Thread by @ciabaudo

Now here's a story from the mid-80s when VIP paedophile rings were hyperactive in London. It is absolutely riddled and teeming with coincidences ... but coincidences happen, don't they?

The scene of the crime is a residential crescent with a church only a short walk from London's Earl's Court tube station called Philbeach Gardens. Before we turn our attention to an event that occurred in 1985, let's have a look at some of its more notable residents:

Let's start with No. 2?
This was the abode of Gregory Lauder-Frost, a white supremacist from 'down under', undoubtedly attracted to Kangaroo Valley, the area around Earl's Court where Australians gathered, not far from the legendary carpark where VW camper vans were sold.

Lauder-Frost was a member and official of the Conservative Monday Club and rubbed shoulders with many of the far-right friends of Harvey Proctor.
He made a name for himself spouting bile about Baroness Lawrence and dined with the like-minded Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Moving round the crescent, we arrive at No. 30-31, Philbeach Hotel, Europe's largest gay hotel, opened in 1981 and closed in 2008. The Philbeach Hotel was closely linked to the gay scene in Edinburgh.

What's sinister, though, is that the Philbeach seems to also have been a fixture on the child abuse circuit, along with, inter alia, Elm Guest House, the Europa Hotel in Belfast and the Rembrandt Hotel in Manchester.
m.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/uk/kincor…

At 43, Philbeach Gardens we have Nicholas Paget-Brown, the K&C leader with a cynical attitude towards Grenfell residents.
The local councillor for Philbeach was Barry Phelps, a perv who was forced to resign.
amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/j…
order-order.com/2010/07/06/per…

A few doors further on, we arrive at No. 50 Philbeach Gardens, or St. Cuthbert's Church, where, from the church hall, Nucleus and Charles 'Rapier' Napier, half-brother of John Whittingdale MP, ran an outreach programme for young gays and rent boys in the Earl's Court area.

In 2014, Napier was convicted of hundreds of assaults on boys just prior to his work with Nucleus. His MO at Nucleus, laid out in his manifesto, was to 'selflessly' befriend young clients seeking help and invite them into his own social and personal life.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…

In 1977, it was brought to the attention of Nucleus that Charles Napier was treasurer of PIE, a position giving him full access to membership details and hardly compatible with working with children and youths.
The response from Nucleus was nonchalant, to say the least!

Let's now get a move on and dash from 50 to 100 Philbeach Gardens, the home of Jane Birdwood, a far-right activist, anti-Semite and Holocaust denier, closely associated with Enoch Powell and his two camp aides Harvey Proctor and Barbara Hewson cousin Jonathan Denby.

Birdwood even provided the contact address for Radio Enoch and was involved with its broadcasting. Although Powell denied having anything to do with the station, it is hard to imagine Proctor and Denby weren't involved as both had links to pirate radio. piratearchive.co.uk/eastmids/enoch…

Oh, and Paget-Brown was a member of the right-wing Tory Bow Group ...

Birdwood's 100 Philbeach Gardens was also the contact address for various far-right publications, many of them outright racist and anti-Semitic. She was also close to management at the Grunwick film processing plant and organised scabs to cross picket lines there.

On June 3, 1986 two Metropolitan Police officers were ambushed in Down Street, Mayfair, by two gunmen , who were then driven away at speed by a third man. That third man was the Birdwood friend, Proctor solicitor, Hewson cousin and Enoch Powell aide Jonathan Denby.

Just over a year previously, on March 20, 1985, the Met police had been given a tipoff that a James Alexander Baigrie was living at 99, Philbeach Gardens, right next door to Birdwood, under a false name, and working for the Kilburn building firm Greaul Construction.

James Baigrie was not in the building, but on the way out, one of the policemen decided to take a closer look at a builder's van parked outside No. 30/31, the Philbeach Hotel.
What followed was a 44-hour siege which ended with the death of Baigrie.

But why this man-hunt?
Baigrie had been convicted of the 1982 murder of Ron Flockhart, a barman, at the St. Vincent Bar in Edinburgh. 10 weeks after being sentenced, on Oct. 16, 1983, Baigrie escaped from Saughton Prison, cutting through a window bar with a smuggled hacksaw.

James Baigrie's lawyer in that murder case was the paedophile Robert Henderson QC, a barrister who, together with his friend Nicholas Fairbairn (lover of Esther Rantzen) abused his own daughter, Susie Henderson.
edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/call-for-…
scotsman.com/news/politics/…

That was the same Robert Henderson who was lawyer to Colin Tucker the man who bought the Laughing Duck gay bar in Edinburgh from Paul Burrell, footman to the Queen. It is only a 150 m waddle from the Laughing Duck to Vincent Bar, where James Baigrie shot Lockhart.

Colin Tucker was of course footman, or steward, to Fiona Woolfe, one of IICSA's rickety musical chairs, when she was Lord Mayor of London. Woolfe was brought down by her closeness to Leon Brittan, patron of a London child brothel.
google-law.blogspot.com/2014/10/fiona-…
theguardian.com/politics/2014/…

Colin Tucker, mentioned indirectly in Woolf's resignation from IICSA, and his lawyer Henderson lead directly to Scotland's Magic Circle and Fettesgate scandals.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…

After the siege, an inquest was ordered into the circumstances of Baigrie's death. Baigrie's family was represented by NCCL's Marie Staunton, an associate of both Harriet Harman (active at Grunwick like Birdwood from No. 100 next to Baigrie's lodgings) and Fiona Woolf.

Earlier, Home Secretary, importer of porn and child brothel patron Leon Brittan had been forced to call PIE 'utterly repugnant'. The same day, NCCL's Staunton was more pro-PIE. Why? PIE was affiliated to NCCL and campaigning for a Hewsonesque AoC of 14.
theguardian.com/politics/2014/…

Here's another rather quirky coincidence:
Colin Tucker, like many of his ilk including Peter Hayman, sought respectability as a church elder (@cuthbert_church in Edinburgh) in very much the same way as Napier and PIE sought the cover of St. Cuthbert's in Philbeach Gardens.

For a while, the fugitive James Baigrie was suspected of having butchered Basil, Avril and Richard Laitner at their home in Dore near Sheffield on Oct. 23, 1983 after his escape from Saughton prison in Scotland a few day earlier (October 10).
…iast-wordpress-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/truecrimee…

In the end, the Laitner murders were pinned on another on-the-run criminal: On September 1983, Arthur Hutchinson, charged with theft, burglary and rape, escaped from Selby police station. On October 23, he broke into Laitners' home, committing triple murder.

The next coincidence is significant as it catapults us straight into the denbyesque and proctoresque world of offshore pirate radio, the Monday Club and back to Philbeach Gardens 100, the home of Lady Birdwood and the contact address for Radio Enoch ...

During his trial, Arthur Hutchinson placed the blame for the Laitner murders on a Mike Barron, a journalist covering the case at Durham Crown Court for the Sunday Mirror. Hutchinson pointed to a man in the gallery, claiming 'That man there ... There's your killer'!

One of the longest standing DJs on Wilf Proudfoot's Radio 270, also used for right-wing propaganda by the likes of Harvey Proctor, Enoch Powell and Patrick Wall, was a Mike Barron (sound file).
He was also involved with hospital radio in Leeds.
offshoreradio.co.uk/audio/barron.m…

This Mike Barron appears to have left Britain in 1984 to work as a DJ in the States. Barron was employed without a visa and his station supported him with the paperwork. It is apparent from accounts that Barron was little inclined to return to Britain.
offshoreradio.co.uk/djsb.htm

Days before Hutchinson was apprehended, the press reported that the name of Geoffrey Dickens, the MP who had campaigned relentlessly against PIE and had submitted dossiers (which duly went missing), had been found on a hitlist in Hutchinson's notebook.
telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/cr…

The most recent article by the Village Magazine covering the fates of Richard and Alan Kerr refocuses on the Philbeach Hotel at Nos. 30/31 Philbeach Gardens as a place which picked up much of the trade when Elm Guest House closed. villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2019…

Another more sinister venue only a stone's throw away from Philbeach was the Earls Court Clinic just across the A3220 at 51 Longridge Road. It later relocated to nearby Never Square.

Among those registered at Philbeach Hotel is a certain James (Jimmy) Appleby who ran a bar there.
I'm just wondering if this was the actor who featured in Fawlty Towers and Dr. Who ...