Gilly MacMillan - What She Knew

You’ll see that it relates to the Benedict Finch case (Operation Huckleberry).

I’ve got two primary concerns.

Firstly, there could be Contempt of Court issues, should we ever get to trial.

Secondly, there’s stuff appearing on there that’s making me nervous because it shouldn’t be in the public domain. We’re concerned that somebody within the investigation (either family or within our organisation) could be authoring the blog or leaking information to it.

What I want to know is can we find out who the author of the blog is, the self-styled ‘LazyDonkey’, and what do we need to do to get it shut down? Is that even possible?

I’m copying this to DS Martyn and Inspector Bryan Doughty from Internal Affairs.

Quick response appreciated, obviously.

Cheers, Corinne

Cases involving child victims are not only burdensome from an investigative standpoint, but are also emotionally exhausting. Law enforcement agencies are commonly tasked with the simultaneous pursuit of multiple, time-sensitive avenues of investigation, often with inadequate resources (i.e., financial, logistical, manpower).

Boudreaux M C, Lord W D, Dutra R L, ‘Child Abduction: Aged-based Analyses of Offender, Victim, and Offense Characteristics in 550 Cases of Alleged Child Disappearance’. J Forensic Sci, 44(3), 1999

WEB PAGE – www.whereisbenedictfinch.wordpress.com

WHERE IS BENEDICT FINCH? For the curious…

NOTHING TO WATCH?

Posted at 05.03 by LazyDonkey, on Friday, 26 October 2012

This blog wants to recommend a television programme to you:

Go to: http://www.itv.com/jeremykyle

You could try:

Episode 198

I can’t trust you with our son! You spend all your time texting instead of watching him

Or you might enjoy this:

Episode 237

Admit you’re a bad mom and you can’t look after your children

Just a thought. Up to you.

Oh, and one more thing:

Did you know Benedict Finch fractured his arm last year, and his mother didn’t get it treated? He must have been in a lot of pain. Guess she wasn’t bothered. Or perhaps she was just busy doing something else.

First thing in the morning, facing each other across my kitchen table in our dressing gowns, our eye contact patchy, the air between us oscillating with tension, Nicky told me that she was going to leave.

‘I think we probably both need some time,’ she said. It was a quiet statement, and a very controlled one, but it was also damp with the undercurrent of what we’d been through the day before.

‘Just for a day or two, then I’ll come back. Will you be OK do you think?’

I had to clear my throat before replying in order to moderate my own tone and maintain the perfect neutrality of our exchange. The alternative was shouting, or weeping, or accusation, hastily spat out. After spending the night imagining darkly, now the sheer reality and familiarity of my sister’s presence and her own attempt at composure kept me in check.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘That’s fine.’

‘It’s the girls,’ she said, turning away, slotting bread into the toaster.

‘Of course you should go.’ And I did feel a twinge of guilt then, because Nicky’s girls needed her too.

Steam billowed up from the kettle and settled in a moist coating on the front of one of my kitchen cabinets. Skittle dragged his cast laboriously across the floor and flopped heavily onto my feet. Nicky burned her toast and I watched her back as she took it to the sink and used a knife to scrape the black crumbs from it with sharp motions. They fell in a layer of coarse powder.

‘Cook some more,’ I said.

‘I wanted to leave some for you.’

‘It’s OK, I’ll have-’ I started to say.

‘You need to eat , Rachel!’ It was an outburst, her composure splintering abruptly, and she dropped her toast and the knife into the sink and leaned heavily on her palms on the edge of it, so that her shoulders became sharp points on either side of her bowed head. She looked up at the window and the darkness outside meant that her reflection was razor sharp in the glass and our eyes met in that way. She was the first to lower her gaze.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Can I show you something?’

It was an email that had come from America during the night. Via the Missing Kids website, Nicky had contacted another family whose child had been abducted and they’d replied to her, a message of support.

‘Read it,’ said Nicky. ‘They understand.’

She handed me her laptop. Two pages were up: one her blog, the other her email. I couldn’t help noticing that she’d updated her blog:

‘Dear Custard & Ketchup friends and followers,

This is a heartfelt request for you to please bear with me just for now. I’m sorry to say I need to take a short break from blogging for family reasons. I was hoping to keep you busy with some new Tasty Halloween Treats, but that hasn’t been possible. If you’re looking for Halloween ideas my post from last year is available still and you’ll find lots of fun stuff to make and decorate there. Next to come: Christmas Cheer! Watch this space, I’ll be back as soon as I can…

Nicky x’

She saw me reading it. ‘Simon posted that. He updates it for me sometimes,’ she said, and then, ‘I’m wondering whether we should do a webpage for Ben. I could link to it from the blog.’

I didn’t know what to say. I looked at my sister’s blog quite frequently, usually with some awe, especially at its mythologising and professionalising of family life. It was like a glossy food magazine, an enviable social diary. It was not my world.

I clicked on the email instead.

Email

From: Ivy Cooper ‹ivycooper@brettslegacy.com›

To: Nicola Forbes ‹nicky_forbes@yahoo.com›

25 October 2012 at 23:13

Re: Ben

Dear Nicky

BRETT’S LEGACY ‘DO SOME GOOD’

This is a time of tremendous pain for you and your family. We are praying for Ben, and for your family.

Our son Brett was taken from us seven years ago, and since then we’ve been through things that we never thought we would have to experience. Before he was taken from us, one of Brett’s favourite things to say was, ‘Mom, Let’s do some good,’ and we decided to make this a choice for our future, so that we could offer some help to other families who find themselves in the same situation.

We made this decision five years ago, soon after Brett’s body was discovered, and…

I stopped reading. I looked at my sister. ‘What happened to Brett?’ I said.

‘Have you read it all? Read to the end, you must. They actually understand what it’s like and it’s such a relief, honestly, I can’t tell you what a relief that is. I’ve been struggling so much to find anyone out there who knows what-’

‘What happened to him?’ I had to know. I didn’t like the email. I didn’t want to be part of this club: a family of devastated families. I wasn’t ready for that. Ben was going to come back to me. I wasn’t going to be like them.

‘It’s not relevant.’

‘It’s relevant to me.’

‘Brett died,’ Nicky said. ‘Unfortunately.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Rachel.’

‘How did he die?’

‘He was murdered, by his abductor. But that’s not the point, and they would never have found out what happened to him if the family hadn’t worked really hard to get the police to pursue the case.’