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(not satire)

“Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive“- Sir Walter Scott

Today the Mail on Sunday did a hatchet job on the child abuse victim Steven Messham in an attempt to discredit him as a witness after he mistakenly identified Lord McAlpine as his attacker – a mistake which it now seems was a direct result of misleading information given to him by North Wales Police.

See this previous article for more information about that:

It was the police – not the BBC – who wrongly named Lord McAlpine in abuse allegations

I make no apology for telling you my heart went out to Mr Messham when I read the Mail on Sunday piece attacking him. It seemed to me he was being abused all over again.

The article in the Mail on Sunday is clearly an attempt on the part of sections of the British establishment to strike back at allegations which potentially could bring down some of its most powerful members, and Mr Messham is probably just collateral damage in their eyes.

But what’s most interesting for me about the disgusting article is its author  – a man called David Rose.

Who is he?

Oh what a can of worms that question turns out to be.

David Rose seems to be what is known by some people in the trade as a ‘fixer’.

‘Fixers’ obviously ‘fix’ things – in his case, Rose specialises in ‘fixing’ tricky problems which are inconveniencing parts of the more conservative parts of the establishment – by using spin, disinformation and pure lies.

In fact, he’s been specialising in discrediting victims who have accused establishment figures of child abuse for some years now, as well as trying to discredit child abuse investigations as a whole – see here and here.

But interestingly, Rose is also a major player in the disinformation campaign being waged by powerful oil interests and right-wing politicians keen to deny the human causes of climate change.

See here, here and here.

As well as the disinformation campaign that was waged before the invasion of Iraq – see here.

OK. So the person responsible for the disgraceful attack on one of the child abuse victims in today’s Mail on Sunday is a batshit-crazy, climate-change denying establishment fixer in the pay of a powerful right-wing establishment.

Probably.

However, it seems there may be more than one journalist called David Rose. And some people in the industry are not even all that sure whether David Rose actually even exists at all.  David Allen Green, writer of the ‘Jack of Kent’ blog tells me ‘his’ David Rose definitely doesn’t exist – see his blog here.

On the other hand, according to the indefatigable Ian Bone – he does exist because he tells me he actually met Rose way back in 1985 – see Ian’s blog about it here.

I think before we allow the reputation of a brave survivor of child sexual abuse to be trashed, we should know exactly who his accuser is, don’t you?

So will the real David Rose please stand up? Come out come out David, whoever you are.

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For more information on the disinformation campaign being waged to discredit child abuse investigations, see Rico Sorda’s excellent blog here:

RICO SORDA

Please help to counter the disinformation campaign against child abuse victims by sharing this with as many people as possible. Thanks: