Disturbing News from the UK

Some of the news coming from the UK these days is certainly disturbing.

Operation Yew Tree, the police investigation into sexual abuse allegations, predominantly the abuse of children, against various well known characters from the entertainment world, and elsewhere, has been throwing up several surprising names (rightly or wrongly). The case of Jimmy Savile, after his death, was one of the first, and was well and truly chewed over in the press. Other names have followed, latest amazingly being Cliff Richard, who has stated that the accusation, about an incident many years ago, is entirely false.

Recently I'm reading of investigations in the South Yorkshire city of Rotherham, which are, if it's possible, even more disturbing. See also this, published in the USA. Police are now investigating a huge child abuse scandal covering the span from 1997 to 2013, involving, allegedly, 1400 children, mainly white, with the abusers mainly British young males of Pakistani ethnicity.

These batches of revelations make me wonder if there's some astrological catalyst present in the UK right now. The national chart some astrologers use for the UK can be seen at the website of Peter Morrell, here. Using that chart, Britain has Sun in Capricorn and Aries rising. At present Pluto transits Capricorn and Uranus transits Aries. Pluto is a consummate house-cleaner and abscess burster, and appears to be doing its job efficiently, while Uranus throws up shock after ever more surprising shock.

These horrors have not been confined to Rotherham either, according to this piece.

I find it hard to contemplate these things, I really do.

Not all of the incidents involving well-known names will be found to be valid complaints. Most are made after decades of time have passed since the alleged acts. A mist of suspicion will remain over these names though.

In the case of the investigations in Rotherham, it has been said that steps were not taken earlier by the authorities for fear of their being labelled "racist". That is simply a pathetic excuse to my mind. It doesn't matter what race or colour a perpetrator of abuse on a child is - they must be brought to justice, and promptly! There's something very much "off" in this story. There has to be something more, something we're not told, for things to have reached the level of atrocity that's now being reported.

What the heck is, and has been, going on in the UK? The country has never been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, no country is; but Britain's reputation has never descended to this sordid level at any time in the past that I can recall.

What a Difference a Year Makes......

I've deliberately avoided, up to now, mentioning dire issues in the news during last year relating to the late Jimmy Savile (Sir James Savile would you believe?) He was a Yorkshireman and he let the side down very, very badly. Under cover of "good works" (which he did spear-head at times) and popular TV shows he was up to some really nasty works of abuse and paedophilia. The BBC's tardy investigation into his crimes has also uncovered some similarly criminal activity perpetrated by others. Just this week I've seen the name of British TV sports commentator and games presenter Stuart Hall OBE (yep - OBE - Order of the British Empire) involved.

From Wikipedia

On 5 December 2012, Hall was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault and charged with three counts of indecent assault against three different girls, (a 9-year-old, a 13-year-old and one aged "between 16 and 17") between 1974 and 1984. He was bailed to appear at Preston Magistrates Court on 7 January 2013, when he pleaded not guilty He was bailed until 16 April to appear at Preston Crown Court, on condition that he lived at his home address and that he had no unsupervised contact with children under the age of 17. On 22 January 2013, Hall was charged with one count of rape and 14 additional counts of indecent assault between 1967 and 1986.

I remember Stuart Hall from a TV game show "It's A Knock-Out", also recall that there were a few snide remarks about him going the rounds back then, though whether due to knowledge of his doings outside of TV shows, or whether because he was a bit of a hammy show-off I don't know.

Anyway, in the process of trying to remind myself what Stuart Hall looked like long ago I came across a blog called Classy Gents with a post dated 31 January 2012 about Stuart Hall, sincerely praising his "classiness".

A snippet:

His voice is really quite something; warm, refined, and luxurious, it harks back to a bygone era of television, when the BBC required it’s own unique intonation. Quite why this Classy Gent has been relegated to providing merely the occasional update on 5 Live’s football coverage is beyond us. In his younger days, such was the respect in which he was held that he is perhaps the only commentator never to have played the game professionally, who has appeared on the bench for a European cup final.....................So, in celebration of his long career and the hope that we may get to hear from him more prominently in the years to come, we give you Stuart Hall – our Classy Gent of the Day.

Oops!!!!

What makes late discovery of such egregious activity even worse is the fact that both the above-named had been honoured! Savile was knighted, Hall accorded Order of the British Empire. How did two such well-known individuals, recognisable by almost everyone in the UK during the 1970s and 80s, not only escape discovery of their wrong doing, but manage to get themselves honoured as well? Somebody, somewhere, must have known what was going on.