Don't worry, it's just the news

That's the lurid headline from Irish News of the World, May 26th 1996. I found it on the website of Jim Cairns, author of Disappeared off the face of the earth , which he claims is a "detailed account of the failures and the crimes of the Irish and British establishment" regarding missing persons, murders, and Satanic paedophile rings.

Cairns writes:

In the late 1970s and early 1980s people began to go missing in Ireland more frequently and in greater numbers. This was a new phenomenon not evident in previous decades, but in the early 1990s the public began to realise there was a serious problem!

I have no doubts that my information on high level paedophile groups and elitist Satanic covens is based on fact, and given the recent exposes in the Operation Ore investigations into paedophile rings at the highest levels in British political circles, which seem to implicate serving MPs in the Government, my book will help to open the minds of those detractors who label such claims as "just another conspiracy theory"!

Read my book and decide for yourself if there is indeed a conspiracy by those in power and by those with immense wealth!

I know nothing about Cairns or his claims, but his hyperbolic assertions and unrequited love for the exclamation point would have led me to presume, and not so long ago, that he was an obsessive crank who could tell me nothing I needed to know. But now I know enough that I can't do that.

Some of today's headlines from Britain:

Children trafficked into Britain for sacrifice rituals (The Guardian)

An unknown number of children are being trafficked from Africa and then used in ritualistic abuse and sacrifice offerings in the UK, according to a leaked report from the Metropolitan police.

Boys "used for human sacrifice" (BBC)

"Members of the workshop said for spells to be powerful it required a sacrifice of a male child unblemished by circumcision," the report said.

Contributors said boys were being trafficked into the UK for this purpose, but did not give details because they said they feared they would be "dead meat" if they told any more.

Child sacrifices in London (Evening Standard)

Last month Scotland Yard revealed it had traced just two out of 300 black boys aged four to seven reported missing from London schools in a three-month period. The true figure for missing boys and girls is feared to be several thousand a year.

The scale of the problem emerged through the murder inquiry following the discovery of a child's torso in the Thames in September 2001. The identity of the victim, named Adam by police, is not known but his background was traced to Nigeria. It is believed he died in a ritual sacrifice.

Children trafficked for sacrifice, says report (The Times)

Secretary Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said it was important countries worked together to tackle crimes related to people-trafficking. "But it's classically an issue, like all people-trafficking issues, where people are being moved across the whole world, essentially for money, by very substantial criminal organisations."


"Perhaps there's something terrible happening out there which we are not aware of." - John Azah, police advisor

The report may imply the problem is restricted to Britain's immigrant population, but that was merely the report's scope: its ten-month investigation, a recommendation of the Laming Inquiry into the death of eight-year old Victoria Climbié, had been limited to the African and Asian communities of just two London boroughs. "Workshops were held with the members of the public on topics such as female genital mutilation, physical chastisement, forced marriage and faith-related child abuse." It was the magnitude of the abuse in the communities under the microscope, and its ritual character, which shocked investigators.

But there's another report commissioned by the British government, released in 2000 to largely embarrassed silence, that suggests the problem of ritual abuse and child sacrifice is not just out of Africa, but one which crosses communities and is far more widespread than most could imagine. I referred to its conclusions in the post Walpurgisnacht: "satanic abuse does take place in Britain," the report found, and its victims do not suffer from "false memory syndrome":

The report, ordered by the Department of Health, focuses on the experiences of 50 "survivors". Compiled by Dr John Hale, director of the Portman Clinic in London, and psychotherapist Valerie Sinason, it will reopen the debate which started a decade ago with testimonies from children in Nottingham, Rochdale and Orkney.

Its findings contradict the claims of a report ordered by the Conservative government in 1994, which concluded that satanic abuse was a "myth". It follows the growing concern of child protection agencies, and the Government, over organised child abuse.

Last week, it emerged that police were investigating the alleged sexual and physical abuse of up to 4,000 children in care homes and council-run homes in Devon. Ms Sinason, who has treated 126 ritual abuse survivors, said yesterday that in many cases children were tortured by being held under water or made to believe they had witnessed the murder of infants as part of the satanic ritual.

"Some children are born for the purpose of abuse and are not registered on birth certificates," she added. "The abusers use trickery to convince children they have taken part in murder. This increases the power of the abuser."

A US headline today reads Many are missing, few make the news, and says the FBI maintains more than 100,000 active files on missing adults and children in the United States.

I wonder, what became of them all? And I wonder, what became of some of them?