Hampstead Hoax was a series of false accusations starting in 2014 alleging that a Satan-worshipping paedophile ring of about "175 parents, teachers and religious leaders" were abusing children in the Hampstead area of north London.[1] Police found no evidence of abuse, let alone murder or Satanism, and the accused abusers were subject to harassment, death threats and online abuse, which continued at least to 2022.[1] It later transpired that the two children who alleged the crimes had been threatened and abused by adults to make the accusations.[1]

History

In the summer of 2014, two children accused their father (Ricky Dearman) of running the ring. In 2014, Ella Draper, a resident of Hampstead reported that her two children had been abused by their father and her estranged ex- husband (Ricky Dearman). An interview was taped in which Draper's children told police their father was part of a ring of satanic pedophiles who killed babies and drank their blood.[2] Cult members would allegedly drink the babies' blood, "then dance around wearing babies’ skulls and shoes made of baby skin".[3] In addition to their father, the children accused "their older half-brother, several teachers from their school, the priest at the adjacent church, a large number of parents from their school, social workers, Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service employees, and police officers" of belonging to the satanic cult.[3]

A police search of the local school (Christchurch Primary)[3] and church for the secret rooms where the children said babies were killed found nothing.[2] None of the other children whom the two children had named as abuse victims made similar accusations; some of the sites given by the children as locations of abuse didn't exist, and none of the Metropolitan Police officers the children had named as members of the cult were found to exist.[3]

The children recanted, and told police they had been forced to make the allegations by their mother and her partner, Abraham Christie – "in a process a judge would later refer to as 'torture'”.[1] According to Judge Justice Pauffley:

“There is every reason to conclude that over the course of the four weeks spent abroad last summer, the children’s minds were filled with ever more elaborate, fantastical and sexually explicit stories. … It was part of a deliberate plan by Mr. Christie and Ms. Draper.”[3]

Police did not prosecute Christie and Draper because the abuse had happened in another country – Morocco, where they were on holiday.[1]

The story did not end there. Draper continued to sue her ex-husband for custody of her children, and recruited Sabine McNeil to help her. In early 2015, McNeil took videos of police interviews of the children describe Satanic Ritual Abuse, a list of the alleged abusers and other confidential information from Draper's case and posted it on the Internet.[2] Specifically on The Tap Blog of Henry Curteis. The videos went viral.[3]

The conspiracy theory spread that a satanic paedophile ring existed in Hampstead, and Dearman and the other 175 people were subject to harassment, death threats and online abuse, which continued at least to 2022.[1] A court order demanding both Draper and McNeill remove material about the case from the internet. Draper led police and went to Spain. Sabine McNeill fled to Germany but was arrested when she returned to London.[3]

In 2016, McNeill was issued with lifetime restraining orders against broadcasting illegal and false claims. Three months later, she plead guilty to violating the restraining order and received a suspended sentence. In November and December 2018, she was convicted of four counts of harassment and stalking and six counts of again violating the 2016 restraining order.[3] In 2019, she was sentenced to nine years in prison.[4] In sentencing, Judge Sally Cahill pronounced:

The direct consequences of your actions is that for the four families concerned you have ruined all normal family life. Their children have been unable to attend school normally and are either home schooled or have to carry tracking devices and alarms. The families have escape routes planned in case of attack, mothers have slept on the floors of their children’s bedrooms to protect them. They have had to move homes: they have had businesses ruined as a result of being unable to have an online profile. As if that is not bad enough, for the children, they will never as things stand at the moment, be able to go online and put in their own names without seeing the vile filth that you have peddled over a period of years. The allegations were of murder, cannibalism, Satanism and sexual abuse. They could not be more serious or vile. The children’s lives have been blighted forever. In my judgement you are an arrogant, malicious, evil, and manipulative woman.[3]

(Since 2015, at least seven other people have been arrested and charged variously with stalking, intimidation, harassment, and contempt of court in connection with the hoax.)

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Montali, Stefano (22 September 2022). "Hoaxed: a podcast investigation of Hampstead's satanic paedophile ring – which doesn't exist". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  2. 1 2 3 Laycock, Satanism, 2023: 6 Satanic Panic.The End of the Satanic Panic?
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Sword, JD (14 November 2022). "The Devil in the Details The Devil Rides Out to Hampstead—the London Child Abuse Case That Was a Precursor to Pizzagate". Skeptical Inquirer. Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  4. ↑ Humphries, Will (11 January 2019). "Online troll Sabine McNeill who accused parents of satanic sex abuse jailed for 9 years". The Times (London). Retrieved 8 January 2024.
  • Laycock, Joseph P. (2023). Satanism. Elements in New Religious Movements (online ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009057349.
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