Home Australia Outstandingly Awful Journalism from the Courier Mail (Hopeless, Really)

Outstandingly Awful Journalism from the Courier Mail (Hopeless, Really)

41
Could this be a smuggling operation up North?

by Mary W Maxwell, LLB

And I thought the New York Times Was Bad!

Here at GumshoeNews we all know that there is a problem of pedophilia out there in the great yonder. What Aussie could not know it after four years (2014-2017) of non-stop horror stories from the taxpayer-paid Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse?

Well, up there in Brisbane someone is holding out against it.  Someone can still pass off as NEWS the fact that persons trying to help children avoid abuse are (choose one or more): thieves, liars, nutjobs.

Let me just mention, as maybe the younger generation of journos has not heard it:  When government, or any large organization, makes an announcement – sends a press release, say – you are not supposed to just repeat it as an item in your daily paper. You have to go behind the story at least a little bit.

Here is what the Courier Mail of August 30 has to offer. THE HEADLINE IS:
Stalking charge dropped against NSW doctor William Pridgeon.

That is a very minor piece of news.  Like “Cat Caught in a Tree in Kew.” But it does seem to assume that the reader already knows who Dr William [Russell] Pridgeon is. So why even report it?  Could it be so the Courier Mail gets a chance to say something a bit negative about the old boy?

Let’s read the full article and then critique it. Here ’tis:

One of the charges against a doctor and anti-paedophile political party founder accused of being part of an alleged underground child stealing conspiracy has been dropped in a Brisbane court.

A NSW doctor who is charged over his alleged role in an underground child stealing conspiracy will no longer face a stalking charge.

Grafton doctor William Russell Massingham Pridgeon, founder of an anti-paedophile party, is alleged to have been the main financial backer behind the alleged abduction ring.

The network is accused of assisting mothers who snatched their children and claimed they were being sexually abused by their fathers. Police say the allegations were baseless.

The AFP alleges adults involved in the syndicate communicated using encrypted messaging applications and the children were hidden, had their hair dyed, were given new names and new birthdays.

Arrests were made after raids in Dubbo and Grafton, in NSW, Townsville and Perth, after a two-year police investigation.

A Commonwealth prosecutor today told Brisbane Magistrates Court there was a very large brief of evidence and “thousands and thousands” of documents and the case was quite complex.

Pridgeon and six others will face a three-day committal hearing in Brisbane Magistrates Court from October 8.

Pridgeon is facing three child stealing charges, conspiracy to defeat justice and dealing with proceeds of crime over $100,000.

Brisbane Magistrate Jacqui Payne today dismissed a stalking charge against him.

While on bail Pridgeon has had to wear an electronic tracking device.

Critique

OK. First of all, the journo refers to an underground child stealing conspiracy. What Dr Pridgeon’s group is doing is not Underground. Pridgeon made Herculean efforts to get the authorities involved in his very altruistic, professionally responsible effort.

Pardon me but I should know the Hercules factor, as I also have been involved in the same damn job for the last 15 months and it can draw on all your time and money, and occasionally “gets to you” emotionally, too.

In fact, just yesterday I told the editor of GumshoeNews, Dee McLachlan, that I could write an essay about her efforts to help the abused kids and label it “Sixteen Tons and Waddya Get?” She is another year older and deeper in debt, thanks to her proclivity to help people.

Back to the “underground child stealing conspiracy” meme. Hello. It’s not child stealing.  When you steal something, you take it for yourself. It adds value to your situation, right?  The several senior citizens who participated (I think the story has to do with NSW and QLD mainly) gave a safe haven to kids because the police won’t do it. It meant long hours, heaps of worry, and now, finally, the expense of court and the pain of wearing 24/7 a metal device on your leg.

So it’s not child stealing. Is it a conspiracy? I guess if you have to try to stay out of the police’s way, you have to conspire. The word conspire comes from spriro, to breathe and cum, with – you breathe with you co-conspirtors.  All right, I will capitulate. Those folks are breathing together.  But we known the Courier Mail does not mean “breathe with” innocently – the implication is criminal activity or at least something shameful.

Please.

Who Raped Whom? Was There A Rape at All?

Next we have the journo saying that the Pridgeon group “claimed [the kids] were being sexually abused by their fathers. Police say the allegations were baseless.”

Wow. The group made a claim. And yet the writer “overcame” that claim with a bland statement by police that it’s not true.

Since when do police have the upper hand on the truth?

Since when does a newspaper not feel it has to offer some fact by which the reader (the “customer” – there’s a paywall) can pick between the two contenders?

Right off the bat I’d say the non-police side, the group side,  is the one to listen to as they have – I mentioned – used their Herculean faculties.

You say, O Journo,  they “claimed [the kids] were being sexually abused by their fathers. Police say the allegations were baseless.”

Humans are lazy. I’m lazy as anyone could be. “Sloth R us.” I am not going to put effort into claiming that kids’ fathers have raped them if I have not done a fair bit of work to find out if it’s true or not.

And why would kids say it? It’s quite scary to try to spread a lie of that nature about a family member. I’m sure it is also humiliating for pre-pubertal or pubertal persons to have to discuss the matter at all.

Speaking of which, O Courier Mail, think how may children you may be directly hurting if they read your rant today and feel even more hopeless that they felt before.

Who Stalked Whom?  Was There Any Stalking at All?

Dear Journo, although I know the Pridgeon story in general I had not known that one of the charges against him was for stalking. I have met Russell and by God he does not strike me as the stalking type. Still, you have proclaimed it as a headline so you must know something about it.  What was the accusation, and more importantly why was the charged dropped yesterday?

We are simply dying to know.

OK I’ll leave it at that, except to make a small correction on what I said above. I said it does not “pay” to help the helpless. But in his letter to colleagues, Pridgeon says that doing the right thing does pay in some way. He wrote:

“This was one of the greatest privileges of my life to be able to help these children escape the horrific abuse inflicted upon them by fiends, and enabled by Rogue Judges, lawyers and Policemen who actively hid the truth, ignored evidence, and facilitated child rape, effectively trafficking these children to paedophiles.”

Crikey! Now there’s a news story!

SHARE

41 COMMENTS

  1. “Police say the allegations were baseless.”
    Wonder what happened to to 40 reports by the 14 or so experts? Did they land in the shredder?

    • I was born one mornin’ when the sun didn’t shine
      I picked up my shovel and I walked to the mine
      I loaded sixteen tons of number nine coal
      And the straw boss said “Well, a-bless my soul”

      You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
      Another day older and deeper in debt
      Saint Peter don’t you call me ’cause I can’t go
      I owe my soul to the company store

  4. Operation no ethics. At least this is a small victory for Dr Pridgeon. I hope it’s followed by major legal victories in his case. He is a major player in a fight against a titanic conspiratorial beast. But regardless of the odds and powers accosting him, the case of the two little girls he’s been trying to protect is well known now. He may just win as a result.

    • Excuse me. Do you mean the titanic beasts are breathing together?

      I had a feeling they were. Oh yes, Rachel, small victories really do help. I don’t know how he bears the ball and chain. High tech or not. How long would I hold out with something like that. Not long.

      OK everybody, show your support for these valiant people. We never mention Patrick O’Dea because we o not know his particulars. If you’re reading this, Patrick, sen us a particular.

      And goodonya.

  5. AFP, conspiracy to defeat justice, why Brisbane,? Judge Jarrett will be the goto man.
    Funny the courier mail would appear to be conspiring to taint a man that should considered innocent until proven otherwise.
    Guess kidnapping has not been used for a reason.
    Shame on courier mail for truth stealing.

  6. So was the charge in question withdrawn(1st paragraph of report) or dismissed((2nd to last paragraph of report) ?
    As a committal hearing isn’t due to take place till 8 October it was apparently withdrawn but the reporter is evidently so ignorant he/she doesn’t even know the difference.

    I’m guessing that it was a “plea bargain” charge which would suggest the good Doctor has no intention of engaging in any sort of compromise. Welcome news as far as I’m concerned!

  7. The conspiracy charges are baseless.S42 of the criminal code doesn’t apply.That is for things such as destroying evidence threatening witnesses etc,.The facts of this case show the correct charge (if there is one) ought to have been for contravening an order and dealt with in Family Court under the Family Law Act.Also there is a constitutional issue and in at some of the charges the Qld Courts have no jurisdiction to hear them.In relation to the child stealing charge the definition of PARENT excludes a NATURAL PARENT because the Act was amended to preclude a defence of a surrogate and parent who adopted out their child from claiming they were a parent.Also the charges cannot be heard together because they cannot be joined together under S43 of the Justices Act.The whole thing will end up being thrown out.On top of that there is the issue of procedural fairness and denial of justice as well as entrapment.

    • I’d like to think the entrapment was the other way round. Russell has entrapped the gov’t into making a complete ballsup.

      As far as procedural fairness goes, my grandmother had a metal icebox to which I recall the iceman delivering a big cube of ice every so often. In those days we didn’t have refrigeration but we had procedural fairness. Now we have refrigeration but we don’t have procedural fairness.

      But we would have it if we insisted on having it.

      QLD should drop this outrageous case.

      • So he was busted by the Feds but he’s being prosecuted by the State of Queensland?
        How does that work?

        From the vantage point of any intelligent and sentient being those concerned sure have created the reverse of what they intended but I daresay they’re every bit as oblivious to their predicament as the Courier Mail crew.

        The Top Brass are probably a tad nervous though.

  8. Well, this is something that our 1 billion per year Australian Broadcasting Commission should look at in its Media Watch program and comment upon?
    Poor Paul, won’t happen will it!?

  10. Russell was describing to me how the prosecution was subjecting the court to overwhelming white noise. The white noise being mountains of random paperwork. This all convoluted and confused between the cases. No sane person in the jury is going to be able to decipher the nonsense. This hides the plain deception of the case…

    • Aha! That is perhaps why they are calling these defendants a “syndicate.” Dee, how many accused’s are there besides O’Dea and Pridgeon?

      I think Cuffie, age 75, may be one of them. We must run her story. A three-month stay in prison nearly killed her, from the shock of it all. She was protecting her grandkids.

      Poor grandkids lost out on Grandma’s love I think she is forbidden to see them. That’s common in these cases. “Court orders,” you know. WHY ARE WE PUTTING UP WITH THIS?

      There’s a Strong Grandmother’s group somewhere in remote communities. Maybe they can give ballast.

    • Because the Qld Police on the whole are so crooked they have to screw their socks on. I have an awareness of this because back in the late 1960s /70s my mother in law had whole heap of them in her side of the family and didn’t treat my wife too well at all. Kevin W.

  12. This is just an ordinary days work for the Courier Mail. I read it on work break at times, these days more to study how it reports rather than what it reports. I actually find mal-reportage very interesting in a Bernays kind of way.

    • Kevin, I don’t know whom to believe. It is now midnight on US east coast. The Bahamas have already been hit. There are “mandatory” (???) evacuations tomorrow in Georgia, the Carolina’s and maybe Florida. Nothing mentioned about Puerto Rico.

    • It’s interesting the lanky cop on the right is wearing beige chinos and a dark top.The one passing the plastic envelopes is wearing a glove to keep his finger prints off them, but the tall one isn’t. I would say he has a police hat also, and dare I say it ,is probably a member of the shonky handshake brigade.

  14. Corporate Paedophilia: Sexualisation of children in Australia
    https://www.tai.org.au/node/1286

    Australian Pedophile Ring
    Critical Information on a Secret Pedophile Network
    https://www.wanttoknow.info/sexabuse/australian-network
    The disturbing article below was written in 2005 by Dr. Reina Michaelson, founder of Australia’s Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program. She describes her harrowing experience of trying to bring a pedophile teacher to justice, only the find the man had extensive protection from key elements of the police and many others at high levels. Her valiant efforts to expose a major pedophile ring leading to high levels of government and the media were eventually shut down.

    More than two dozen news articles support the claims of Dr. Michaelson, many from Australia’s most respected media outlets. You can access these eye-opening articles at this link. For example, Australia’s leading newspaper the Sydney Morning Herald reported in this revealing article:

    • Re the “Sexualisation of children” pdf :

      The core argument is akin to blaming fast food outlets for obesity.

      Children learn everything by imitating the adults around them.
      If they’re speaking, interacting or dressing in a way that is harmful reform needs to start with the mature-age role model.

  17. How the administration of the penal colony called Australia are taking away your rights
    https://corpau.blogspot.com/2017/08/how-administration-of-penal-colony.html

    http://corpau.blogspot.com/ (Abstract click on link for full article)
    Thursday, August 29, 2019
    Paedophiles in the Navy? Former commander incarcerated for abusing boys
    Is the colony of Australia full of paedophile in command?

    Why is only just one being prosecuted when there are many more?

    Only a couple of years for ruining people’s serf’s lives.

    See article from 29 Aug 2019 by thr Australian Broadcasting Corporation of the headline:

    Former Australian Navy commander sentenced to jail for two years for historic sex abuse of boys

  19. How the government trades on prisoners (Abstract click on link for full article)
    http://corpau.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-government-trades-on-prisoners.html

    From the dodgy world of politics and banking and finance comes information on how the slave trade is alive and well on a global scale.

    This information is provided from people within the industry, who naturally wish to remain anonymous, as the fear of repercussions is real that may follow through to their children.

    When a child is born in Australia, it is allegedly discarded from the vessel of its mother, and ownership is claimed by the corporate entity commonly known as the STATE OF (NEW SOUTH WALES or QUEENSLAND or VICTORIA, etc).

    The ‘seal’ in the illustration is of a corporate entity and not a government / constitutional / common law seal.

    Each ‘State’ of Australia is a separate business unit;

    The State of New South Wales: ABN 066 561 153

    The State of Queensland ABN 066 102 930

    The State of South Australia: ABN 050 208 921

    The State of Tasmania ABN 053 201 308

    The State of Victoria ABN 054 558 619

    The State of Western Australia ABN 072 526 008

    The ‘Commonwealth of Australia’ with the ABN 122 104 616 is registered (consisting of the above mentioned ‘states’ or businesses) with the United States of America, Securities and Exchange Commission, No. 00 080 5157, as a result open for trading on the global market place.

    Each individual is given a CUSIP number which then translates to a bond value which is put on the stock exchange.

    A prisoner also is traded on the stock market, under the name of the bonding warehouse (prison), where the surety (prisoner) is kept.

    The ‘persons’ name is in CAPITALS, as the ‘corporate’ entity.

    Under the U.N laws, of which Australia is a part of, slavery or the slave trade is illegal.

    The term ‘bond’ is commonly used, but rarely understood by the general public as to its true meaning.

  22. Australian paedophile support ring, which includes 2 former PM’s, out themselves in their support of George Pell
    https://kangaroocourtofaustralia.com/2019/03/02/australian-paedophile-support-ring-which-includes-to-former-pms-out-themselves-in-their-support-of-george-pell/

    In the last week 2 former Australian Prime Ministers, John Howard and Tony Abbott, have confirmed they supported George Pell before and after he was convicted of being a paedophile.

    “I published an article in 2015 titled: “Who is the former Australian Prime Minister and judges who are paedophiles?“ and said:

    There is enough detail in Senator Heffernan’s allegations to make them very credible. Some of the details are:
    (Click here to read the full 2015 article: “Who is the former Australian Prime Minister and judges who are paedophiles?”

    • Attributing perverted Family Court Orders to a lack of funding is just plain ludicrous;there’s only one way of fixing something that’s under the control of demons.

  26. A MESSAGE ABOUT DR. PRIDGEON

    Dr Pridgeon was charged with stalking a man he had never met.

    He had never spoken to or communicated with this person in any way.

    He had never threatened this person.

    And on the days of the offence he was in a different state: He in Grafton and the man in Brisbane.

    Yet this charge was sustained for 10 months and used to portray the good doctor to the courts as a dangerous criminal who should have strict bail conditions including a GPS tracker.

  27. The police are corrupt and are being used politically instead of caring for the overall safety of the public. It is just another tier against the public now. They used to be called “peace officers” now it is a “police force” and we are living in a police state.

    Rod Culleton + How to Handle Bad Cops
    https://larryhannigan.com/2019/08/19/rod-culleton-how-to-handle-bad-cops/

    38 – Vic. Fake police unlawful arrest
    https://larryhannigan.com/australia/38-mcg/
    Remember as you watch and read – these armed and uniformed individuals are not “police” they are security guards employed by a private company named the Victorian Police ABN 63 446 481 493 registered in Washington – no lawful jurisdiction.

    • The current Victorian Police Badge displayed has the 5 pointed star in the Satanic position, with two points up and one down. I tried to print it but my computer reneged. Kevin W.

C'mon Leave a Reply, Debate and Add to the Discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.