Hampstead paedophile hoax C4

[veryvanessa]

Anyone watching this? It's quite hard to follow. I can't work out what's real and what's dramatised. The mums are played by actors but what about the kids mum is she real?

It was a very thoughtful and multi layered documentary.

At the heart is a sad family story. But from that (thanks, internet!) so many people inserted themselves in the narrative, dragged other people into it and ultimately carried out harmful real life actions - like publishing personal details of a school class and crossing the Atlantic to stand outside a school with a knife. (!)

It's this crossover with real life where it gets very interesting though - the mothers themselves have lost a lot of themselves in their "research and infiltration" work - essentially, joining online conspiracy groups and reading what people say. Two people have received jail sentences for acts that are clearly actually physically criminal.

At the back of it all is what's happening to truth, now. Sabine herself towards the end of the documentary says "what's true for me may not be true for you" - you see this all the time online; these exchanges where people tell each other things like "well that's your opinion and I've got my opinion" and so on. What they really mean is "I've got my truth and you've got your truth" which is a potentially damaging issue for all of us. If we no longer even have any expectation that objective fact exists, we certainly aren't going to find it.

As I already said, her behaviour was outrageous. But some of their personalities were unpleasant enough that I found them uncomfortable to listen to, and they were open about the fact that she was socially outcast long before the accusations.

Why do you think the accused father's weren't involved? They were equally accused but don't appear to have done anything about it.

I found this documentary alarming as it showed how easy it is for false info to spread and the lynch mob to amass. Those mothers lived in terror but good for them for fighting back, gathering the evidence and getting the idiots jailed. The key instigators are at large but the other provocateurs like Sabine still show a lack of remorse or acceptance of their mistaken views. "I can't cope with that" she says when the interviewer is trying to make her face the harsh reality of her behaviour. That guy from the US who came over to get involved was a mischievous twat too. Worrying stuff.

Yes I totally agree and as another pp said, something like this could gain even more momentum more quickly and widely now. The mothers have lost a chunk of their lives to this and they'll never fully recover, at best learn to accept it. The American bloke was clearly just up for a jolly and god knows re Sabine, I think she believed what she said, even though she couldn't actually back anything up when pressed by the journalist.

I've just finished this. How anyone could think those poor women were 'unlikeable' is beyond me, they were described as warriors and quite rightly so!

Nice kitchens as well!

There's a gap that people seem to find difficult between 'what children say is important and has meaning' (true) and 'what children say is factually accurate the way that an adult statement might be' (not necessarily true).

Just like the programme said, the children were accurately demonstrating their abuse- because everything they said when they were in an unsafe place was a fantasy imposed on them by their mother's abusive boyfriend and their mother.

I vaguely remember MN threads at the time. I can't seem to find them though. Maybe they were under 30 days only or chat.

I wondered that too.
Weren't there about 170 people accused including a vicar and teachers ?
Surely they too would have been up in arms about the accusations ?

I also wondered why.
Why did Ella and Abraham instigate the hoax ?
How could a mother give those words and ideas to her two young children when it was untrue.
Their innocence taken from them.
The unbelievable stress the falsely accused must have suffered.
Why. Why. Why.
The world has very strange people in it.

Was it an actor or the real Sabine Mc Neill interviewed at the end, after being released from prison @TheSpottedZebra and @farley123 ?

The real one.

The hoax was started because Ella didn't want her ex-husband to have any access to the children. According to the hoax, he was the ringleader of the satanic abuse at the school. He went through an awful experience and was interviewed on television about it when the hoax was at its peak (on the Victoria Derbyshire programme). Because of what happened he and his children had to move abroad and have new identities.

And, yes, that was the real Sabine at the end of the documentary.

i don’t think you can justify making claims of ritual satanic child abuse that have ruined families’ lives for years because of some cliquey mean girl behaviour.

Searching on here, I did find mentions of Sabine McNeill, John Hemming and Ian McDonald. Gave me chills to see those names. Good examples of how unfortunately once a damaged personality decides that they are on the side of 'the children' or other vulnerable group, they can end up justifying unbelievably toxic behaviour.

I read this article about it. Horrific what Draper and Christie put those poor people through (and her own children who were emotionally and physically abused by her)
www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/accused-the-hampstead-paedophile-hoax-channel-4-documentary-b1143822.html

The mums are amazing in how they took control. How terrifying for all of the families involved. I can’t imagine that this ever goes away.

Rupert is fucking scary but Sabine is something else. Her saying that she couldn’t cope when called out by the interviewer made me rage.

One day I hope that Abraham and Ella are punished for what they did.

@PermanentTemporary Oh yes, I recall John Hemming actually posting on MN at the time!

As well as the custody dispute, one of the mums said parents had raised concerns about Ella's parenting. So she maybe accused teachers, social services and school parents as revenge for that.

Who actually made that vile spreadsheet? The TV show implied it was Sabine but shied away from actually saying so. That was one of the worst things on there - they must know who authored it?

I thought initially it was part of the police case with a record of allegations but I'm not entirely sure, and I didn't understand how someone else would get hold of that.

Yes, what you said .

Grrr. All Sabine cares about is herself feeling stressed when confronted with the damage she's done. Not about the people affected by her actions.

You can’t be serious? The mother’s boyfriend told them to say those things, he even hit them (multiple times) to make them do it. The mother made all of that happen because she didn’t want to lose custody of her children to their father. So accused him of abuse. She is sick in the head