Satan Hunters Pounce
on First U.K. Case
of Occult-Linked
Child Abuse

They gloat that the Kidwelly case is evidence of SRA in Britain - but they've got it wrong again.
We reveal the true background...

If there was any evidence needed that the SRA myth (SRAM) was still endemic in the minds of the British Media the Kidwelly Case is it. The sensational headlines made appalling reading for any decent human being.

All the classic 'symptoms' of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse were evident in reports of this case - at first glance it seemed to confirm everything that the Satan-Hunters had said. If the satan-hunters had actually arranged it to suit their own purposes it couldn't have been any better for them - and the truth is that, more or less, is what happened.

The Abuse is Real - The Satanism Wasn't

The overwhelming impression given by the case and its reporting is that, at last, a satanic cult network had been uncovered which involved the long-term systematic sexual abuse of children as an integral part of the worship of satanism.

This is exactly what the Satan Hunters in social work and their fundamentalist allies had alleged over twenty years ago. But it is false. It was untrue then and it is still untrue now, as we will show.

The core of the case rested on four people who were found guilty and who were claimed by the prosecution to be members of a satanic coven. Colin Batley, 48, Elaine Batley, 47, Jacqueline Marling, 42, Shelly Millar, 35.

As you can deduce these people were truly degenerate but our purpose here is not to defend their appalling actions but to show that this is not a case of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse.

As usual the British Press went into shock-horror overdrive larding their full page stories with sensational headlines and apoplectic indignation.

To illustrate this lack of proportion we focus on a statement in the Daily Mail report on 10th March 2011 that:

'Children, boys and girls as young as 11, were also 'initiated', repeatedly sexually abused in other words , during Black Masses at Batley's home.... police believe there could have been many more victims.

Just five victims were involved. Their abuse spanned a 20 year period. Much of the abuse occurred after they had reached the age of consent but was rape nevertheless as it was against their will. Therefore the idea given by the British Press, that as part of the 'cult's requirements these degenerates were seeking out, inculcating and sexually abusing children in a continuous cycle is false.

Please carefully note the quotation marks before and after the word 'initation' in the Daily Mail report. The court was presented with evidence about a single incidence of a mock 'initiation' where a victim (then aged 15 and now in her mid twenties) said she was made to wear an inverted crucifix whilst being raped. This was seen by the court as evidence of Batley using the occult to frighten the 15 year old into compliance. Despite the use of the term black mass in reports of the trial there is no evidence that any black masses ever took place.

The Mail overlooks the fact that many of the sexual assaults were committed outside of any religious or satanic framework. For instance one victim said she had sex twice with Batley in a holiday caravan in Tenby. It is difficult to see what Satanic purpose this would serve.

Sexual abuse of children is abhorrent no matter who perpetrates it. The SAFF has bulging files of cases committed by people from all walks of life. Sexual predators will do and say anything to get their way. The question in this case is: Did the perpetrators abuse these five kids because they were part of a Satanic Network or did they commit their dastardly deeds because they were sickos? The answer must be that they were sickos because no evidence of a Satanic Network has been found.

Satanic Anti-Abortionists?

The press had made its mind up that it was Satanism. Too good a story to miss. Prejudices and preconceptions invented by the satan-hunters years before came flooding back. False allegations about 'brood mares' and babies being ritually bred for sacrifice popped up. The Guardian reported that:

'Batley tried to force a pregnant schoolgirl to give birth. The girl, who had been raped by a cult member, was told all children conceived within the cult belonged to it.

Apart from all the usual arguments which have historically undermined this allegation (e.g. the difficulty of trying to hide a teenage pregnancy from parents, P.E. teachers, school nurses, doctors and neighbours,etc) there has never been any evidence or case which has upheld the fantasy (see Bogus Devil Video here for their best try ) but it chimed well with fanatical fundamentalist action against abortion and abortionists.

However in the Kidwelly case this claim is reversed. The teenage girl victim wanted to seek an abortion to end her pregnancy and Batley intervened to persuade her not to. Under normal circumstances this would endear Batley to the pro-Life lobby but when juxtaposed into the context of claims made during the trial there is a tacit assumption by pre-sold minds that Batley was saving the baby to be sacrificed later. The problem with this logic is that the pregnancy occurred years ago and the child is still alive and healthy! In this one instance we have sure evidence of unproven satan hunter motifs creeping into the prosecution. .

Crowley 'The Arch-Satanist' Gets The Blame Then there is the enormous weight given during the trial to the discreditation of Batley through guilt-by-association with the infamy of Aleister Crowley. The prosecution heavily relied upon hearsay about Crowley's supposed activities and aims which is starkly consistent with Satan Hunter un-facts. For instance Crowley is porprejudicetrayed as an 'Arch-Satanist' and the Mail calls him 'the most notorious Satanist of the 20th century', the fact is that Crowley never termed himself a Satanist and his magical and religious system (Thelema) which hundreds of thousands of decent people follow worldwide and which can be seen in detail on the web here, has nothing whatever to do with satanism. The Daily Mail reported that: Judge Thomas said in court: 'You have fully lived up to the ideals of your mentor Aleister Crowley - you used the occult to further your sexual excesses - children were kept as toys for sex purposes. Yet the truth is that Crowley was never accused of sexually abusing children and he does not encourage it in his writings. He did not 'keep children as toys for sexual purposes'. Thus a historical lie about Aleister Crowley (a lie much promoted by Satan Hunters) is accepted as fact by the judge in this case when if Colin Batley had been as obsessed with Aleister Crowley' as was suggested in court then by living up to Crowley's teachings there would have actually been no abuses of any kind! The inescapable conclusion therefore is that neither the Judge nor Batley had ever read or understood Aleister Crowley's teachings and writings. The fundamentalist cadre within the ranks of the satan hunters have always hated Crowley and his writings because he was a religious revolutionary whose ideas contributed towards the New Age revival - on the cover of the Beatle's Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band a photograph of Crowley appears amongst a montage of free-thinkers who influenced post-modern thinking. Crowley's approach to sexual matters was far in advance of his time. Crowley was an advocate of free-love between adults in victorian times when human sexuality was utterly repressed but he never once advocated the sexual abuse of children. It may be that Crowley's free-love philosophy was seen by Batley as attractive to his indiscriminate sexuality. Unlike a true paedophile, the majority of Batley's sexual excesses were with adults but his sexual melange experimented also with under age sex which Crowley did NOT advocate.

Fundies Use One Myth To Confirm Another! The Lies And Legend Of Aleister Crowley Laid Bare If you suck-up these lies about Crowley you'll be as daft as the people who wrote them. Don't make a public fool of yourself. Find out the FACTS behind the Life and Times of The Wickedest Man In The World Read our Primer of The Beast here.

Before readers rush to tut-tut about the immorality of occultists they should keep in mind that there are dozens of well documented instances of Christian groups whose adoption of free-love has been roundly condemned. The Children of God group which has thousands of members is perhaps the most publicised.

In 1974, David Berg, founder of the Children of God, introduced a new proselytization method called Flirty Fishing (or FFing), which encouraged female members to show God's love by engaging in sexual activity with potential converts. Flirty Fishing was practiced by members of Berg's inner circle starting in 1973, and was later introduced to the general membership. [ wikipedia:]

(1) Despite continual attacks on them by mainstream churches who try to represent them as a 'cult' The Children of God is a fundamentalist Christian organisation which uses the Christian Bible as its guide therefore just like Crowley's Thelema and every other religion, Christianity has its own problems with mavericks mis-using their holy writ, and

(2) Although some disenchanted past-members of The Children of God group have alleged that children in the group are being sexually abused under its tenets, every official investigation has found this not to be the case. You can read about The Children of God in their own words here.

I mention this to underline the fact that deciding who is abusing whom and whether they are doing it for religious purposes is never as simplistic as splashing a tabloid headline.

However, there are many other instances of Christian cults which make the Kidwelly case look rather small-beer, such as:

Tony Alamo is an American cult leader. He and his late wife Susan are best known as the founders of Tony Alamo Christian Ministries which had a massive following in the U.S.A. On July 24, 2009, Alamo was convicted on 10 counts of interstate transportation of minors for illegal sexual purposes, rape, sexual assault, and contributing to the delinquency of minors. He was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison.

Here's one which has similarities to the Kidwelly case:

Former Rocky Mountain High School counselor Brad Boda was sentenced on Thursday to 20 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections after pleading guilty to two counts of sexual abuse on a child. Boda in April pleaded guilty to molesting children when he was a church counselor in Longmont in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Boda admitted to molesting five children, but an investigation conducted prior to sentencing found at least 14 separate victims, Whalen said. "The court would not be surprised to hear in future years that (more) victims have come forward," Source:

"This monster pedophile was in my life for 30 years, and he continued his abuse with me and others," said Rosson, who accused Kiesle of sexually abusing her from the age of 11 until she was 40. "We're here today to make sure that this doesn't happen anymore to any other innocent kids that will have their lives traumatized until they die," said Rosson, who held a picture of herself when she was 11. Besides Rosson, those filing suit were Kathleen McDermott Stonebraker, 49, of Pinole; Lisa Crenshaw; and three other women and a man not identified by name. Kiesle pleaded no contest to lewd conduct charges in 1978 after being accused of tying up and molesting two boys at a parish in Union City, where he was a teacher and priest. In 2002, Kiesle was accused of molesting five children up to 30 years earlier when he was a priest at Santa Paula Church in Fremont. [source]

Unlike the Kidwelly case the newspapers did not cover this story with a two page special expose of the dangers to children of paedophile priests. They did not represent Kiesle as a 'cult' member of a child abuse network - but SAFF research as well as that of many other groups fighting for the rights of children who have been terribly sexually abused by priests and clergyman proves beyond doubt that renegade Christian priests are a REAL danger to children and they have used crucifixes and the paraphernalia of Christianity to frighten their victims into submission. [see here for proof]

So why did the Kidwelly case get so much prominence?
Why did the media go overboard?
Why have the fundamentalists adopted a 'told you so' stance?
Why did social workers preen themselves with self-congratulation in regard to this occult-linked case when statistics show that THOUSANDS of children are being abused right now under their noses by Christian clergy and laity? The satan hunters have ignored this real problem in inverse ratio to the effort and attention they have given the Satan Myth.

Why? Prejudice! Plain and simple.

There is a wealth of evidence to prove that when a person publicly indicates by his/her behaviour just where his/her sympathies lie, those beliefs will henceforth be strengthened....if we pledge ourselves at the behavioural level (i.e. publicly) then our attitudes and beliefs will always follow suit. The way we are lead or induced to behave will determine the way we want to behave. [Source: Social Psychology: by G M Stephenson 1975]

Up to and during the reign of Henry II the Church, had its own courts and own laws. Priests who murdered or raped could avoid common-law justice by claiming 'benefit of clergy', the right to be tried in the bishopprotrs court. The worst that could happen here was to be issued with a severe penance or exceptionally, expulsion (defrocking) from the priesthood. [ Source]

It is over 20 years since the first allegations of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse began to be made. Thousands of fundamentalists and child scare industry activists have spent two decades scanning every sexual abuse case which came along for SRA content. Over the years dozens of cases were posited as SRA by these people but not one of them was.

In the time it took to get investigations finalised in these cases the allegations relating to them were trafficked amongst satan-hunters and became 'common knowledge' , the details of which were discussed on the net and which are still up there influencing those who want to believe in the existence of SRA. The information was often later proved to be erroneous but still remains on the net for SRA connoisseurs to pore over to reinforce their beliefs.

The book Satan's Underground written by Lauren Stratford was first published in 1988 coincidant with the rise of the Satan Myth in the U.K. It has sold 145,000 copies and was often quoted as a true first-hand account of satanic ritual abuse by almost all believers. It is copiously referred to on the net as such, yet as long ago as 1990 sterling and unbiased research by Bob & Gretchen Passantino and Jon Trott of the Christian magazine Cornerstone proved that Satan's Underground was complete fiction.

Stratford was exposed as a compulsive liar and went to ground but a few years afterwards she resurfaced in a concentration camp survivor's group telling other unbelieveable (and of course completely untrue) shock-horror stories of herself being a child survivor from the Nazi Death Camps! I repeat, Stratford's account of SRA is still being quoted as real by the pro-SRAMists, is often to be found in their recommended reading lists and her statements are still positied by some as real accounts of SRA.

The sheer weight of anecdotal stories of SRA on the net, which are often used as a source by the media, and the existence of 'victim imposters' [see here] whose statements are rarely tested or checked, has produced, as all forms of propaganda do, a belief by hundreds of thousands of people who are predisposed to fear the worst by their prior religious indoctrination.

These people are more ready to believe that SRA DOES exist even though no case so far has proved it. Thus the Kidwelly prosecution which appears conclusive is a monumental occurrence for the Satan Hunters and they are already publicly and privately taunting those journalists and personalities who have held out against this socially devisive myth as the fundie publicity machine goes into overdrive.

Don't Ever Use The 'S' Word Darling

It was a lie of course. They had said Satanic (and the SAFF has documentary evidence to prove who said what) but the Child Scare Industry spent the next few years trying (and failing) to define what was meant by 'ritualised abuse' without using the S word. This kept the satan-hunters in the swim when they should have been ostracised for the suffering they had caused. Whilst the public's attention span refocussed elsewhere the satan-hunters continued to refer to Satanic Ritual Child Abuse privately within their own ranks but always used the term 'ritualised abuse' in public.

How times do change. Now, with the Kidwelly case they are back again, confidently espousing SATANIC ritual child abuse! No ifs and buts. They need the shock-horror of SATANISM in order to drive their war-wagon and get the publicity. It is a well-worn but successful publicity stunt which, as you can see by the Daily Mail's capitulation, the media simply cannot resist.

If there is one thing that earmarks all satan-hunters it is a complete lack of proportion.

In the case of the motifs in the Kidwelly case the satan-hunters' prejudiced un-facts have been used in a case of ordinary child abuse to portray the perperators as Satanic Ritual Child Abusers by the simple expedient of ignoring any evidence to the contrary!

For example, in order to confirm this succession of lies (that Crowley was a Satanist and that as a Satanist he encouraged the sexual abuse of adults and children and thus as Crowley's followers the defendant's dutifully abused children as part of Crowley's rites) the court, as reported by the media, completely misprepresents one of Crowley's written works, The Book of The Law, by saying that:

'Each Sunday Batley held meetings, where he would preach from Crowley's Book of Law, dress in hooded robes, chant before an altar and then orchestrate or participate in group sex.' (Daily Mail)

'Batley would also order cult members to have sex together and ensure that other members were present to film it. The recorded material mentioned during the trial is believed to have been destroyed before his arrest.'

So apart from typed extracts from Crowley's Book of The Law and his Equinox of The Gods which were said to have been read out during ceremonies, the prosecution didn't seem to have any other pertinent evidence; which is quite revealing because Crowley was a prolific writer and anyone truly following his non-satanic system will invariably end up with literally hundreds of relevant books.

Is the prosecution suggesting that Batley burned all his books as well as the films of orgies which they say took place? We are not told, instead we are left to our own prejudices.

The guilt-by-association here is that the court has been given to believe that Crowley advocated the sexual abuse of children in his writings and that these writings were used as a prelude to Batley's abuse, but the point is that Crowley didn't advocate child abuse in his writings and there is nothing illegal about group sex between consenting adults.

This anti-Crowley information should not have been admissible as evidence to support the claims of satanic child abuse unless it could be shown that under age children were abused during those meetings. It appears from what was said that the meetings involved adult orgies only, or mainly.

As we have shown, many of the abuses perpetrated by Batley occurred outside of any ritual framework and the court did not to our knowledge establish any instance of any of the child victims being abused during the weekly meetings which were held 'each Sunday'.

Similarly, adults filming themselves fornicating is not a crime and it is notable that films were not placed before the court to confirm this allegation.

If as appears likely, children were not involved in the ceremonial meetings the mere fact that they were held weekly, that hooded robes were donned and that they culminated in orgies is of little significance. These activities, bizarre though they may appear to the general public, are perfectly legal in today's society and do not constitute evidence of Satanism. If wearing hooded robes was prima facie evidence of satanism then the 36,000 members of the Franciscan order of monks would be nervously looking over their shoulders. The 16,000 or so Benedictine Monks are already doing that as this quotation shows:

We often hear about young boys being abused, but former priest-turned-lawyer Patrick Wall says clergy members are just as equally disposed to view underage females as sex objects: "If they're going to explore sexually, they're going to explore with a little girl. Wall's perspective on the degree of female abuse is unique. He was a Benedictine monk for 12 years, working as a "fixer" dispatched to tidy up messy sexual problems of priests and laymen at troubled parishes and schools. He said when a girl required surgery after rape, the code was that she needed a "hernia" operation. In a bizarre twinning, he counseled accused priests and heard confessions from traumatized victims. He also worked on cases where priests impregnated girls then procured abortions for them... By age 33, Wall deduced that most, if not all, of the 195 parishes and hundreds of religious orders in the U.S. employed "fixers" like him to wipe down crime scenes that involved children. He quit religious life in disgust and scoffs at the Vatican's pledge to better protect boys and girls from its surpliced predators.. The former priest said the church is particularly vicious with women, deploying its "whore defense" to paint schoolgirls as harlots and intimidate them from pursuing criminal and civil complaints. [Source]

How the Fundies' Lies Percolate Through Into Un-fact

One of Crowley's publications, the Book of the Law, includes the passage: 'Let all chaste women be despised. Sex with anyone is not just permissible but to be encouraged.'

Egyptology Becomes Satanic

The prosecution inferred that the Eye of Horus was evidence of a special mark linking all three to Satanism but there is no Satanic group worldwide which uses an Eye of Horus symbol. On the other hand tattoos of ancient Egyptian symbols are extremely fashionable (as a glance at this site will show). A quick google on 'Eye of Horus Tattoos' produced 949,000 hits!

The Eye of Horus symbol is used by possibly hundreds of thousands of people who have no connection with occultism or satanism. Fundamentalists who are in touch with the satan-hunters in social work, have, like the mediaeval demonologists who came before them, compiled dictionaries of satanic and occult symbols in order to be able to accuse anyone they don't like of any abomination they fancy. They have tried to pass the Eye of Horus off as a representation of 'the Satanic Evil Eye', in fact it is a universal protection symbol which protects wearers from the Evil Eye. Archaeologists and Egyptologists confirm that it was almost universally used in Ancient Egypt in mummy wrappings, on coffins and on necklaces for just this purpose.

The Eye of Horus is today available in jewellery form in both pendants and brooches from most headshops. The Eye of Horus was first used by the Ancient Egyptians as part of their religious cosmology and it has absolutely no connection with Satanism yet here the prosecution is found insisting it does.

Compounding this gross error - (confusing the Eye of Horus with Satanism) the prosecution went on to posit that other Egyptian symbols and designs which the accused had in their possession were similarly 'satanic', including statuettes of the Egyptian Cat Goddess, (Bast) and paintings and tattoos of the Mask of Tutankhamun.

The Egyptian Cat Goddess Bast was one of many gods in the Egyptian Pantheon and has no satanic or devil worship connections. Bast, (aka Bastet) was part of the Ancient Egyptian Pantheon as far back as one thousand years BC. Unlike many other Egyptian Gods which are therianthrope (part human part animal) Bast was wholly represented as a cat because the Egyptians loved their cats - even to the extent of embalming them and interring them in cat cemetries.

I cannot believe that the prosecution was playing out the fairy-story association between witches and cats here but that was the unconscious message - though nobody went so far as to mention pointy hats and broomsticks!

The idea that a portrait of the Boy King Tutankhamun is somehow connected with satanism is just too ludicrous to grace with a response but to get to the bottom of this strange case we must counter it.

Ancient Egyptian artefacts and statuettes have held a general attraction to connoisseurs of excellent design for centuries. When hundreds of thousands of members of the public visited the first Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum in 1972 queues to see the actual Golden Mask of Tutenkhamun stretched around the block and sales of reproduction artefacts went through the roof.

There are now hundreds of sources for reproduction ancient Egyptian artefacts. Thousands of nominal Christians own reproduction Tutankhamun Masks, paintings and statuary of this image. Are they considered to be Satanists too? Of course not.

The British Museum itself still does a healthy trade in reproductions of ancient Egyptian artefacts Go here to see a nice selection of Bast figurines from 4.99 to a well heeled 2,750.00. And not a Satanist in sight.

Positing the ownership of a Bast figurine and a Tutankhamun painting as prima-facie evidence of membership of a satanic cult is simply bonkers and reminds one of the kind of weak evidence which caused the Orkney satanic abuse case where a Dennis Wheatley novel found on the bookshelf of a parent was considered sufficient evidence to take his children into care!

To us the use of these false satanic symbols are an indication of the tainting of this prosecution with fundamentalist and satan-hunter motifs. Particularly fundamentalists as the following quote clearly shows:

Members of the cult were given matching tattoos of the Eye of Horus, the Egyptian falcon god depicted pecking out the eyes of Christ in Crowley's works, (Daily Mail)

The charge was that mass religions are guilty of keeping the mind of man shackled with hypocrisy. What irony that the fundamentalists have used it to try to convince the public that Crowley was a Satanist!

Crowley's writings are radical stuff but no one said Crowley wasn't radical. What we do say is that he wasn't a Satanist and he certainly didn't advocate child abuse. By seeing these lines from The Book of The Law in context this deceitful attempt to discredit Crowley is revealed.

Everything I am, Everything You Do, Has To Be Satanic....

'He [Crowley] also became a member of a German Satanic Cult the Ordo Templar Orientis. '

Satanic Regalia noticeable by its absence

A true satanist's bookshelf must obligatorily include La Vey's Satanic Bible, the Satanic Rituals, Huysman's La Bas, Goethe's Faust, the Necronomicon,, books on Lovecraft's Cthulu Mythos and a range of historical ancient magical manuals such as the Key of Solomon, The Lemegeton, the Grimoire of Honorius etc. None of these genuine satanic things were evident in the Kidwelly case and if the prosecution wanted us to think that Batley had 'probably' burned them all there would be a pile of ashes so big nobody could miss it!

The Real Story Behind The Case?

Colin Batley and his wife Elaine Batley originally lived in Shoreditch, London but moved to Wales in 1996. Two years later [1998], Jacqueline Marling, from Poplar, East London, moved with her husband to become the Batley's next-door neighbours. Batley started an affair with her. As this relationship developed Batley's bi-sexual wife also started an affair with Marling and regular troilism took place between the three.

The relationship began to fall apart after the arrests in the summer of 2010 when Batley's wife Elaine intercepted a love card from Marling which indicated that Marling's relationship with Batley was stronger than her own. In court these dregs of humanity ended up fighting amongst themselves with Elaine Batley claiming when she was giving evidence that her husband was sneering at her and then, after she was found guilty shouting obscenities at him as she was lead away.

During the trial there was no love-lost between the defendants but Batley and the three women defendants all insisted throughout the five-week trial that no cult had ever existed.

'Batley dismised his role as a feared high priest of his own religion as a load of rubbish"....
"Colin Batley repeatedly denied the accusations against him as he spoke out in his own defence. He denied he ran a cult or was in any way a leader. He did admit to having an open sexual relationship with his wife and enjoying threesomes with Jacquie Marling. " [Western Mail, 10th March 2011].

However, in numerous press reports on the Kidwelly case this denial of satanism was overshadowed by the following oft-repeated statement:

He and five other alleged members insisted throughout the five-week trial that no cult had ever existed. But the jury dismissed that, finding him guilty of more than two dozen acts of sexual perversion linked to his activities in the cult.

Why would so many newspapers print that absolute statement - that the jury having heard all the evidence had pronounced Batley and his women to be Satanists? Herein lies another little known fact in the miasma of the Satanic Ritual Child Abuse Myth.

Agents of Influence in the Press Association?

The vast majority of these newspaper reports of the NSPCC claims were based on an article syndicated by the Press Association whose reporters had attended the NSPCC press conference. The PA article inluded the terms DEVIL WORSHIP - OCCULT - SATANISM - COVENS

The word 'OCCULT' appears no less than 21 times in these cuttings.
'DEVIL WORSHIPPERS' appears 12 times
and 'SATANISM' is printed 10 times with 7 mentions of 'COVENS'.
Pretty strong stuff from an organisation as august as the NSPCC.

The ensuing anti-occult articles kept the SAFF busy and it took us a while to get hold of the original NSPCC press release. When we did we found to our astonishment that NONE OF THESE TERMS HAD BEEN USED IN IT. For whatever reasons, the journalists writing the Press Association article had inserted them! It appeared that the Press Association had given the NSPCC report an extra 'spin'.

On 6th March 1990 the SAFF wrote an official letter of complaint of inaccuracy, prejudice and bias to E.G. Rhodes the then secretary of the Press Association in London. The letter was sent by recorded delivery. The Press Association have never replied and must hold their head low in shame as this misleading report did much to power the run-away hysteria which surrounded SRA at that time.

Fast forward 21 years and what do we find? The misleading statement which appeared in various newspapers to the effect that the Jury had confirmed the Kidwelly case as Satanic Ritual Abuse came from an article sent to them by The Press Association.

The Press Association enjoys a good reputation for veracity. Lazy journalists who are supposed to use PA articles as a base for a rewrite will often simply print it as is. So, the falsity that the Jury had confirmed the case as one of SRA when they had done no such thing will now be used as 'proof' by satan-hunters just as the Press Associations bad reporting of the first SRA case fuelled the scare in 1988,

The Kidwelly case was not an open-and-shut case. The Jury in fact deliberated for FOUR DAYS before presenting their verdicts. That probably shows how confused they were with the evidence before them.

The idea that the Kidwelly case is clear cut and has proven the existence of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse is false. It was a case of sexual-abuse by people who had an interest in the occult. Just as the hundreds of cases of priestly abuse shown here do not prove that priests sexually abuse children because of a belief in Christianity but instead show that the trappings of Christianity can be used to further the perverted intentions of some priests.

Reasons Why Kidwelly is not proof of Satanic Ritual Child Abuse

Secondly, one of the accused Vincent Barden, 70, of Kempston, Bedfordshire, admitted two counts of sexual assault on an under-age girl but it was noted in court that he was 'not a cult member'. Was the abuse satanic or wasn't it? The idea that a genuine cult would allow in outsiders for perfunctory sex is not believable and this indicates that the abuse was separate to the occult activities of the group - as was the prostitution of Millar.

Thirdly, one of the victims said that 'Cult members dressed in white robes' [Wales on Sunday March 13th 2011] Satanists do not wear white robes.

Self-styled occultists they may have been. Nasty depraved people they certainly were, but members of a genuine Satanic Cult they were not.

Batley and his coterie were not unduly secretive and did not keep a low profile in the cul-de-sac in which he lived. In fact rather than keeping things quiet, as you might expect a criminal to do, Batley appeared to purposefully draw attention to himself. He apparently regularly provoked the ire of neighbours amongst whom was the lady next door, an outraged woman whose house was positioned in-between Batley's and one of his cronies' houses. Mrs Dawson would therefore have presumably kept a close watch on what went on there. She was interviewed in the local press and described regular conflict between her and Batley involving a procession of complaints to the police and the local housing assocation.

'Our daughter is a police officer and they did not like it when she came to visit us. I think it made them nervous. Batley and one of his friends used to have a van calling regularly with a consignment of contraband tobacco and we think, pornography. They used to head off to France on fortnightly trips... It makes you wonder if part of their cult activity was going on there too."

It is clear that if this lady's daughter was a policewoman Batley's deliveries of 'contraband tobacco' and 'pornography' would have resulted in an immediate investigation and prosecution.

It is important for overseas readers to realise that the term 'Contraband Tobacco' was used by the U.K. government in propaganda which sought to disuade British citizens from travelling to Europe (where tax on cigarettes is 75% lower than in the U.K.) and bringing a carload of ciggies back. This was their right under the Maastricht agreement. Any EEC citizen could purchase any item in any other EEC country and carry it into any other EEC country without paying duty.

Because UK tax was punitive it became viable for people to drive to France for day-trips, visit hypermarkets there, bring back carloads of cigarettes. They could pay their ferry fare and still pocket a considerable saving. A small minority of people abused this right and began importing tobacco to sell out to others. The importation of the cigarettes is not illegal but the selling of it wholesale in the U.K. without paying duty is so HM Customs and excise mounted a media campaign to portray people who took advantage of this loophole as criminals by using the term Contraband Tobacco and by imposing an 'only as much as you can personally use in a year' limit on day-trippers. The country-wide controversy and publicity about Contraband Tobacco was obviously taken by Mrs Dawson at face value but thousands of people do combine regular visits to France and stock up (legally) with hundreds of cigarettes every trip. If Batley's tobacco dealing wasn't within the law no doubt he would have been arrested.

Similarly the idea of 'satanists trafficking pornography' when hard core adult pornography is available on the internet for anyone to download for free, could only have been put forward by an ageing neighbour who has been left behind by the IT revolution, yet hearsay of this kind is published by the Western Mail without comment and will no doubt appear occasionally in accounts of the case in future.

Batley and his coterie appeared to be despised locally. People were queuing up with old scores to settle but when the hearsay is analysed, as in the above instance, the vast majority of the allegations turned out to be simply bad-mouthing and exaggeration. Batley is certainly no Rasputin.

How does Satanic Child Abuse Differ From Priestly Child Sexual Abuse?

The satan-hunters now crowing about the Kidwelly case will have to explain to me how Batley's crimes differ from the following case?

A priest who sexually abused six boys at a Catholic boarding school has been sentenced to six years in jail. William Green, 67, abused pupils aged 11 to 15 at St Bede's Boys' School, Whalley Range, Manchester, between 1975 and 1987 while working as a religious education teacher.

Passing sentence, Judge Goldstone QC said: "As a priest and teacher you systematically and sexually abused boys whose ages ranged between 11 and 15. These boys were vulnerable and they were groomed by you for the purposes of your own sexual gratification." Green pleaded guilty to 27 counts of indecent assault. [source]

Hint: The only difference is the word SATANISM.

By the way- just to be absolutely clear, I'm not a satanist and I'm not a Crowleyite, but luckily for you I am a free-thinker.

John Freedom, Vernal Equinox 2011

Did Batley really preside over a fully fledged Satanic cult whose demonic theology incorporated the ritual abuse of children? ...I doubt it. Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a journalist specialising in debunking religion. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. Do you remember 'Satanic Ritual Abuse'? Twenty years ago, stories of devil-worshippers abusing children and sacrificing babies swept across Britain and America. Police and social workers were caught up in the panic. Children were snatched away from their parents on the basis of worthless testimony extracted from them by gullible 'experts'. It was years before the truth emerged: that, despite the occasional appropriation of occult symbols by solitary child abusers, there was no network of murderous covens and (to the best of our knowledge) no babies had been ritually sacrificed to Satan in the UK. This week, however, four people from Camarthenshire were convicted of serious sex offences, some of which were accompanied by Satanic rituals. Clearly these are foul people; depraved and, in the case of the accomplices, probably monstrously stupid as well. But did Batley really preside over a fully fledged Satanic cult whose demonic theology incorporated the ritual abuse of children? After comparing the Mail report with the rather more matter-of-fact account of the court case in the South Wales Evening Post, I doubt it. Batley used Satanic symbols to terrorise one of the girls he assaulted; he also convinced her that she would be murdered by 'cult assassins'. But these assassins didn't exist, and the court case identifies only four members of the 'cult' together with one alleged member. Some of the assaults on young people took place a long time ago, before Batley and his female hangers-on moved to Wales; some didn't have any religious component. It sounds to me as if these revolting people borrowed the trappings of Satanism to frighten victims and to stimulate their own twisted sexual imaginations. Batley may not be too displeased with his media image as the Lord of a Satanic Sex Cult. After all, that seems to have been the impression he was trying to create. whereas the truth is that he is a former supermarket security guard who pranced around in home-made 'demoniacal' costumes in order to justify his sadistic perversions. [ Source]

"What they've found is the exception that proves the rule.
There is no such thing as satanic ritual child abuse
and they'll have to wait another 20
years to find another case that comes this close..."
Tony Rhodes, director SAFF