales and accumulate tens of thousands per miles per year. Whilst I use trains wherever I can, our work often takes us to places that cannot be easily or efficiently reached by public transport. My new Lexus Hybrid is not only more fuel efficient, which is great for my business, it also produces a third less emissions than my old car.”
The article is dated (à la mode américain) 01.26.2017. So at this time last year Bev Garside, who runs Empower SVS Ltd, was driving around in a brand new Lexus hybrid. Business must have been good because even leasing such a car wouldn’t be cheap
Before examining the business side of Empower I just want to take a wee detour offered by another of Empower’s ‘clients’, useful because it’s all part of a bigger picture. This time it’s Tyddyn Môn.
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TYDDYN MÔN
Its website tells us that “Tyddyn Môn was founded by the parents of adults with learning difficulties who wanted a more constructive and rewarding occupation for their sons and daughters.” And the website doesn’t tell us a great deal more than that.
The more I looked into Tyddyn Môn the more obvious it became that despite being located on an island where almost all the native-born speak Welsh the organisation itself is rather, well, unWelsh. Take as an example the highlight of the social calendar, the annual ‘Folk on the Farm Festival’. Here’s the line-up for 2018 – does anyone recognise any Welsh bands there?
It’s basically a hippyfest, an English hippyfest. So who’s running Tyddyn Môn?
If we go to the Charity Commission website and type in 1072035 we see that the leading light among the trustees appears to be a Mrs Eileen Mildred Clarke, who is also a trustee of a number of other organisations, one of them being Gwasanaeth Adfocatiaeth a Chynghori Gogledd Cymru / North Wales Advice and Advocacy Association.
The Association is also a registered charity, No 1060826, and as the name suggests – and the screen capture below confirms – it covers our six northern local authorities, plus Staffordshire. Staffordshire!
Why the hell is an English county that doesn’t even border Wales included there? When I see something like that it sets the old Jac antennae all a-quiver. Does anyone have an answer?
Whatever the reason, for year ending 31.03.2017 the Association received £277,939 in grants, mainly from Welsh local authorities (but nothing from Staffordshire) with £294,329 going on wages and running costs. So a rosy future beckons.
Back to Tyddyn Môn, where the Accounts for 2017 tell us the same, depressing story. Total income for year ending 31.03.2017 was £1,594,056, with £1,115,209 coming from Ynys Môn council.
Of that income £1,052,108 went on staff costs. Though, confusingly, page 18 tells us that two trustees were also paid a total of £53,101. Explained thus: “The trustees Mr J.G.P. Webster and Ms T.A. Davies are paid remuneration in relation to the work that they undertake for the Charitable Company as a support worker and housing manager. They are not paid for their posts as trustees”.
Well in that case why not include their salaries with those for the other staff? Though if they are employees why are they allowed to also be trustees?
Maybe I should explain here that the whole point of trustees is to provide oversight of a charity but with the day-to-day running left to the paid staff or volunteers. The two should be entirely separate, and with no payments made to trustees without special dispensation.
In 2016, just prior to the departures of Mrs Olwen Dennis Williams and Mr Huw Elfed Williams, three new trustee-directors were appointed on 9 April. One of them, Michael Ian Hawkes, almost immediately rose to the rank of Chair.
I suspect that Mr Hawkes may have not long moved to the area and so the other trustee-directors of Tyddyn Môn may be unaware of his glittering business career. The pinnacle of which seems to be his ongoing involvement with MHinvent, a company that has flirted with compulsory strike-off more than once and whose latest balance sheet shows liabilities of £2,296,133.
Hawkes has the largest single shareholding by far in MHinvent; hardly surprising seeing as the company seems to be named after him.
Tyddyn Môn may indeed be local to the island, but I suspect that through Mencap and other cross-border agencies connections have been formed which result in an unspecified number of Tyddyn Môn’s residents coming from outside of Wales to take advantage of the council’s generosity.
So if the council is minded to take a greater interest in Tyddyn Môn it might also benefit the island by refusing entry visas to the rag-bag collection of pony-tails lined up to wail at the Folk on the Farm Festival.
That’s the end of the digression; now it’s back to Beverly Garside and Empower SVS.
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EMPOWER-SUPPORT FOR THE VOLUNTARY SECTOR LTD
The first problem I encountered when making enquiries into Empower on the Companies House website was the latest set of Accounts, or rather, what passes for the Accounts, for it’s no more than an abbreviated and unaudited balance sheet.
Surely these Accounts – showing a deficit of £3,573 – aren’t for a company with five or six employees on the books, with consultants to boot, and where the owner of the company “drives the breadth of England and Wales” every year in a hybrid Lexus?
What’s going on? Where’s the money stashed?
I’m not sure, but a clue might be provided by something I stumbled on, for there’s another entry on the Companies House website for Empower Support for the Voluntary Sector a slight variation on the name of the original company. Yet it is the same company because it quotes the same number, 05048133.
What’s different is that this entry tells us that Empower is a Designated Member for CJF Recruitment LLP set up 21 May 2016. So what can Companies House tell us about CJF Recruitment LLP?
CJF has three Designated Members: Matthew John Bates of Ystrad Mynach, Jane Thomas of Llanbradach and of course Empower Support for the Voluntary Sector.
I’m not quite sure how to explain this, being unfamiliar with LLPs and their operation. I know that they are partnerships and appeal to solicitors, accountants and the like, but it’s difficult to see the advantage of a LLP over a normal company in the case of CJF.
And what do the initials stand for, certainly not the names of the partners?
But we still don’t have the answer to where the money is to run the Empower company, which seems to survive on fresh air.
As an introduction to where I’m taking you next I might as well tell you that Beverly Garside is also a director of the Captive Animals’ Protection Trust, which has its correspondence address at her home.
UPDATE 15.02.2018: As I said earlier, Empower is based in the Feel Good Factory in Ynysboeth. What I didn’t realise then was that this building – formerly All Saints Church – is shared with other users. Principally Bryncynon Community Revival Strategy Ltd.
On page 5 of the Accounts for y/e 31.03.2017 for this charity (no 1067535), and company, we learn that :-
The Accounts also tell us, towards the top of page 4, “Trustees are elected from Bryncynon and its surrounding areas”. Which is as it should be. However, of the five current charity trustees / company directors one lives in Brackla, one lives in Llandaff, one in Whitchurch, one in Mitchel Troy, with just one from the local area.
But no doubt they have strong Labour Party connections to make up for their ignorance of Cwm Cynon.
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THE MISSING YEARS
As I noted in the 2015 mention of Garside and Empower, “Bev tells us that she has been director of Empower since January 2001, yet Companies House tells us that Empower was not Incorporated as a company until February 18th 2004”. So how do we account for the missing years?
This link will take you to a story from The Courier (Kent/Sussex) some time in 2002. Read it carefully. Bev Garside was clearly mixed up with hunt saboteurs and animal rights activists. Her co-accused in the case I’ve linked to, Gavin Medd-Hall, was jailed for eight years in January 2009 for a different but related offence.
I don’t know the outcome of the trial in Maidstone Crown Court in 2002 because there’s no longer anything available online. But we now know where Beverly Garside was and what she was up to before the founding of Empower-Support for the Voluntary Sector in February 2004.
And her involvement with animal rights activism explains her need to claim that Empower started in 2001.
I had to think long and hard before writing this piece, in fact, it caused me more soul-searching than anything else I’ve written on this blog for a number of reasons.
To begin with, I’m an animal lover myself, I would have closed down that animal concentration camp in Borth even before the two lynx were killed. And then there’s the thought that writing this piece might give pleasure to Garside’s old foes, the twats in pink, which is not something that would please me.
That said, there are bigger issues illustrated by this case, important Welsh issues.
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THE WILD WEST
In the case of Empower, we have a company that may not receive public funding itself, but lives off the recipients of public funding. And yet, at the end of the day, what do all the advisors, the empowerers, the enablers, the developers of communities, the consultants like Empower, contribute to the wealth of Wales?
Very little, especially when weighed against the amount of public funding consumed and the percentage of it that might as well be poured straight down the drain. (Just think Communities First.) The only thing this money does is create unsustainable jobs and a small amount of spending power. But this system that keeps Wales poor gives politicians the power of patronage.
So blatant is this system, and so well known, that it attracts shysters from outside of Wales looking for easy money that is not available elsewhere. It seems that every village and valley now has some old harridan behaving like a 19th century memsahib or else it’s a glottaly-afflicted young harpy so sharp she’s in danger of cutting herself.
If it’s not those running the third sector then it’s those they inflict on us; that’s because there aren’t enough Welsh to keep the funding flowing and so whole battalions of the decrepit, the deranged, the delinquent and the dependent are marched over the border.
And it’s not just our cities and larger towns that see these problems, for there isn’t a country town in Wales today unaffected by the trafficking of criminals, misfits and white trash by third sector agencies and housing associations.
It would be easy to describe these as misguided do-gooders, but they do no good at all, not for Wales anyway. They use Welsh public funding to make Wales more dangerous for us and our children. What special kind of national lunacy is this?
Then there are those who obviously see Wales as a bolt-hole or a wilderness into which they can disappear and not be recognised. This is how Mark Bridger, the murderer of five-year-old April Jones of Machynlleth came here, packed off by his family when he became too much trouble.
And who can forget the whole gang of satanic paedophiles relocated from London to Kidwelly. Yes, Kidwelly! Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Have our politicians ever asked for answers?
I’m not comparing Beverly Garside to Mark Bridger or the Kidwelly child rapists but it looks very much as if she also ran away to Wales. Maybe it’s time she practised a little honesty. Accounts for her company would be a good place to start.
The whole system is broken. We are told we need the third sector because Wales is poor . . . but the third sector thrives on poverty and makes us poorer . . . worsening poverty is then used to justify a bigger third sector . . . which makes us even poorer . . .
There is only one way out of this downward spiral – independence.
♦ end ♦
I see there’s been outrage that some arsonists set a fire in the park at Ynysboeth over the weekend, and when the fire brigade attended the fire fighters were pelted with bottles.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-44514563
The question is, why have these yobs been imported into the area with outfits like Empower?
Not only that, it’s Empower who’ve creamed off the funding for youth facilities from the local community. It should be noted that the park in question is between Abercynon RFC (who get no funding support) and the Abercynon Sports Centre (who had their hours cut to afternoons only on weekends by Labour controlled RCT council).
I’m not exonerating the yobs that did this, but question why they are imported into the Cynon valley and why facilities to engage and involve young people are being staved of cash while middle class dilettantes parachute in and pay themselves oodles of cash.
Didn’t the whole gang of satanic paedophiles come from Shoreditch? It wouldn’t surprise me that the locals in Shoreditch on one of their patrols told them to get out of the area.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9858079/Londons-East-End-a-melting-pot-simmers-closer-to-the-boil.html
Anyway…..politicians told us that diversity and multi-culturalism is “our” strength, I personally think that society in the UK is going down the pan………maybe Feminism is our strength?
Give me a child until they are 2 years old I will give you…………!!!!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIFRKc8BWtE
On Amazon…….
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Feminist-Baby-Loryn-Brantz/dp/1484778588/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519215921&sr=1-3&keywords=feminist+baby+book
World’s First Lesbian Feminist Bishop! – how’s that working out?
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2018/02/14/sweden-church-lose-million-members/
Even wildlife in todays world is not what it used to be……..”Jean a deux mamas” et “Tango a deux papas”………Mon Dieu!……nous sommes tous condamnés Capitaine Mainwaring!……
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA8fgaBSDUw
It’s all a bit confusing but I am beginning to identify more and more as a white European male ( a species that will become extinct in the very near future!)
Thinking about it all, maybe we are “our” strength…..we just didn’t realise it…..let’s reject the old corrupted parties ……the people of Wales must act quickly or our homeland will be gone. Let’s unite and take control of our own destiny…our life in our hands. What is there to lose? We have been pushed back as far as we are going to go……Orllewin Prydain Am Byth……West is best!
We must reject Westminster and BBC colusion in the next Assembly elections, we can’t except censorship in Wales in this day and age. Let the people of Wales have their voices heard We rejected being slaves to the EU, not to be slaves to London and the Westminister elites we must first oust the Welsh Labour Fabian Marxists in the Senedd.
Labour voters you must understand: Der Sozialismus macht Armut und Krieg. Come, rise out of the mud, come, come and be free, come and join the people of Wales…….
“Oh what joy, in the open air
Freely to breathe again!
Up here alone is life!
The dungeon is a grave”……………….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MF3IKyfgcg
Come, come to the light………………………..
Many years ago I was asked if I was gay. My reply was that not only I was gay, but truly overjoyed. Then the inquisitor explained that the question was about homosexuality and felt the need to cloak his question in the loaded term. My further explanation was that I thought homosexuality was a part of the human condition and should be embraced and enjoyed on the basis of mutual consent and the government or other institutions had no right to legislate or intervene in this liberty.
Recently, I’ve been asked if I was a feminist. My reply was I was not only was I a feminist but had an erection. Then the inquisitor explained that her question was about gender based power and the subversive role that those of the female gender in society. My further explanation reiterated my conclusion that heterosexuality was a part of the human condition and should be embraced and enjoyed on the basis of mutual consent and the government or other institutions had no right to legislate or intervene in this liberty.
I believe in equality of humanity, whatever gender, sexual orientation, race creed or religion. As for the ‘ishoos’ like blue toys for boys and pink for girls, books in shops, the way ‘products’ are marketed and gender stereotypes like types of shoes to wear in the office, I just look out of my bedroom window and I see yellow flowers, green hillsides, grey rocks, and the white stream and the ever changing hue of the sea. I never vex about such ‘products’ as I have no need to buy them. Recently I’ve walked with men over those hills, and fished in that sea with women, and the best toy I ever owned was made of wood from that very forest.
Here is the obligatory video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jO548TY53x4
In this video I don’t see men or women, just the people I embraced and enjoy on the basis of mutual respect and the land that I love. I don’t need the English, the British Government, or County Hall to tell me what I should think and do. Which also means a rainbow flag should fly over the county hall because it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes saying the right or wrong things isn’t that important it’s just showing mutual respect for ALL the community you answer to.
Qui est même bev garside ces jours-ci?
Enlighten me Madas H’L. Why do you ask “who is Bev Garside these days” in French. Am I missing something here? Or have you got mixed up with which languages from your répertoire we generally use on this blog.
I see today Huggard, one of the numerous third sector duplication ‘homelessness charities’ based in Cardiff has intervened in the minimum price for alcohol debate. Last year they got £190,000 from the Welsh Government and £124,000 from Cardiff council. In their latest statement they say that if cheap booze is not available, people will use hard drugs instead.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-43114417
Pint of dark, please?
How much, be fucked !
Give me heroin instead.
They also got £14,000 from Comic Relief.
Strangely, in Scotland where a similar minimum price for alcohol is proposed, the main ‘homelessness charity’, Turning Point Scotland, are calling out in favour of the proposal. The difference? In Scotland the charity gets grants on the basis of results, rather than farming homeless people for more third sector money as happens in Wales. I suppose Huggard work on the theory that the more destitute drunks that turn up on their doorstep clutching a Diamond Cider at £1.89 a litre, the more cash they can get from the Welsh budget. They should be reminded that hard drugs are always illegal and cannot accommodate anyone in possession.
Move to Wales, plenty of funding, just bring a bottle.
Spot on! if booze is more expensive in Wales it will deter many rough sleepers from moving here, and that should result in less funding for the homelessness industry.
The third sector ‘homelessness’ racket in Swansea have lost some of their best customers.
Here’s the video..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkxYzrf0dsg
It was called ‘Operation Blue Thames’ for a reason.
Not only was the drugs imported from London, the dealers, as well as the customers were too.
May they enjoy the extended stay in Wales, perhaps Visit Wales can include HMP Berwyn in the brochure?
Seems like our favorite industry is still hard at it, pumping £7 million into the regional economy, more like pumping money into corporate coffers while native workers are soooo grateful for the seasonal part time or zero hours contracts that free them up to do all those “other things” that they can’t afford because of piss poor incomes.
https://businessnewswales.com/tourism-project-gives-7m-boost-to-north-wales-economy/?utm_source=BNW+%7C+Newsletter+20th+Feb&utm_campaign=UA-62466858-1&utm_medium=email
It’s a joke. The tourism ‘industry’ can put out any figures they like, there is no independent verification.
Interesting blog as ever, its good to know your shinning a light where Labour and Plaid Cymru’s current incarnation don’t want is shone.
I did some audit work as part of a team on an Empower contract from Welsh Government about 18 month after they were first set up and Bev Garside on the surface seemed ok, no background checks were done mind you and the project was delivering some decent outcomes, so it got a pass from my boss, Little did i know she was in court for harassment only a few years earlier, it puts a different complexion on the whole interaction and she’s also a bit of a a flirt.
Sadly there’s plenty like Bev Garside who seem to follow this pattern, they make a decent impression with a first contract, get a second and no ones look to close and then the trouble starts, they create little empires and suck the money dry and deny real businesses and community organisation money to help local need.
This is the first I’ve heard of Empower since that audit, but its grown into a monster and it stinks to high heaven what she’s doing, as others have said what do you do about it Wales can’t afford to be pissing money up the wall like this.
The other sad thing is that Bryncynon Revival Strategy was one of the leading Welsh Community Enterprises about 15 years ago and won a hat full of award and was recognized by Europe for its community enterprise innovation, back when it was run by local people addressing local need, it sounds like its full of good lifers and their hangers on, what a bloody shame for the good people of Bryncynon.
Keep up the good work!
To end on a more upbeat note, have a read of Leanne Wood’s latest policy document relaunch. its comedy gold, if this is the best Plaid Cymru’s leader can do we really do need a new nationalist party. https://issuu.com/plaid/docs/changeweneed_eng___2_
The online reports of the trial have been scrubbed under the anonymity legislation or whatever, but my source suggests Garside may have spent time in prison. According to my source Garside has claimed to have worked in the prison service, which my source suggests might be a euphemism for doing porridge.
And of course the other issue is – where’s the money? Because I can’t find any accounts for Empower other than the ones showing a deficit of a few thousand pounds. If that’s true, then Empower is up Shit Creek, paddle-less.
On Linkedin, Bev Garside lists one of her previous incarnations as a “theme manager role” for Feltham Area Renewal, FAR. This was after a short period of working as an officer for the council. Her CV does not list for what reason her contract was terminated as a council employee which would have come with a London-weighted salary and public sector pension scheme.
This is in the borough of Hounslow in west London. Essentially, FAR for which Bev worked as a “theme manager”, was a third sector recipient of huge amounts of public money from the London Assembly (mayors office) and centred around (a) education for lone parent families, (b) a green corridor, and (c) a childminding scheme. The best measure of her success in this the operation is that it hit financial disaster after gobbling up huge amounts of cash, taking over some canal side land trusts and big chunks of the education budget of the council. The council had to embark upon a legal ‘exit strategy’ to solve the mess. It is here..
http://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/mgConvert2PDF.aspx?ID=46739
The Bev Garside legacy was that the council, in order to maintain it’s statutory obligations, then had to spend £200,000 on their ‘green corridor’, or which £140,000 was to be secured by legal means off FAR, get a £40,000 grant from Heathrow airport to keep the ‘learning centre’ open, and secure various S106 agreements to keep other various operations going where there was a statutory responsibility. Essentially, the council had to intervene and ‘take over’ the ‘regeneration strategy’ from the third sector, using public money.
I suggest RCT council should take a keen interest (ALARM BELLS) in what Bev Garside and her Empower operation is doing at Bryncynon. I suspect the leafier areas of suburban west London has more resources to solve the resulting devastation than that available to RCT council. I question why someone qualified from the University of Surrey in ‘Change Agent Skills’ and a degree in Philosophy and Independent Studies (Animal Ethics) with a record like what happened at FAR, is best placed for the regeneration of the lower end of Cwm Cynon.
Note – Feltham does have a ‘Young Offenders Institution’ so I’m astonished if she worked there she does not include it on her CV, rehabilitation and education etc.
Interesting that you should mention “canal-side land trusts” for at the time of her appearance in court she was living on a houseboat, Ashley River Barge, Scotland Bridge Lock, Newhall, Surrey. She was still at this address when Empower was formed on 18 February 2004.
She now lives at Cradog House, near Bwlch, a substantial dwelling in council tax band H. This did not mean she sold the houseboat. It may now be moored nearby at Llangattock Basin on the Brecon and Monmouthshire. The Canal and River Trust (trading as Glandŵr Cymru but not a separate registered entity) auction any vacant moorings each year. She may have needed to pull a few hemp strings to get one, but as luck should have it, a third sector organisation called Monmouthshire, Brecon and Abergavenny Canals Trust Limited (income of £52k spending £114k) which is funded through Torfaen Voluntary Alliance (income £401k spending £442k) is the official WCVA cash funnel for the area. Companies House tells that the latter has a person of ‘significant overall control’. That person is Mr Stephen John Brooks, who was the Labour councillor for the Two Locks ward in Torfaen, obviously named after the canal. The thing about canals is they cost a fortune to fix, but once it’s done the canal sides fetch a mint in “property asset transfers” which is the unqualified expertise that Bev lectures to at the WCVA and funded subsidiaries. There’s something peculiar about someone who lives in a mansion in leafy Powys with a background in Animal Liberation who now spends most of her time “helping” the poor people miles away down in the valleys.
It appears that legal proceedings were still ongoing in 2003 – “Beverley Garside, Sonia Hayward, Gavin Medd-Hall and are on trial on the 27th January 2003 at Maidstone Crown Court charges relating to campaigning against the Old Surrey and Burstow Hunt and Huntingdon Life Sciences.” (https://archive.org/stream/vpsg_newsletter_2002-2012/vpsg_newsletter_2002-2012_djvu.txt)
It does bring into focus just how much due diligence is taken by third sector organisations. How does someone who has been in court for harassing women by distributing cards advertising prostitution services containing their telephone numbers end up, just a few years later, as a director of Cyfannol Women’s Aid?
The outcome of a court case can be accessed by applying to the court where the proceedings took place, the procedure is set out at here – http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/criminal/docs/2015/crim-proc-rules-2015-part-05.pdf – see 5.8
If you look at the document through the eyes of a Welsh nationalist then yes you will find yourself wondering what the fuck you’re reading. If you look at it in the same way you’d judge a document by the Labour Party then it makes all the more sense.
I try to avoid using George Bernard Shaw quotes……..there’s something about Fabian Marxists that is really creepy…….we should have our safe space and no-platform them in Welsh political debates……..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3lBdyFvPps
Just back from a walk in the forest…..”I love the smell of the Welsh forest in the Winter evening”s.
Anyway….I had a thought……what about “The Peoples Party”/” Plaid Pobol” Mission statement: …..something like: “Let’s take back our eduacation from the Socialists in the Senedd and give the children of Wales a decent education that they deserve!”.
Shit!…..I went over 15.3 words………….
https://topnonprofits.com/examples/nonprofit-mission-statements/
PS….. It would have been interesting to have known George Bernard Shaw’s thoughts on 3rd sector workers (scam artists)….would he have thought they were “pulling their weight in the social group”!
Didn’t George Bernard Shaw once say: “Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach, and those that can’t teach commit charity fraud.”?
https://www.thirdsector.co.uk/third-charity-frauds-committed-staff-trustees-volunteers/governance/article/1413572
If he didn’t then I’m sure he meant to.
….or those who can’t teach become grant funded mentors.
Small business funding – Objective One and the like – never actually reached the bank accounts of any of my small business clients in the 15 years I’ve been in (accountancy) practice. The application process was laborious, complicated, and then would fail anyway because of the stringent and limited terms. Plus they took ages, and entrepreneurs couldn’t wait. There were plenty of grant funded mentors and consultants though – mopping up the money (I always wondered what qualified them for those roles – as they couldn’t make it on their own). Indeed my then business partner and I had direct experience in around 2002 on applying for a marketing grant. We had a mentor thrust upon us, who compiled a thick report we’d neither wanted, nor even read. We did get a small sum of money – but only a small percentage that was spent (wasted) on us.
The Labour Party (supported by Plaid Cymru) are planning a massacre of small businesses in Wales, particularly in construction. Rather than support a ‘Tourism Tax’ which is marginal and based on peak footfall, they intend to introduce a “Vacant Land Tax” to be levied on parcels of land which have obtained planning permission but does not have completed housing upon it.
For the large scale English owned mega-construction sector this is not a problem as access to massive capital can achieve fast turn around. For small Welsh firms, however, it takes longer to build the odd few houses here and there, contracting stuff separately like earthworks, foundations, blockwork, roofing, plumbing, lectrics from dozens of small indigenous firms separately when they have a window in their schedule. They have to arrange this on tight working capital opportunities.
Essentially, Labour want to revert back to the uniform mega-estates, build them quick, build them cheap, of the 1960s and 1970s. They want to shut down the ‘white van man’ types in the valleys and rural areas, prevent them from providing small scale ‘niche housing’ where it’s needed. It will put hundreds of thousands of small enterprise workers in Wales out of business or make them lowest bidder servants of the English mega-corps.
We already have a situation where the mega-corps don’t pay any VAT on construction and are owned in foreign tax havens. Now Labour want to add an additional tax on small businesses. The Labour Party is not standing up for Welsh workers, they have no idea what it’s like to do a real job, most of them wouldn’t know how to wire a plug, let alone the project stages of building small scale bespoke houses. And Plaid Cymru are just a speaking Welsh lite of New Labour sucking the tit of the third sector.
That account mirrors the experience of so many. I was self employed for c.20years ( as a consultant !) but couldn’t be bothered to “engage” with most of the public sector. However I would occasionally attend “briefings” and other bullshit events just to tune into what was happening in general. It was mind boggling. Loads of “corporate rejects” and other opportunists, many of them on early retirement pensions but looking for a top up income, spinning standardised offerings straight out of manuals and business text books. The dullards from government didn’t know or care because they could say they were “doing something” and the consultants could drive off knowing they were on to a good thing being on some approved list or other.
It’s box ticking.
Brychan, above, picks up on a critical feature of our dumb Labour administration and its compliant Plaid “me-too” partners in crime. These people are attracted to regulation for its own sake. No doubt some of you will have seen my earlier rants on here about the RentSmart scheme a highly dubious mechanism for chiselling money out of the landlord community regardless of the merits of individual situations.
Without digging up a load of history I am a 50% owner of a small cottage inherited on last parent death. Due to the serial bungling of London governments and their pals in the big financial institutions the arse fell out of the housing market in West Wales in 2007/08 and never really recovered unless you were in a particularly favoured location,like perhaps Trefdraeth or other parts loved by retiring Anglos and party officials in Cardiff Bay. So we were left with a small property we could not sell and after about a year elected to let it in 2011.
Introduced in 2014/15 RentSmart cost about £250 in assorted payments( and that is via the self managed cheap route !) with some renewal costs coming up after 5 years or so. Now they intend to fetch in a new energy rating certificate in addition. To comply with this it will not suffice to have a tenant say I’m happy I’ve seen the double glazing, wall insulation and attic insulation , oh no, I’ve got to pay some bandit to make a cursory inspection, seek opportunities to upsell some more shit we don’t need, and generate a rating certificate which loses its relevance as soon as a tenant leaves the back door open all day !
Sadly the real spivs and Rachman types won’t pay a blind bit of notice and these bureaucrats will do nothing about them as long as they have holes in their arses. Yet harrasing a landlord who gets on with his tenants, takes their rent money, and ensures they are happy in their homes is considered fair game. But never mind, this is all progress in the minds of the box tickers and issue chasers down the Bay.
Yesterday I switched on the telly trying to find out why the earth moved. Speculation was that Swansea has scored a goal but unfortunately BBC Parliament was showing a Senedd debate on this very subject. I have never see such a bunch of half wits, incompetents, can’t get a proper job, long time in the third sector spongers. I’ve heard better arguments on the last tango to Treherbert.
Vicky the teaching assistant AM (the candidate selected by Labour because she was a woman) argued that a ‘Vacant land Tax’ would solve the derelict house blights in her Cynon valley constituency. No, you muppet. These are buildings that are already in existence. The reason why these houses are not snapped up and done up is because despite false claims about housing shortage, there is no demand for these houses. When your nan dies nobody wants to buy the house and it’s got brambles in the garden because the younger generation has to go to work in Swindon.
Hamilton, ironically the AM for Wiltshire questioned what criteria would be used for measuring when a vacant land plot would no longer be classed as vacant when construction works starts. He pointed out that planting a shovel in the ground to turn the first sod is often regarded as start of construction, thus avoiding vacant land tax.
Melding, the small sherry in the golf club AM suggested that the biggest ‘land banker’ of vacant plots in Wales was the Welsh Government itself. This is true as the largest vacant plot in Wales is the old Velindre Tinplate site. The answer was that the WG would be exempt form the vacant land tax. It would only apply to privately owned land.
I had to laugh at the AM for Mid and West Wales who talks like a woman who’s been on the weed (can’t remember her name) who claimed that the Vacant Land tax would help prevent global warming by replacing overgrown areas with quick build houses.
It went on and on, so I went to the beach to look for a Tsunami. The Senedd is an embarrassment to Wales. A talking shop of stupid soaks who’ve never done a proper job, have no idea what goes on in the real world, and are as much practical use as a glass hammer. Total waste of space and money.
Excellent stuff, Brychan. Everyone should be forced to watch a televised “debate” from the Senedd, not least so even the thickest could see that they too could rise to the top in Welsh politics instead of watching Jeremy Kyle. Membership of the Labour Party, possibly Freemasons, or these days being a member of the LGBT community would greatly assist your ambitions. People with real principles and who might be frustrated by lazy, useless, incompetent twats working alongside you had better not apply.
I’m quite convinced that most A.M’s know they are thick but have also acquired the thick skin that enables them to go around blissfully insensitive to, or unaware of, criticism from the common filth ( like us ! ). When televised I’m sure that those sitting behind whoever is speaking are playing games on their workstations or e-mailing their bookie with bets on big issues like how many buttons will feature on Elin Jones’ cardigan tomorrow.
Plaid is rapidly overtaking Labour in empty talk. People like Simon Thomas, who used to be able to do a passable imitation of intelligence in short bursts, now appears to have inherited old Gwenda’s mantle when it comes to virtuous platitudes.
Sadly it’s all adding up to a devastating conclusion that in comparative terms, the A.M for Wiltshire is a class act !! I never dreamt I would ever get round to saying anything like that.
If we can’t get independence, can we make a film ? Sally’s account of this tangled web of corruption is sufficiently accurate in all probability to enable the bi-line “based on a true account” to be used in publicity material. I’m sure with a story line like this guys like Martin Scorsese or even Clint Eastwood would be happy to co-direct with a rebellious Welsh director, I can’t think of one right now. The entire cast of Pobol y Cwm could be put to work on something worthwhile and it would sell like hot cakes. Even members of the public could be roped in especially if they were of dodgy appearance ! The hard one – who would take the role of Jac, top investigator ? as it’s difficult to get a luvvie to tackle such a right-on,ballsy role. Plenty of greaseball types available for an entire cast of Labour and Plaid A.M’s and councillors and there’s a good stock of shysters, crooks and bandits who would portray themselves for a few quid and the free publicity, they love themselves so much.
Not funny really. Watergate was made on the back of a couple of years of Presidential misbehaviours. We’ve got more than a generation of crap here just the post 99 period. You only need to go back beyond that if you want to make a real meal of it, or a prequel !
We are in need of someone who can make professional films on behalf of our new party. I realise that what you’ve said is a bit tongue in cheek Dafis, but many a true word spoken in jest. Fancy putting some feelers out for a production team?
A film of the kind you’ve mentioned could:
a) Expose the vile situation regarding paedophilia in Cymru, and other problems exposed by Jac & his contributors that effect Cymru so badly, and
b) It would be extremely beneficial to our new party as we would support and promote it.
Just a few thoughts to kick around.
Dafis and Big Gee – years ago my best friend from school wanted to make a film about what happened to me at the hands of the mental health services (that was before we realised that it was directly connected to the paedophile gang). She was a documentary maker who worked for the Royal Television Society and her husband worked for the BBC. They were both hounded out of their jobs – that was in 1991-92, at exactly the same time that my career in biomedical research was ruined. They then set themselves up as independent film producers – only to find their work being plagiarised. Then my friend gave birth to their first baby – who died of neglect immediately after birth in Musgrove Park Hospital in Taunton – at the same time, the Hergest Unit tried to frame me for a serious criminal offence. I now have documentation that demonstrates that we were all stuffed over quite deliberately because of our intentions to publish/film what was going on.
I have now told most of the story on my blog – although I still have more people to name – and my friend has been talking about making a film again, especially now we know that it was all connected to the Westminster Paedophile Ring.
By the way, re the Children’s Commissioners for Wales – what a joke they are. The first one was Peter Clarke, a social worker who had professional links with the social workers who had run the paedophile gangs; then Keith Towler, who had professional connections with people who had concealed abuse and who was named in a workplace bullying case himself; now its Professor Sally Holland – who doesn’t seem to have worked with a gang of paedophiles herself, but is a former colleague of Mark Drakefords from Cardiff University. Mark Drakeford was a social worker in Dyfed when a gang of paedophiles were on the loose down there. It doesn’t bode well does it…
I’ll check out some names and see if there’s a few with the aptitudes and inclination to tackle such a project.
Dr Sally
Your comment on lawyers being mixed up in this is so true and terrifying. They see the kids coming through the family courts – all done in secret – they see the useless social services and other child protection professionals [or not professional at all merely donkey nodders.
These lawyers then move up tp become judges and their primary role is to keep the gravy train rolling and not to protect the children.
One name who never features here is Maria Battle who was once the children’s commissioner and then moved on to some other quango.
Possibly another interloper who came over the bridge to help us welsh out while pocketing or dispensing the public dosh?
Another excellent post Jac and interesting contributions from your readers as well.
The reason why the Third sector in Wales is corrupt as fuck is entirely a result of the organised paedophile gangs that operated in Wales during the latter decades of the 20th century. The abuse scandal that received the most publicity was the North Wales scandal, but there were organised gangs operating in west Wales and south Wales as well. They all had connections with each other and in turn were linked to organised crime in the big English cities who in turn had links to European paedophile/drugs rings. This is why bizarre things like children in care in Wrexham ending up in Amsterdam brothels or a boy in care from Bangor being found wandering the corridor in Dolphin Square having been taken there for a Westminster sex party were happening.
The paedophile gangs were facilitated by the social services and if the kids complained or tried to tell people what was happening to them they were denounced as psychotic and banged up in places like the North Wales Hospital or Ashworth or framed for offences and sent to Risley Remand Centre or prisons in Liverpool.
So corrupt professional people in local authorities, social services and medicine became involved with organised crime so serious that their honest colleagues were far too busy crapping themselves in terror to blow the whistle. What do organised criminals have? Lawyers and judges on the payroll, also accountants – and then they get involved with business as well because they are greedy bastards and its all about money. Bingo – Sicily…
A few years ago one of the few honest now retired Welsh politicians told me that Wales was second only to Sicily. I knew that corruption in medicine and social work was appalling because I’d seen it for myself, as a patient and a carer and as a researcher/academic in those fields and I knew that could all be traced back to the North Wales Child Abuse Scandal. However I didn’t understand about the organised crime bit – but I’ve spent the last few years researching it and yes, it really is Sicily.
The Third sector have been compromised for donkeys years. I knew that MIND was rotten to the core as long ago as the 1980s – they were receiving grants from organisations like Gwynedd and Clwyd Health Authority, so they weren’t going to blow the whistle on the abuse of psych patients – who were often former kids in care. What I didn’t realise was that as well as the Mafia of Drips concealing the abuse of psych patients, MIND also knew damn well that it was concealing organised child abuse and so it became paedophile-friendly – one of its Chief Execs Tony Smythe was so dodgy that no sane person would have ever let him near their charity. The children’s charities were exactly the same – stuffed full of the very last people that you’d ever want near kids – remember Jimmy Savile and all his work for charidee? Savile was the most obvious example but he certainly was not alone. There was his mate Esther who also cared about children…
These are high profile people who know that a bit of charidee work does wonders for their image and profile and they are well aware of the barrel of crap that they are concealing. Esther knew about child abuse because people have now come forward and said that they told her about Savile – and she knew about the abuse of psych patients in north Wales because I wrote and told her when she launched her mental health campaign in the late 80s…I did not receive a reply. If I’d sent her a deformed root vegetable and mentioned its similarity to a penis I’m sure that I’d have got on the tele.
Why did none of this ever get exposed? Er – well there was George Thomas, the Speaker of the House and Methodist leader abusing children in south Wales so the Labour Party had to keep a lid on that, then there was Peter Morrison the Tory MP for Chester abusing children in north Wales, so the Tories kept a lid on that – both Thomas and Morrison were personal friends of Thatch. Thomas was mates with Prince Charles and Morrison’s sister Mary was lady in waiting to HM Queen Lilibet. Then there was Cyril Smith of the Liberals…And all the others…
Politicians from ALL parties were involved, so no-one could grass up anyone else.
As for the Senedd – look how many politicians in Wales are former social workers or people associated with the Third sector – Julie Morgan, Jane Hutt and Drakeford for a start. Then there’s Lesley Griffiths – a former medical secretary and Wrexham Councillor when Wrexham Council ignored a paedophile ring. Edwina Hart – former Chair of TUC in Wales – the trade unions protected their members in the NHS and social services who were abusing people. Vaughan Gething – former lawyer with Thompsons, a company which represents trade unions…Ken Skates – had to build his career by toadying to the older generation of Councillors in Wrexham and north Wales who ignored the paedophile gang..The Baroness of Ely – her dad the Rev Bob toadied to George Thomas for charidee donations.
The older generation of politicians were even more compromised – the likes of Rhodri were young MPs who kept quiet about George Thomas et al because without their patronage, they wouldn’t have been selected.
Westminster is no better. Anyone remember Ron Davies who very nearly became Wales’s First Minister – until he was caught with his trousers off with a male prostitute on Clapham Common? Ron the MP for Caerphilly, whose activities had been known about for years. Ron who used to be married to the Christina Rees who is mentioned in one of the previous comments. Christina is a barrister – don’t tell me that she didn’t know what Ron was up to, or indeed the rest of them. Christina is now on Jeremy Corbyn’s front bench team – the Jeremy who was told by a whistleblowing social worker that a paedophile ring was operating in Islington, right on his doorstep. He did not act on the info. How could he – his election agent was the business partner of a man who was in business with a paedophile who ended up going to prison…
Totally comprised Jac, the whole bloody lot of them. Every whistleblower and dissenter was frozen out years ago, all that are left in the system are the Pathetic Sharks.
As for the National Lottery giving dosh to fuckwits, fools and crooks – National Lottery dosh is dispensed in Wales by Sport Wales. Which you might remember was embroiled in a huge scandal in 2016 re corruption and cronyism. The Board imploded and the Vice Chair and Chair resigned. The Chair in place throughout many years of shit however had just departed – Prof Laura McAllister. She’s still sitting on numerous committees and commissions re Gov’t and democracy. In fact I think she’s currently advising on the need to have even more troughing ex social workers as AMs on even greater salaries.
The Director of Culture, Sport and Tourism for the Welsh Govt when the shit hit the fan re Sport Wales was a civil servant called Manon Antoniazzi. Manon is the sister of Ffion Hague, the wife of the William Hague – who orchestrated that cover up of the extent of the abuse of children in North Wales which was the Waterhouse Inquiry. Ffion was previously a civil servant in the Welsh Office – whilst the Welsh Office had covered up the child abuse in north Wales.
Manon is married to John Antoniazzi. Who was Chair of the Cardiff Enterprise Zone, which encouraged businesses to locate to Cardiff in exchange for Gov’t dosh. I mean ‘investment’. One of the businesses ‘attracted’ by the efforts of Mr Antoniazzi were Deloittes. Mr Antoniazzi had been a senior partner of Deloittes for 25 yrs – until he left the company to become Chair of Cardiff Enterprise Zone.
By the way, Sport Wales were cleared of corruption – after an investigation conducted by Deloittes.
Recent Gov’t ideas of having public services delivered by the Third sector have just made everything much, much worse. But it won’t have been a coincidence that a Third sector run and managed by the Pathetic Sharks was given such a role, in the same way that it is not a coincidence that hopeless organisations like Crapita and Atos were given enormous Govt contracts – of course they were, the personal friends of the troughers of Westminster are running those companies.
By the way, I mentioned earlier the role of crooked lawyers in concealing the child abuse and abuse of psych patients who were the victims of the paedophile gangs. Many of the lawyers who knew what was going on and refused to help – although they were happy to help other victims of state abuse or miscarriages of justice – were the ‘radical lawyers’ working in inner London in the 80s. It was the London Boroughs like Islington and Lambeth who were both ignoring the abuse of kids in those boroughs and were sending them on placement to north Wales where they were abused and those lawyers had been councillors in those boroughs or were mates with/married to those councillors. Many of those lawyers are now big names and style themselves as ‘human rights’ lawyers. A lady called Cherie Booth was friends with many of them and mentored them. Cherie was married to a man called Tony Blair – who was a junior in George Carman’s chambers. Carman was probably the UK’s most corrupt barrister – who knew about the North Wales paedophile ring, who was retained by Jimmy Savile and who made his name by successfully defending Jeremy Thorpe on a conspiracy to murder charge – in spite of the mass of evidence suggesting that Thorpe was indeed guilty.
When Blair became PM, many of the Radical Lawyers were given peerages.
The Blairs were mates with Silvio Burlesconi – who was definitely involved with the real Mafia, as opposed to the Mafia of Drips. Tessa Jowell’s husband David Mills was very nearly imprisoned for his role in the bribery and corruption of Burlesconi. Tessa is a former social worker – she worked for Lambeth Council and the Maudsley. Huw Irranca-Davies was her PPS.
No wonder poor old Wales is on its arse. The only role that they had was to provide the fresh meat for the paedophiles of Westminster and to employ the Pathetic Sharks as social workers and councillors. And now the Pathetic Sharks are sitting in the bloody Senedd spouting shite about empowering wimmin.
I’m sorry to go on at such length Jac, I know that it sounds all very Grassy Knoll, but if anyone doubts me, take a look at my own site. I’ve got all the names of the guilty and their part in it all up there with more to come.
It really is Sicily.
All this makes fascinating albeit stomach churning reading Dr Sally.
Your mention of George ‘we musn’t let the language divide us‘ Thomas (probably the nearest thing we had to Saville), and lawyers, triggered a memory I have of someone in elected government politics, who once told me years ago that Georgie – after getting into trouble after one of his child molesting adventures, would come over ill with anxiety for fear of it being made public. So bad was his ‘nerves & anxiety’ problem that he would be hospitalized. At which time he would always summon in his old mate Leo Abse. Abse’s greeting when he went to visit him was “have you been a naughty boy again George?”
They would then conspire as to how Abse could smooth things over for him through his professional experience and contacts. Says it all really. He managed that little problem of keeping a lid on things right up to Thomas’ death. Thankfully, they’re both dead now.
Yes I’ve just blogged about Leo Abse’s role in it all. Abse himself was investigated for child abuse but hey, no evidence was found. Could that possibly have been related to not only Abse’s political friends, but his many friends in law – Abse himself seems to have been the George Carman of Wales, a crooked lawyer of whom everyone was terrified – and his many connections in medicine (his brother Danny Abse was a well connected doctor and of course a big cheese in the Arts Council in Wales). Then there were all George Thomas’s friends in the Freemasons, many of whom were in the police.
Of course Big Gee, those doctors and nurses looking after George Thomas knew exactly why he was in such a state that he was hospitalised – particularly because on one occasion in 1984 it was because he had an STD. Abse received a telephone call at 6 am from George in the hospital and was summoned to construct the pack of lies to tell the press.
Ever wondered why George Thomas was so involved with medical charities??? They were all doing favours for each other. The medical profession throughout Wales knew what Thomas was up to – including the doctors who ran the Student Health Centre in Bangor University, one of whom had a best mate who had trained in Cardiff with one of those orchestrating the cover-up, Kenneth Rawnsley. Guess when I was told that my career would be ruined if I didn’t drop my complaints about the mental health services in north Wales? In 1984 – by the GP who ran the Student Health Centre. He was the one who’s mate had trained in Cardiff with Rawnsley. Rawnsley’s widow Elinor Kapp is a retired psych who has been involved with the City Hospice, set up by George Thomas and his fan club, since it was first established.
The originals are nearly all dead now Big Gee, but the parasites who achieved their positions by keeping quiet about it all are still with us. What pisses me off is that everyone knew what was happening – including scores of witnesses being found dead. The police knew, the Gov’t knew, the security services knew, everyone knew. They watched it happen. Historical investigations into child abuse? Don’t make me laugh – no-one needs to investigate – the British state DID IT.
By the way, the barrel of shit in Wales was concealed by the Mr Bigs in the London medical establishment – particularly by St Georges Hospital Medical School. Their Professor of Paediatrics, Oliver Brooke, was a member of a paedophile ring in south London with connections to north Wales – Brooke was a big player in a European child porn ring and he was jailed in 1986 or 87. One of the Borough Councils in the St George’s catchment area was Merton. Between 1986-94 one of the Merton Councillors was a lady called Theresa May. She really couldn’t have missed what was happening there.
Someone in north Wales who knew about this was Fergus Lowe, the Prof of Psychology at Bangor University, who pegged out himself not so long ago. Why did the Psychology Dept under Fergus evolve into a world leading dept and the biggest dept in Bangor University? Natural talent? Fungus’s hard work? Not really. Fungus had everybody over a barrel and extracted huge research grants and awards from every spineless creep who knew that he had the dirt on them all – including Theresa May.
I heard a variation on that theme from Abse himself ! He used to recall times when George had indulged in a bit of what he fancied – rough stuff like merchant seamen docked at Cardiff – that the dirty old bastard would contact Leo to pour out his worries that someone might blackmail him, or he might have caught something ! Never a thought that he might have passed some of his bugs onto someone else !! Absolute slimebag. Abse was a dandy and poseur but never struck me as being either gay or paedo just a bit of an egotripper who loved to be the centre of attention. Indeed he spilled the beans on George soon after one of those at this lunch said something like ” Hell Leo you must have some dirt on people…” and out it came. It didn’t surprise me one bit as I’d always felt George was a bit odd so him liking to munch on someone else’s meat was no shock. Finding out later that he was paedo was a chiller.
Yes, many of the people whom I realised were rather odd turned out to have been involved in the paedophile gang – either part of the action themselves or running the bloody thing. I was always struck by the sheer fucking callousness of the mental health professionals and like other people I know I tried to think God what have I done or indeed what has happened or who has done what to them to make them behave like THIS??? If somebody had just said ‘they’re a bunch of serious criminals running a sex abuse ring’ I’d have been saved a lot of puzzling over what on earth was wrong with them all. I’ve been receiving e mails from someone at the moment who is incredibly confused by the remains of that lot and keeps dwelling on why they are conducting themselves as they are and how can therapists actually behave like this – it is very difficult trying to explain to my correspondent that the mental health services in north Wales are barking mad and are run by people and the colleagues of people who ran a paedophile gang.
Leo Abse was a crook – he got an MP in Burnley who was corrupt out of trouble.
Abse had a keen interest in psychoanalysis and there is a big problem in analysis circles with sexual exploitation – that was admitted to me by an analyst herself, she said it really is a shagfest and analysts having sex with clients is very very common. Abse’s book about Thatcher – the psychobiography ‘Margaret, Daughter of Beatrice’ is very interesting but some of Abse’s comments suggest that he was weird sexually. The stuff about Thatch is quite perceptive – Abse reminds everyone that until Thatch was an adolescent the family lived with her grandmother, a Victorian matriarch who absolutely ruled the roost, and that she played a far bigger part in the moulding of Thatcher than even the famous Alderman Roberts. I would imagine that to be true – grans like that still tell the adults what to do, they do dominate the family. But Abse makes a lot of comments as asides, with reference to children’s sexuality and the like. Children do have a sexuality which adults often can’t grasp, so I’m not suggesting that every analyst who holds such conversations is a potential paedophile, but when I read some of what Abse had written, I did end up wondering how on earth anyone quite got round to dwelling on some of the things that he did when they’re in the company of children.
Dr Sally – Have you considered taking all this to someone who would publish it mainstream? Such as Private Eye, or even The Sun?
The more I read of your comments (I even collect them) , the more convinced I am that they need a platform where the public already is.
Is there any legal means whereby these organisations can be subject to public scrutiny to see if the money is being spent in the way intended? Even allowing for Labour/Third Sector incest, wouldn’t an audit soon expose the fact that most of the handouts they receive seems to go on salaries and ‘consultancy fees’?
It sounds as if local councils are complicit in some of these scams, but if enough complaints are made, this could surely force their hand. Write to your councils, everybody. And to your AMs (a 1 in 60 chance of one of them actually bringing it up in the Siambr – and one should be enough).
I’m also wondering what the Third Sector will do for some of their free money when the EU grants run out after we wave bye-bye to the EU.
If the ‘Welsh’ Government tries to to make up the EU shortfall then we’ll be in real trouble and more people might wake up to the third sector problem.
That would certainly cause the excrement to hit the ventilation system.
But I think this racket needs exposing ASAP and brought to the attention of a wider public. As for the Senedd, they must be aware of it after all you’ve written on the Third Sector. They’re implicated, and only public pressure will force them to act.
I really hope it’ll be in the manifesto of the new party.
The process to establish whether third sector projects are delivering value for money is in place. Under that process, public funds allocated to the third sector is subject to project assessment and evaluation. Local government and central government are very reluctant to provide details of the evaluations undertaken and this is where auditors should be involved to assess whether value for money is being delivered. It is not the process that needs to change. Officials in local and central government need to implement the process that is already in place, and ensure that the project evaluations are undertaken and are available for public scrutiny.
On Welsh news last night it was reported that the Sports Wales fiasco was due to lack of thorough monitoring. Various projects were delivered and evaluated but those reports seem to have been watered down or not read by their intended audience. Probably a case of political appointees sitting on a committee, taking the fees but couldn’t give a fuck about the real purpose of their roles. Just another case of ” I’m on the Sports Council (Project) Committee, see……..”
Thank you for this article and all the other articles Jac , Now what can we do about it ? my local MP is Ben Lake Plaid , should I be asking him for an explanation ? could I expect a response as other matters that I have raised with him have not produced a response.. He even thinks Cardigan town is a blueprint for other towns in Ceredigion !! We are doomed.
He seems a nice boy, but something of a clone. Like he’s been programmed to follow a certain line. And I suspect the programmer is CD.
A photo of Gavin Medd-Hall can be found here. He’s from Croydon, South London and at time of his conviction told the court he was a ‘computer expert’. Don’t be fooled by the mask of “protests against fox hunting”, the article gives a full explanation of the array of activities of these people.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1100822/Guilty-Animal-terror-gang-raised-1million-rattling-tins-high-street.html
“After his release he moved to Wales where he set up a vegan erotica shop selling items such as hemp whips. The business failed.” Of course, when not “protecting” animals, Beverly Garside was running Torfaen Womens Aid (02995805) although prefering to be resident herself, in the leafier parts of south Powys..
“Hemp whips!” Oh dear, dear, I’m beginning to see Bev Garside in a different light. Where in Wales did he live?
Though the link won’t open for me, nor will it open if I Google it myself. I get the DM header but the article itself just flashes up for a second.
Vegan erotica shop, LOL. Whatever made Medd-Hall think there’d be much call for one of these in Wales? But never say never – Lammas maybe? Those hemp whips sound like they’d meet all the criteria for full sustainability. Why do we keep attracting these strange people?
Not knocking veganism but my local MP, Christina Rees has been one all her adult life apparently, and I don’t think she looks well. But maybe it’s the whip that dun it.
I think you have done or looked at it before, but sometimes [often?] you may find a lot of the CF or otherwise supported/funded groups operate out of Council owned premises, especially in Labour areas. Double subsidy – grant from WG & free or low cost premises from the council. Both funded by the central govt taxpayer and council taxpayer – talk about getting shafted twice!.
Re Empower – Owen Davies, Pamela Davies and James Davies. That’s a lot of Davies’ in the office. Even allowing for the fact it’s a common name in Wales, you wonder if there might be some familial connection?
I was thinking that, but as you say, it’s a common name and therefore difficult to check for relationships.
Nothing to do with me , guv !
In fact I find it offensive that members of my extended clan engage in such activities.
Excellent sleuthing to unravel that tangled web, Jac. An informative but incredibly frustrating read when you can see all those parasitic organisations at the public teat. How many must there be altogether in Wales? The mind boggles as the blood pressure rises. You finish off with the comment that the only way out of the downward spiral is independence. Agreed – but if this dream should ever become reality with the present lunatics in charge of the ship i.e. Welsh Labour, it will surely fast become a nightmare for the people of Wales and we’ll plummet to new depths. The rot is so deep that there is no cure. We need to slay the beast and start afresh. Nothing else will do.
You refer to Communities First and links to the Labour Party. Here in Neath Port Talbot I know that two of the Communities First team in what was called the Western Valleys Cluster (should that actually be Clusterfuck?) were soon swept into Christina Rees’ office when she became an MP, her third permanent member of staff was her future son-in-law, courting her daughter at the time, now I believe son-in-law proper as of this month. The two from the Clusterfuck then successfully stood for NPT Council in seats where Labour members were standing down. No stone was left unturned in terms of high profile canvassing in those two wards, with Rees and Jeremy Miles AM frequently seen pressing the flesh, as well as former MPs Hywel Francis and The Orange Baron making guest appearances. Both candidates got in by no more than the thickness of their skins, which should tell you something and make Welsh Labour very nervous about future elections. But they look after their own, though Jack Sargeant might not agree.
As you say, Stan, the links between the Labour Party and the third sector are so obvious, making Wales little different to a third world country.
Totally agree I am extremely angry that the third sector is used to keep people in shirt and ties. We have a few here in Llanelli ,Kidwelly and surrounding areas where these companies prey on the poor, The unemployed and community first areas. If all the money was donated to the voluntary organisations you would get far more done in our villages and towns and stretch the money further. Seems to be lots of hand outs to certain individuals from The Big Lottery also. pretending to invest 20 million is a story we have all heard but no one challenges because of the figure. No they are not the ones money giving over the money!! A shake up is needed indeed.
Yes, I’ve noticed how the Lottery funds many projects in Wales of dubious benefit to Wales. It might be worth a separate investigation.
“But the whole system is broke. We are told we need the third sector because Wales is poor . . . but the third sector thrives on poverty and makes us poorer . . . worsening poverty is then used to justify a bigger third sector . . . which makes us even poorer . . .”
Your conclusion, spot on Jac.
It’s like attaching more blood-suckers to a sick animal.
Vultures feed on the carcass and ticks, fleas etc live on the vulture. Thoroughly virtuous symbiotic relationship, in the minds of Labour party & 3rd sector cronies.
Such virtuous relationships are celebrated by awarding fat-cat salaries & benefits, or generous fee opportunities, to parasites that qualify for such treatment while the carcass gets dragged on down the road to further deeper poverty.
This is the problem with what I call the Poverty Industry, how it comes into existence, ostensibly to do ‘good’ but inevitably becomes a self perpetuating vehicle for those who work in it, providing a nice career ladder for those who don’t have the first clue about the lives of those they set out to help in the first place.
Communities First is of course the classic example of how not to do community regeneration, and I’m pretty sure that it’s schemes such as this that have made people question why we are members of the EU when all people see is EU money being squandered on providing a good living for Third Sector parasites, with a few benches placed and a few trees planted as a rather pitiful by product. Housing associations are increasingly forming part of this same Poverty Industry, with tenants effectively becoming more and more marginalised whilst facing ever increasing rents to the point where they will be unaffordable for anyone on average Welsh earnings.
The importation of England’s social problems is very concerning, I can understand why those people aren’t wanted in their home communities, but why is is supposed that we want them? It’s bad enough as it is that we have to endure those ‘blow ins’ who seem to think that Wales is the ideal ‘lebensraum’ for them to live their fringe lifestyles, but them, these people too are those who would likely be regarded as undesirable in their home communities. No Welsh politician would publicly come out and condemn such immigration policies, as we know they’d be dubbed as racists quicker than we can blink, but our politicians do need to do this. But equally it is us that needs to make them feel that they may lose their seat if they don’t start listening to us and our concerns. I don’t think that anyone who moves here, and genuinely wants to move to Wales, (as opposed to a piece of lebensraum) will have anything to fear, we aren’t that narrow a people in general, and anyone with something genuine to give will be welcomed, provided they accept that this is our country.
We need to remember that transportation to Australia didn’t stop because the British government had a change of heart, but because increasingly Australians started to say that they didn’t want the dregs of British society dumping on them. We need to start being equally vocal, and also encourage local Welsh people to be a bit more vocal and up front about what they really feel about having their country disappear in front of them. Centuries of servile thinking needs to be challenged.
Wales does have lots of social problems of it’s own, but increasing Third Sector meddling isn’t the answer. A more enlightened approach, and one much, much cheaper might just be to approach people in the marginalised communities directly and ask them what they think would cure their social ills – and I suspect that might actually deliver workable solutions at a radically lower cost. However, I don’t think it’s do much for these Third Sector parasites’ CVs. (Or their bank balances).
The stench gets stronger and stronger doesn’t it?
Time to bring out our can of ‘air freshener’. Only available from New Party outlets!
The way they all seem to link to one another is also interesting. There is definitely a third sector network.