Child Kidnapping In The Isle Of Man

By Richard Stevenson

This is the story in novel form of 3 Anglo-Russian children snatched by the Isle of Man care system due to an undiagnosed rare medical condition of one child. They have been prisoners for 5 years and the IOM Courts condoned this. It can happen to your children so is the IOM a safe place for children? John and Vera came here for better education but the worst school in the UK would have been safer
One Monday in 2014, 7-year-old Olga, an Anglo-Russian child was sent home from school in Ramsey Isle of Man as she had vomited. Dada took her to the GP who said it was gastroenteritis and prescribed fasting for 24 hours. The parents did so on Tuesday, but at 8.00am on Wednesday when she was to have her first meal she collapsed and was admitted to Nobles Hospital. A brilliant doctor saved her life and said neglect was the likely cause but there was a 1 in 100,000 chance of a metabolic explanation. Social Services stormed in and seized the children. A week later the 1 in 100,000 chance came up, but as with brittle bones cases, social services can never admit mistake. Their own ‘hired gun’ child psychologist said removal from her parents had been bad for the middle child, Tatiana, whilst Maria was a lively bright child and contrary to the social worker claims, was not closing down The consultant said Olga needed to be returned to her parents as did a consultant at the renowned Alder Hey childrens hospital. A foster carer misled Alder Hey by a factor of 500% on admissions to hospital to get them to agree to an operation a social worker wanted. When Alder Hey knew the truth they said no, but Olga with Addisons disease was saved from a risky operation by her English father and the consultant at Nobles, who was later removed from the case. Social services alleged child neglect by the parents, but glossed over two Addisonian crises by Olga in their care. When a foster carer forced a sick seven year old child to clear up her own vomit, that was OK. Social Services promised the three children, who had been described as a tight little unit, would not be split up. The IOM Family court refused to hear evidence from the children, and rubber stamped what social services wanted. After the verdict, social workers split the children up within weeks as the oldest child fought for her rights so was pushed off to another foster carer.
The Social worker said that in her opinion the mother had not been sufficiently exposed to the British Way of Life. This is racist. The mother, ‘Vera’ whose name must be disguised in this novel, as with the children’s names, was Russian, but is a Muslim or a Chinese woman any different? Racism crosses boundaries. How should the people of Russia react to the kidnap of these half Russian girls, one of whom said she wanted to join 106 Airborne when she was old enough to defend Russia? Dada John had to explain Addisons for her, but pulled strings so she has a genuine Airborne blue beret. In December 2018, Olga warned dada that the social worker wanted to talk to him, but he should not believe what he said. The girls cannot talk in Russian but can sing the anthem of Russia fluently as the Guardian admitted in a report.
The mother Vera is a gentle person and was devastated by what had been done in 2014. Biased contact reports trashed her for following WHO advice on hand washing when the contact centre said it was OK to eat OFF the tabletop! In January 2016 Vera had a breakdown, but her sister flew 3000 miles to help her, so she made it. John is English but says he has four Golf Star Heroines,Vera, Olga, Tatiana and Maria. John also has Russian ancestors. By exposing this crime against three children in the Isle of Man, he hopes the Manx people will say ‘enough’ and if the people of Russia say ‘nasha’, these 3 children who adore the Rodina they have never seen, maybe able to visit the Grand Kremlin palace soon. How many other child victims are there of social services?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Stevenson
• Release date: Jun 29, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463957264

Richard Stevenson

Richard Stevenson teaches English and Creative Writing at Lethbridge College. His most recent books include a lyric/narrative collection of poems, Wiser Pills (2008), and two collections of haiku, senryu, and tanka: The Emerald Hour (2008) and Tidings of Magpies (2008).

Book preview

Child Kidnapping in the Isle of Man.

It can happen to Your Kids too!

A crime against half Russian children by Social Workers in a land where timid politicians shut their eyes to evil.

Richard Stevenson

This is the story in novel form of three children snatched by the Isle of Man care system due to an undiagnosed rare medical condition of one child. They have been prisoners for 5 years and the IOM Courts condoned this. It can happen to your children, so is the IOM a safe place to bring up children? John and Vera came here for better education but the worst school in the UK would have been safer.

© 2019 Richard Stevenson. This is the nom-de-plume of the author, who cannot be named for legal reasons. This copyright notice is subject to the provision that if attempts are made by the IOM authorities to suppress this book by taking it off the Internet, that he authorises any and all persons with downloaded copies to upload it to the net again. No other rights are conferred by this conditional reload license.

Richard Stevenson reserves all rights over printed editions of this novel. All International filming rights for this novel are retained by Richard Stevenson, although this is purely his nom de plume, in which he relates in novel form the sufferings of John Stevenson, John’s Russian wife Vera, and their beloved half-Russian daughters, Olga, Tatiana and Maria.

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely’ is a well known axiom. It was true in the Isle of Man in 1662. Students of Manx history will know that the arbitrary and unjust rule of the Stanley family and the judicial murder of Illiam Dhone in 1662 prompted the Stevenson and Christian families to campaign for a limitation of such powers, which was accomplished in the Act of Settlement in 1704. This is often called the Manx Magna Carta. One of the people spearheading that campaign was John Stevenson of Balladoole, and it was said of him that he was an unflinching champion of popular rights and liberties.

Just as the powers-that-be betrayed Illiam Dhone to death in 1662, so the Island was in need of champions of liberty, so the authorities in the child care trade today act in a brutal and corrupt manner, as they have absolute power, so the name of John Stevenson seemed right and fitting for one of the central characters in this book which I hope may lead to root and branch reform in the Isle of Man. The novel is told through the eyes of Richard Stevenson. This name is also honoured in Manx history. Richard and John Stevenson and the author share a common ancestor, and the author prays he may be worthy of the Stevenson and Christian blood in his veins.

Paradoxically, although John’s wife is Russian, her ancestry can only be traced back a century or so, but John’s Russian ancestry can be traced back to 862AD. Their real children have Russian names, though not Olga, Tatiana and Maria of the novel. To give their real names would give the authorities an excuse to imprison the author. Students of Russian history can guess why those three names have been selected for the novel. John’s daughters are prisoners of a cruel regime, so what better names for their pseudonyms than three beautiful Russian prisoners who died a century ago. They were the Romanov grand duchesses, and John’s three girls are his little Grand Duchesses.

Improbable though it may sound, John’s ‘Grand Duchesses’ are descended, as John is, from a true Russian Grand Duchess who was born a thousand years ago. She became Regent of France when France was under threat from William Duke of Normandy, and no French noble had the courage to rule. She saved her adopted land by wisdom and courage, and William turned his attentions elsewhere, as we know from 1066. May the example of Anna Yaroslavna of Rus, guide our family as we too strive for freedom and the freedom of all prisoners of IOM Social Services.

A false account by Nurse S misled the magistrates into granting an emergency order on false accusations of loss of weight, children cowering and failure to cooperate with health professionals. A social worker had produced a string of allegations such as all children were on the verge of closing down, but professional witnesses had now confirmed this was not true, and the ‘hired gun’ appointed by the Department to bolster up their case was scrupulously fair. He agreed the children were clearly upset by what John had referred to in Court as kidnapping (and had been reprimanded by the judge for doing so, but John feels kidnapping is kidnapping is kidnapping.) If the kidnappers feel offended by being called kidnappers, should they not put themselves in the position of the defendants in the Nuremberg war crimes trials. Most of the acts of the Nazis from 1933 to 1945 were covered by government decrees, legislation and court orders from evil judges, but the excuse that there was a bit of official paper justifying something does not justify a crime against humanity, and was not accepted at Nuremberg.

**

In the Stevenson case, the first guardian, who rubber stamped whatever IOM social services did, churned out the standard platitude that the children, in view of their closeness, should not be separated; the replacement guardian said the same thing, probably truthfully. The judge said it, but within weeks of the court decision, Olga had been torn from her two sisters, and has remained separate from them for two years. The social worker who led the original assault on the family has made great play that the children would not be separated, but like so much of what she said, it was what was convenient at that time. It was a repeat of the claim that neglect had to take place over months or years, and Olga’s deterioration happened in two days, and then it was weeks or months. She said whatever seemed expedient at that moment, rather than the truth.

**

At page 21 of his report Dr N said Olga was expressive in contact and engaged warmly and affectionately with both parents. She was physically affectionate with her father and indeed her mother. There were some other moments when she was seeking for more affection which mother did not respond to. When she did respond these were usually very positive and Olga clearly got a lot from these interactions. John thanked the witness for this comment, suggesting ‘that was my sense of her relationship to both of us.’ Dr N replied, ‘Yes, all three children are affectionate children.’

**

Contact time is NOT ‘quality time’ as social services pretend, but time when the parents and children have a few precious hours together, but know they are under a microscope. Olga once whispered to John, ‘Don’t trust any of them, dada.’ It showed how good Olga was at summing up trustworthy and untrustworthy people.

**

We now come to one of the most shameful remarks made by Ms Q, In one passage the social worker proclaims, it is my professional opinion that due to her lifestyle she has had limited access to experience the British way of life. The implication is clear, is it not? ‘This stupid foreigner is lucky enough to live in the promised land. She could not possibly prefer her backward ideas to the British Way.’ The comment about the British Way is patronizing and racist. There are good things about The British Way, but the population of the world in 2013 was 7.1 Billion: the population of the UK was 64 million people. The great majority of the world does NOT follow the British Way, so is there something extra good about the British Way?

**

Mr W, who visited the house with social worker Mrs Q on 4 November 2014, and had been a part of the ‘care team’ who had placed Samantha Barton where she was to be murdered, had a plan for Olga, Tatiana and Maria. Thanks to false evidence from Nurse S, the police and Mrs Q at the EPO hearing on 19 September 2014, and the subsequent extension of that into an Interim Care Order, Social Services knew they were in the driving seat, so there was no need for the plan to be fair or likely to lead to the children being freed.

**

Despite a signed agreement approved by the representative of the Attorney general, by the court, and signed by the parties, Mr W had forced a reference to psychological assessments into his replacement plan. In effect he has torn up the agreement signed by the department, even though the parents had kept to their word not to contest the ICOs.

His principal ground in the blackmail meeting on 9 March, was Vera’s hand washing tendencies. When he was challenged to write a letter to Vera that the low hygiene standards of the contact centre, where a deputy manager had said it was OK to eat off the table, were no threat to safety, he instantly refused to do so. In other words it was perfectly in order for Vera to risk Olga’s life but if, like the two children in Seattle, Olga paid for these low hygiene standards with her life, he was not going to accept any more blame than he had when Samantha Barton died.

**

John noted, ‘They had asked for a ride on the Laxey Mines train, and Olga said she would eat the rest of her biscuits after the train ride. They enjoyed the train, and on their return Olga asked for her biscuit. As she said she was hungry and a second biscuit was within the permitted diet, I took the packet out of my pocket and was instantly told Olga could not have the biscuit as it was too late! I returned it to my pocket. Olga reasonably wanted to know why she could not have a biscuit? Clearly I could not tell her I had been forbidden to give her a biscuit, so I took your [i.e. social worker Q’s] instructions and told her to ask you.’

On a previous occasion, Tatiana asked for some money and John gave her a 1p coin, as that could hardly be deemed subversive. To his disgust, the coin was returned to him after the children had left, so a member of staff had actually forced a child to hand over a 1p coin! John managed not to say Scrooge was alive and well in the Contact Centre, but he certainly thought it. He had never heard of an adult snatching a 1p coin from a child!

**

A point John repeatedly made was that six health professionals failed to identify Addison’s between March and September 2014, so he and Vera could not reasonably be expected to do so, whilst the list of medical appointments shattered the claims of failure to work with health professionals. Dr Z had said the difference between good and bad treatment would be knowledge of Addison’s and prior to an Addisonian crisis, even health professionals often did not spot it. From September 2014 it was known but under departmental care, Olga had another crisis on 28 December almost identical to the previous one, but with the key difference that Addison’s was now known and there should have been proper directions to foster carers etc as to what to do. Dr Z had agreed to all of these points. Who does that point the finger of blame to? It has to be Social Worker Q who was the responsible party and who failed to prepare such instructions.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to ALL the child victims of Isle of Man Social Services and their parents, but these children cannot, because of the official terror of publicity, be named with one exception, and that is Samantha Barton, who was murdered in care in 2002. Social Services exploited her death to make things worse for other children. I pray this novel may help redress this, so Samantha’s death will not be in vain, but other children may live in hope through her and John’s kidnapped children. To the children who must be anonymous, I pray for freedom for all of you, and not just for John’s three kidnapped children.

Social Services headquarters are in Murray House, which is named after the Dukes of Athol. It was a fitting choice of name for such a building, as the last Murray to hold high office was Bishop Murray who, although comfortably off, sought to increase tithes on the poor of the Island which led to the Potato riots of 1825, in which the bishop had to take shelter from Manxmen outraged at his lack of compassion for the poor. In the end the English government moved him off the Island to defuse the trouble he had stirred up, and he was taken to the boat with an armed escort. With a bishop like that, Murray house is perhaps a fitting name for the headquarters of an organisation as cruel as IOM Social Services!

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and set a keg of gunpowder under slavery. I hope this book sets a (metaphorical) keg of gunpowder under the corrupt and evil child care system of the Isle of Man.

This book is also dedicated to the memory of Illiam Dhone otherwise William Christian, judicially murdered in 1662, and to John Stevenson of Balladoole, that unflinching champion of popular rights and liberties. It is also dedicated to John’s wife ‘Vera’ and her parents Aleks and Valya who live in freedom in Russia. Valya said of the way they had been treated by the IOM ‘Care system, that they were fascists. She used the word in a Russian sense meaning cruel and oppressive. She was right.

Cover Illustration

Much as I would like to show the three child victims of this novel on the cover, that cannot be, so I have included a sombre view of Douglas Head. Why is it sombre? In two world wars, the Island was a vast internment camp, and the great majority of the internees harboured no dark designs against the realm. In the Great War, many were the German spouses of English people, others were waiters, musicians, governesses and people from all walks of life, some of whom had been here for 20 or 30 years, but with paranoid official hysteria, were swept into prison camps.

In the Second World War, many of those who had fled from Hitler, lest they be murdered, were imprisoned through the same paranoid official hysteria. Social workers’ fear of another Baby P case has swept thousands of children into similar internment, and bad though England is, the Isle of Man is far worse.

The painting is from the Metropole Hotel on Douglas promenade looking towards Douglas Head and was done by a prisoner. Instead of the usual picture postcard scene, the weather is sombre and the mood is of despair with the barbed wire entanglement along the prom in the foreground.

When John’s children were interned by social services, John and his wife became prisoners of a war the state must keep secret from honest people, and over the past few years John has come to understand the psychology of a prisoner. If you know the day of your release, and September 2028 will be the last possible date Maria can remain a prisoner of state, you are glad when each day is dropped into the garbage can of history, as it is one less horrible day till you and your loved ones are free.

In 2018, when it was ten years to the day before the last possible date Maria can remain a prisoner, John celebrated. Now less than nine years and three months of the prison sentence remain and September 2019 will take it below nine years in the prison camp of Mann.

When John can leave what to him is now the Island of Alcatraz for the last time, it will be a joyous day and as the Island vanishes out of sight, it will be a moment to savour. His father when John was a child said how sad the little boy was to leave the Island at the end of a holiday. On freedom day there will be rapture.

If before then, John can through his efforts, free the child prisoners of social services and bring accountability and democracy to the Isle of Man, then it will be good for not only the victims of social services but generations as yet unborn. If he fails, the Island will remain a place where no sane or caring parent would want to hazard their children.

If you wonder as to the timing of this ‘novel’, the Isle of Man boasts the oldest Parliamentary assembly in the world, although it carefully forgets that until Lord Loch was sent to the Island as Governor in the 1860s with orders to clean up the mess, it was a self elected oligarchy, whose greatest mistake was to jail a fearless newspaper man who exposed their antics. Each year, on 5 July, the Isle of Man celebrates its thousand year old parliament with an open air meeting at Tynwald Hill. In theory, Tynwald is the fount of Freedom. This novel is a challenge for the Members of Tynwald. Do hapless child prisoners of state stir your conscience, or do you prefer to wash your hands of evil, as Pontius Pilate did two thousand years ago.

You, the Members of Tynwald can make the changes, and if you do not, I hope that other better men and women will take up the burden at the next Manx general election. Joseph de Maistre said, ‘Toute nation a le gouvernement qu'elle mérite’ or each country gets the Government it deserves. I do not think the Isle of Man people or the child prisoners deserve the Social Services or Justice system they suffer under, and let us hope our current politicians say ‘this must change’ or it is up to the people to ask do our children deserve such a regime?

Preface

Throughout history, authors have used novels as a vehicle to demand reform. Perhaps best known is Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which lit a fire which engulfed the United States and destroyed slavery. Charles Dickens used fiction to campaign for children’s rights, education and social reform, all of which were badly needed in his day. He was a great novelist and did much to make the reform of Victorian society possible. If Dickens were alive today, he would be far more adept than I in highlighting the abuse of children and families by Isle of Man Social Services.

William Stead was another great campaigner, though he worked under his own name. In 1885, he published a series of four articles entitled ‘The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon’ to expose Victorian child prostitution. To demonstrate the truth of his astonishing revelations, he arranged the purchase of Eliza Armstrong, the 13-year-old daughter of a chimney sweep, though he had no improper intent towards her. His actions made the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 inevitable, but authority was so bitter at the way Stead had exposed their complacency, that he was convicted of abduction and imprisoned for three months on purely technical grounds, for he had no wish to abuse the child. Officialdom and the courts never lack the ability to show their own cruel nature, as we shall see more than one hundred and thirty years later. I wonder if they may decide to jail me? If I can achieve what Harriet Beecher Stowe, Dickens or Stead did for the children of the Isle of Man, it will be an unpleasant but trivial price to pay.

The novel is the story of what happened to John and his children, but lest you think I am biased, in the eyes of the Lord, all men are brothers, so you are my brother or sister, and John is your brother. The poet John Donne put it, I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

If what happens in the ‘novel’ is based on true events, why should the reader not know the names of the child victims of IOM Social Services, and the names of the guilty, from the minister down to the most junior social worker? That would be just, but the reader needs to cast his mind back to the Baby P and Victoria Climbié cases in England. In both cases, family members so abused these helpless children that they died horribly. Victoria had suffered numerous injuries in the time she had been in England, and social workers had ample warning of the risks to her, and time to act, but took no action and she died. This was a case where action clearly was needed.

The Home Secretary appointed Lord Laming, a former chief Inspector of the Social Services Inspectorate to conduct a statutory enquiry. This was widely criticised at the time, as Laming had been head of Hertford County Council’s Social Services which was condemned for maladministration and injustice during his tenure of office. A social worker was manifestly not the right person to investigate social workers’ misconduct, just as a general of the SS would not be the ideal person to investigate the Gestapo impartially.

Social Services, even without the Laming Report, needed to learn lessons, and they assuredly did. The first and crucial lesson was that the media had slammed the failings of the social services departments, rightly saying heads should roll. Social workers took this lesson to heart, and adopted a much more aggressive approach to taking children into care. In rare cases, like Victoria, children should be taken into care, but Social Workers have adopted the approach, ‘Better a thousand families should be torn apart, than one social worker should lose their job.’ In effect, Laming’s report became a blueprint for protecting social workers by seizing children on little or no plausible evidence.

Once a child has been seized in England or the Isle of Man, the ‘officialdom can do no wrong’ attitude of civil servants comes into play. We are all loathe to admit error but civil servants take this to extremes. To admit a mistake is to cast doubt on officialdom and if the original grounds for seizing a child collapses, as in the infamous ‘brittle bones’ cases, new grounds must be invented to justify continued detention of the children in care. The novel you are about to read is of a similar rare medical condition, put by a consultant paediatrician at 1 in 100,000. When John was accused of neglect after following medical advice to fast Olga, he blamed the GP. Later he realised the GP had no better chance of knowing the situation than he had. John was not legally bound to apologise to the GP in private, let alone in public. He did so in court, on the basis that the wrong to the GP had been in court documents, so the atonement had to be as public. Social Services showed no such willingness to acknowledge overhasty actions.

In February 2002, the Isle of Man had its own Social services scandal, with the murder of Samantha Barton and George Green at the Leece Lodge Care home, when both these children were in care. Samantha’s mother, who had to speak outside the court afterwards so her voice could be heard, rightly blamed Isle of Man social services for failing to look after her daughter, saying, ‘They should all be sacked. They should have sent those children home because they couldn’t look after them.’ There is an old legal maxim, Res Ipsa Loquitur, or ‘the thing speaks for itself.’ That a child should be in long term ‘care’ and murdered at the care home certainly does speak for itself. However bad the neglect of Victoria was, her death was when she was in the care of her family; not when she was in the charge of social services as with Samantha. Could Samantha have fared worse if she had been released from the custody of social services as her mother suggested? There was no suggestion her mother would murder her. What could have befallen poor Samantha that could have been worse than murder?

Once again there was a public enquiry, and that makes grim reading, not least when it came out that the IOM social care trade knew this child was regularly having sex in the care home at the age of twelve. If the actual parents of a 12-year-old girl knowingly allowed her to have sex in their home, the child would be rightly taken into care and the parents taken before the court. So far as I can find from the official report there was NO punishment for those involved in Samantha’s care. Knowing how evidence over Olga has been swept under the carpet, or fabricated, when I read the Samantha Barton report, most of the witnesses worked for social services in some way, so how true was the evidence put to the enquiry? Was Samantha as bad as she was made out to be? Could it be that a troubled child had her troubles made worse by the way social workers regard their victims’ wishes with contempt? Olga is on social services record as refusing to attend a review meeting as no one listens to her! Children tend to become more troublesome in adolescence, so what may befall Olga? Was Samantha neatly stitched up by her captors and her faults maximised to disguise their fault? What has happened to Olga so far suggests this is so.

I have referred to the social care ‘trade,’ for it is a multi-million pound industry which many people make a comfortable living from. Social workers adopt the view that they must protect their own backs regardless of the damage it does to children. Even worse, many services in the Isle of Man, such as fostering, adoption, supervised contact with children in care, etc, are contracted out to children’s charities. In one case, a ‘Charity’ with a few hundred thousand pounds of donation income, earned millions from commercial services, and with just one paying customer, IOM Social Services, is in the position of any supplier of services to a monopoly customer.

There are suggestions that Samantha’s mother was not a good mother but the child was in care long before she was twelve, so the mother is blameless over her murder. There are suggestions Samantha was a troublesome child, but do we really blame the child? Is that acceptable, or are those who had usurped parental authority over her and failed to use it capably to blame? Critics of this book will need to provide a very convincing reason why Samantha is to blame? I certainly cannot. Assuredly she could be foolish, but bad or to blame? No! If you would blame her, ask how much better you would have done in her shoes?

Samantha’s mother rightly said, ‘They should all be sacked. They should have sent those children home because they couldn’t look after them.’ I cannot fault that remark. I will make this challenge to the IOM Minister of Health and Social Care, ‘Samantha died, so could she have fared worse if she had been allowed to go home?’ I do not, of course, expect the Minister to reply. He will duck for cover, as he usually does, but his silence before the supreme court of public scrutiny will be eloquent proof of how right Samantha’s mother was.

Far from being sacked as Samantha’s mother said should be done, at least one of those in a supervisory role in Samantha’s case in the run-up to her death was promoted further up the social services tree by 2014. Would the Minister like to defend that? It would be a mistake to hold your breath.

As with the Laming report over Victoria Climbié, there was an official report which was conducted by Mark Everall QC. Thankfully a senior social worker, who would look after the interests of social workers, was not appointed. Inevitably most of the witnesses were in some way involved in ‘the trade’ and had much to brush under the carpet. Would an enquiry upon the running of Auschwitz find fault if there were no prisoners to give evidence, only the guards? That was the case here.

Once again, social services exploited a tragedy to enhance their own powers to protect themselves, not least by throwing a lot of the blame onto politicians. Manx politicians now run scared of social service, and one wonders if other agencies are influenced by the same fear? Can Children in the Isle of Man expect fairness from anyone in authority, or are in a worse position than children in any other part of the British Isles, and that is bad enough. Sir James Munby, President of the Family Court in the UK strove to bring fairness to the system, but those reforms do not seem to have reached the shores of Mann.

The reader, if he or she is to begin to understand the surreal and horrific world of child care, needs to enter a horror story version of Alice in Wonderland, where normality is turned on its head. We have been taught to believe about dedicated social workers, foster carers and child care professionals, but this is not as the world really is in the child care trade which so many people make their living out of. Interestingly a retired social worker John knows of is so ashamed of what social services do now, that she describes herself as a retired local government employee.

Would any decent parent make an eight year old child clean up their own vomit? I suggest not, and if social services heard of such child abuse, they should take action. In our story, Olga, as a result of her medical problems, was prone to vomit, and the social worker admitted in court that the foster carer had spoken of making Olga clean up her own vomit. In the story, the IOM Court, in its compassionate wisdom, did not see this as a problem, nor did the head of social services or the minister. The first guardian was willing to disregard it. It was due to the second Guardian that the true facts came out, that it was not just a stupid remark as the social worker implied, but actually took place. If the events related in the novel actually took place, I suggest the Isle of Man has cause to be ashamed of its Justice System, the Fostering Service and above all, a social service regime that does nothing to dismiss such a deplorable foster carer. It is only a novel, so is it so? Again I challenge the minister to deny that a child with Addison’s disease was made to clean up her own vomit, or is he the Minister for making children clean up their own vomit? If he is the Minister for making sick children clean up their own vomit, do you desire him as your MHK after the next election?

Social Services claimed the foster parents who had made Olga clean up her own vomit, would not play a part in the children’s future. That promise to the court was broken in the novel. Did it really happen, or is it an author using poetic license? The same foster carer had so misled Alder Hey children’s hospital that a tonsillectomy was agreed by Alder Hey and it was due to a courageous consultant in the Isle of Man and John’s determination that an operation that carried an increased risk, due to her medical condition, was not performed. Within six months Alder Hey said it was not needed. The honest consultant has been replaced, but not the foster carer!

The Island is racist, or to put it in a wider context, discriminatory. From the novel it will be clear how the fictitious mum, Vera, is Russian, and how different cultures have different norms. Americans and Australians are much blunter spoken than the British, and the same is true of Russians. One of John’s friends was an officer in the USAF. When they met John thought him the rudest man he had ever met, but soon found it was a different way of speaking by a fine man.

In the trial sequences in this novel, we read how John sought to introduce a 20 page research paper on cultural differences between Russians and Westerners to explain his wife’s reactions to some situations. In the novel, the judge says they will not be paying much attention to it. Could this really have happened in a Manx court? Would a Manx judge say relevant evidence would be treated lightly? It sounds like something from the show trials in Moscow in the 1930s which led to many Old Bolsheviks being executed. In those trials, inconvenient evidence was ignored and false confessions were fabricated, and in this novel you will find words being put in the mouth of witnesses by the police, as you would expect in a novel about the USSR. Did it really happen in the Isle of Man? The Russian government after the fall of communism rehabilitated many of the victims of judicial murder in the 1930s. In 1662 the Isle of Man was guilty of the judicial murder of Illiam Dhone, who was rehabilitated by Westminster. Is the story of a judge saying in court that evidence would be disregarded true or dramatic composition? Richard cannot say, as that would cross the line between fiction and non-fiction, so the reader must decide for him or herself.

Is this justice? Would the IOM Minister of Justice like to say if he would approve of such an utterance in a court as are outlined in this novel? On the other hand, if it is behind closed doors in a family court, it could be conveniently swept under the carpet. Discrimination is at the heart of much cruelty in the world, Catholics to Protestants, Muslims to Hindus and Christians, the Nazis to the Jews and Slavs and that is just a snapshot. Ethnic cleansing took place in Bosnia in the 1990s and in Myanmar in 2016, and is the physical expression of racism. Racism survives when it is tolerated as respectable.

In the novel, a social worker wrote it was her professional opinion that Vera had not been sufficiently exposed to the British Way of life. If a social worker writes such words, I suggest this is racism. The Nazis believed Jews, Slavs and other ethnic groups were inferior, untermensch. Should the IOM Court accept the untermensch concept in a social care case, or does a judge have a duty to express outrage at such comments? If a witness said, ‘Niggers are lazy’ is that acceptable in a Manx Court? I find it embarrassing to even use that phrase as an example, as it is disgusting. I totally dissociate myself from such racist ideas, but does the court not have a far greater duty to say racism will not be tolerated?

Sadly the IOM does not have a good reputation; Illiam Dhone was sentenced to death so that was a judicial murder in 1662. Russia, so often held up as a brutal regime, abandoned the use of the knout, which was a fearsome whip, in 1917. England abandoned birching in 1948, but the Isle of Man persisted in torturing juveniles until 1972, when one of the child victims appealed to the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that birching was degrading and in breach of the convention in 1976. Manx judges were aware that the Island was bound by the European Convention long before that, but did nothing to rule against the unlawful brutality of the magistrates. In 1981, five years after the European Court ruling, and in defiance of the ECHR ruling, which was now the LAW of the land, a Manx magistrate sentenced a 16-year-old boy from Scotland to be birched. The UK had been humiliated by being associated with such sadism in 1972-76, so rather than relying on a Manx judge, the UK insisted a judge was sent over from the UK who would adhere to international law. Inevitably this sadistic local judgment was not upheld. It was 1993 before the Isle of Man formally renounced the torture of children and one of the reasons given in Tynwald was that it was no longer a deterrent, as the families of children tortured in the Isle of Man would make a fortune from the UK media!

There are a few genuine photos of Nazis with whips, but however grotesque it is, probably the best photo of a known uniformed torturer is of an officer of the IOM Constabulary proudly holding the new improved, i.e. more painful, birch he had just invented. Some people created worthwhile things, such as penicillin, microwave stoves, heart pacemakers. The Isle of Man invented an improved instrument of child torture. If the Island is proud of this, maybe the Three Legs should be replaced by the Three Birches of Mann to represent our improvements to torturing technology?

Graham Greene wrote a satirical novel, Our Man in Havana. Perhaps after this novel, ‘Child Kidnapping in the Isle of Man’, I may try my hand with a novel based on that bizarre scenario!

In normal cases the Court is open to the public, as justice must be seen to be done, and this is true even in trials under the official secrets act, though some evidence can be heard in camera. Child care cases are held in secret and the public are not admitted to such cases. Why? The official explanation is to ‘protect the children,’ but the real reason is that the majority of the population are decent compassionate people. If ‘the people’ knew of the extent of the scandal in which children are snatched from their parents to protect social workers, there would be a public outcry and demands for reform. MPs, (or in the Isle of Man MHKs) would be inundated with demands for a fairer system, or they would lose their seats at the next election, and rightly so. With proper political oversight, the dubious way in which social services gather ‘evidence’ based on hearsay and innuendo which would not be entertained in any normal trial, could not survive, nor could the casual way in which the Manx police carry out their duties endure. The Courts would have to offer more rigorous scrutiny to hearsay and unsupported opinions of social workers. If a police officer offered evidence, ‘it’s my professional opinion he robbed the bank’ with no facts as proof, the case would be laughed out of court, but a social worker can do this. If reform ensues, social services would lose the ‘protect our back’ cases and only win where there is a justifiable need for a care order as with Baby P or Victoria Climbié, which is as it should be.

Apart from the risk to social workers ability to ‘protect their own backs’ there would also be risk to the Courts themselves. If the public could see the way in which a social worker’s evidence is accepted, even if it is no more than supposition, ‘It is my professional opinion….’ or that social worker ‘facts’ which can be proven untrue, are accepted on the nod. ‘It is my professional opinion actually means, ‘We have no evidence to back up this unsupported guess, so we are disguising it to look as if it is evidence.’ Sir James Munby did distinguish between such unsupported allegations and evidence, but this was not apparent in the Isle of Man court.

In this novel, a social worker alleged children were not allowed to play outside the house on the anonymous ‘evidence’ of a neighbour, but the father produced a photo of the children playing outside the house, so the claim was clearly false. Did it happen in real life? If a Court did not roundly condemn such false evidence, would there not be public outrage if the court were open to the press? This is another reason for secret trials, and why they must be ended.

How does the Court deal with such vague allegations? Does it probe them and reject those without firm evidence? According to the novel, it does not. Does it reject those where there is firm evidence from the family that proves they are untrue? See what happens in the novel. Again is it true or false?

I have spoken of the risk that I might be jailed as a whistle blower, and this is not a risk I can take lightly, after a heart attack and stroke. Somerset Maugham, once the highest paid British novelist, served in M I 6 in World War 1. Like Sir Compton Mackenzie he wrote of his experiences in novel form in Ashendon. Students of intelligence can link many of the incidents in his Ashendon stories with reality, but to make for a good novel, he often tidied up an unsatisfactory reality to a neat story. In this novel, has that happened or has the author told it as it was? He could not comment on this, other than to say how his historical books have been highly commended for their accuracy. In a novel, an author who wrote of an F15 Eagle flying at 5000 mph, would be laughed at, so a good novelist must get his facts right.

I referred to trials under the official secrets act. In such cases, even where high secrets of state are involved, a jury is selected to weigh the evidence, and jury trial is one of the great achievements of the British justice system, but why do we have jury trials? Most jury members do not want to be there, so would gladly avoid jury service, but if selected, must attend. Is a jury selected for its knowledge of the case, for example in a case involving medical error, is a jury of doctors selected? No, a jury is twelve persons selected to bring the independent view of the average reasonable man or woman to the case. Are they especially wise? No, a jury member can have little educational qualifications, so what are they there for?

Over hundreds of years, experience across the world has shown that judges and lawyers cannot be safely entrusted to be impartial or reflect the public concept of justice and fair play. By the start of the 1920s, public revulsion at the sentencing to death of mothers who, in the stress of child birth, had killed their own babies, had prompted juries to refuse to convict, and the offence of infanticide in these horrific situations was put on the statute book, through the refusal of juries to act in an inhumane manner, and through press outcry.

The outcome of the Great War, in which hundreds of soldiers had been executed for cowardice, when they were suffering from severe shell shock had sickened decent people, so the judicial murder of mothers who were temporarily unbalanced, was no longer acceptable. It may not be much consolation for the families of the murdered soldiers, but the execution of their loved ones probably helped create a less brutal justice system.

Juries, far more than judges, have long been the arbiters of fairness and public standards of acceptability, yet in care cases, children are condemned to be torn from their parents with no such scrutiny. The courts and social workers know a jury of reasonable men and women would not condone such an outrage. They hide in terror from juries and public exposure of their misdeeds.

The Romanian orphans scandal which broke as a story in 1990 after the fall of the communist regime showed the power of the media to force the authorities to clean up their act, but Romania was a desperately poor country, so lack of money was a major part of the problem rather than the ‘protect my back’ situation in the Isle of Man. If the UK media hammer the Island for its cruel abuse of children, maybe the lot of Manx children in care can be transformed as happened in Romania.

‘Secret Justice is Not Justice’ is true, but these are not just my words, though I wish they were. In 2013, in a case involving terrorism, where protecting sources can be vital, Lord Neuberger, the President of the Supreme Court said that other than in exceptional circumstances, judges should treat requests to hear cases in closed courts with ‘distaste and concern’. Lord Neuberger added how hearing evidence behind closed doors was ‘against the principles of natural justice.’ Lord Hope, deputy president of the Supreme Court, was even more scathing, saying secret justice ‘at this level’ was not ‘really justice at all.’

I agree with these learned judges, that secret justice, is not really justice at all, and that is what this novel accuses the Island of. You the readers are the Jury, so how say you? Is the Island guilty or not guilty as charged?

If the Island is guilty as charged, would any parent in his right mind bring up children in this picture postcard prison camp? Would he even want to visit the place on holiday, and put money into this evil place? Long years ago, people boycotted South Africa for apartheid. Do not the crimes of the Isle of Man against children merit like treatment? Apartheid treated some people as second class citizens due to race, but did not customarily break up families. The crime the Isle of Man stands accused of is breaking up families. Given the choice, would you find it more unpleasant to be treated as a second class citizen under Apartheid, which offends your personal pride, to or have your children kidnapped from you on false evidence?

Unlike the case which attracted Lord Neuberger’s wrath, there are no security issues compromising intelligence sources, or possible death threats to witnesses or jurymen. The argument that it protects the identity of the children is facile. Their class mates will have seen them being collected by their parents and then seen a string of foster carers instead, so will know they are in care. Olga has been shunted between at least five foster carers, which is bad for her and is a give-away that she is in care. They only way this could be avoided would be if social services moved the children to a new school as soon as they were taken into care. Not even social services suggest that would be in the interests of their child victims! What happens if a child has five different foster carers over a period? Does the child have to move to a new school each time to preserve this fiction that the foster care is associated with them?

In this novel, more issues will become apparent, but a novel is the only way to tell this story, but is it a successful vehicle to get round official paranoia? One of the best known British authors was Sir Compton Mackenzie who was awarded the OBE and the Legion d’Honneur for his work for British Intelligence in World War 1. In 1932 in Greek Memories, he referred to some aspects of his secret service work, giving the name of the head of M I 6, and revealing he was known as ‘C’, but who had been dead for a decade. Nothing he said was harmful to security, as a senior foreign office official admitted, but officialdom was outraged. Mackenzie was tried for contravention of the Official Secrets Act in 1933. A nominal fine of £100 was imposed, but his law costs of £1000 and the pulping of the book had damaged him financially. Mackenzie took a brilliant revenge in a novel, Water on the Brain in 1933. As it was fiction, it did not contravene the act, so Mackenzie could not be attacked again. As this book pilloried the absurdities of the secret service, it did real harm to the image of British intelligence, unlike Greek Memories, where Mackenzie had avoided doing so! Whatever is said about a novelist not drawing characters from real life, all novelists draw from the character of people they have encountered, and Mackenzie’s characters are recognisably drawn from real M I 6 officers. As he was a known M I 6 officer, his novel had the seal of authenticity. The mandarins couldn’t touch him!

Many years later another officer used fiction in the same way. Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond was P A to Admiral Godfrey, head of Naval Intelligence. His ‘M’ was a tribute to ‘C’, and the inventor, M’s secretary, and other characters in the original Bond novels were recognisably drawn from real life. Anyone familiar with M I 6 could name the true life prototype of Fleming’s characters. Had Fleming not disguised it as fiction, he would have followed Mackenzie into court.

The powers-that-be were unable to prosecute Mackenzie or Fleming, as both used fiction to disguise events and characters they had encountered in real life. Does it stop there? No it does not! Graham Greene and John le Carre followed the same path, disguising real experiences and events as fiction. Greene used his wartime experiences with M I 6, and situations he encountered in real life to ridicule the service with ‘Our Man in Havana’, commenting, ‘my real subject was the absurdity of the British agent.’ Greene exposed the willingness of case officers to report dubious evidence rather than do their duty, and the complacency of M I 6 management, who preferred tainted evidence for their political lords and masters to admitting that they had nothing but drivel. It is not purely a British failing. The reason the ‘Double Cross’ system worked so well against the Abwehr and the Gestapo was that a ‘source’ shows how good an official is. Readers of this novel, when confronted with an eight year old child being forced to clean up her own vomit, and shameful official complacency, from the minister downwards, may draw their own parallels!

Mackenzie, from Greek Memories, was known as a retired M I 6 officer, yet used his own name in Water of the Brain. By contrast, I have cloaked the identity of the children and John and Vera with fictitious names, so I have moved a step further away than was sufficient to protect Mackenzie.

Countless books exist on literary styles. Some novels are written in the first person. Others are written as if the author was a recording angel on high reporting what A, B and C does. All sorts of conventions are touted, such as ‘no head hopping!’ Many classical novels do head hop with the author shifting from A’s thoughts and perspective to B and perhaps back to A. This can be effective in a confrontation between the two characters. There is no right or wrong style, and a few authors can write a novel almost as if it was describing actual events. Frederick Forsythe in ‘The Afghan’ makes the initial chapters read just as an historical account of a genuine intelligence operation would read, which adds credibility to the novel. I have not slavishly followed any one style, using reportage, the first person, or recording angel approach, as seemed best to me. I apologise to the reader if he dislikes this. Most of my published writing is factual, and largely historical, so the approach used by Forsythe was something I am comfortable with.

If it is argued in court in an attempt to ‘get the author’ that by giving such precise detail in Child Kidnapping in the Isle of Man, the defence of calling it a novel cannot work, I would refer to the closing pages of Robert Ludlum’s ‘The Prometheus Deception’. In the novel, the hero accessed a video of a meeting of the ‘conspirators’ in the plot and the hero recognises them, including

The head of the FBI

The Speaker of the House

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

The head of Britain’s M I 6

This is naming instantly identifiable high public officials as being involved in an international conspiracy, and my copy of this novel does not contain the usual disclaimer that any similarity to real individuals, living or dead, is coincidental. It is accepted as fiction despite the naming of recognisable but unnamed public officials with no disclaimer. Within moments, I could confirm the identity of all four actual office holders at the time the story was set, but I have been unable to find any successful libel actions against Ludlum, who at one time was the world’s best-selling novelist, so there is a clear precedent for this degree of precision in a novel. Put simply, the trend in fiction is towards precision, so the character no longer fires a gun, but a Kalashnikov AK74, which differs from the AK47, and the novelist must get it right. Here, we have many consultants at Nobles, many social workers, many dieticians and GPs, so this story is less precise than Ludlum’s book, with the head of M I 6 etc.

At the outset, I referred to some of the great novels written to right a wrong, such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin or the works by Dickens. It is said the pen is mightier than the sword, and given the terror that the courts and social services have of publicity, they surely believe that. I hope they are right and that the sword of truth can slay the social services dragon and free the many children who are held prisoner in the Isle of Man.

I speak of John’s three daughters who have been prisoners for almost five years, but he too has been a prisoner, and if public outrage at the fate of their children and all the other innocent victims of social services cannot prevail over evil, Maria will remain a prisoner until 2028, and so will John and Vera, with a sentence that is longer than most murderers serve!

At first, my concern was with John’s children, but to their innocent parents, every child is as precious to them as John’s children are to him. Are they any less important? How can they be?

How will the authorities react to this exposure of their crimes against children? Anger and embarrassment are guaranteed, but will they try to jail me? Clearly I can have no faith in the Manx justice system, so they may try it, but just as the Island was humiliatingly brought to justice in the Tyrer birching case in 1972-76, I hope that on appeal to England, if they do jail me, that such an outcome will not be allowed by the UK courts. Will they try to have this novel withdrawn? I am publishing via e-publishing as a way to reach a massive audience worldwide to expose the crimes of the Isle of Man internationally. If that harms the reputation of the Isle of Man, Tynwald knows what to do. They reform the abuse, and then in a sequel, I can write the heart warming story of the children, John’s, and hopefully many other families, being free. Would that not reflect credit on the Island that good men and women had said enough is enough, and officialdom actually listened? I am selecting an American e-publisher on the basis that they are unlikely to be intimidated by mutterings from an obscure and corrupt rock in the middle of the Irish Sea.

IF THIS BOOK SHOULD VANISH OFF THE E-PUBLISHERS LISTS, it will be because of some form of official threats. If that should happen I hereby relinquish the usual copyright restrictions and ask readers who have acquired a copy to republish it as widely as possible. One person may not be able to stand unaided against an evil system, but if all good people band together, we can and shall prevail.

Another reason for publishing is that because of secrecy each family must fight evil on its own, but if other parents can be forewarned of the corrupt and sadistic nature of the system, they will know better what to expect and how to avoid the traps that are laid for them. As you delve into this book, you will see how devastated John’s wife Vera was at the near death of