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UK Column ‘On Location’ in Cheltenham: Raja Miah · UK Column Radio

0:22
Speaker 1: What a lovely gathering of people. I I spend most
0:26
Speaker 1: of my time staring into a into a camera in
0:29
Speaker 1: front of me and imagining the faces of people I'm
0:32
Speaker 1: speaking to. So this is this is something else for me.
0:37
Speaker 1: I I think it's important for me to say to
0:43
Speaker 1: all of you, we've already won, yes, and we've won
0:48
Speaker 1: because we've refused to surrender to what it is they
0:53
Speaker 1: want us to be. And I remind myself of that
0:58
Speaker 1: every day because I know, and I've experienced for six
1:02
Speaker 1: years now relentlessly, how hard they've tried to silence me
1:11
Speaker 1: and me I'm just a northern working class boat in
1:14
Speaker 1: the scheme of things, I'm a Northern working class blog who,
1:19
Speaker 1: too is shame now maybe believed everything they told me,
1:25
Speaker 1: And when I realized that wasn't the case, my first
1:32
Speaker 1: instinct was not to speak out. My first instinct was
1:37
Speaker 1: to go to those of them who were meant to
1:40
Speaker 1: be protecting our children and asking them for help. I
1:49
Speaker 1: still struggled to believe six years later, how the established
2:00
Speaker 1: and the government whatever you want to call them, how
2:02
Speaker 1: they responded and how they reacted, and of course what
2:07
Speaker 1: I'm making reference to, and I've been arrested for this,
2:11
Speaker 1: and then I smiled when the former Prime Minister last
2:14
Speaker 1: trust also made reference to it in an interview she
2:17
Speaker 1: gave in the States recently. The industrial scale grooming and
2:23
Speaker 1: gang grape of one hundred thousand children over generations in
2:30
Speaker 1: this country more than allowed facilitated by a state successive governments.
2:40
Speaker 1: So I'm not blaming one or the other. I'm completely
2:43
Speaker 1: apolitical in this. And they allowed it for different reasons,
2:47
Speaker 1: but fundamentally it was two reasons white working class girls
2:57
Speaker 1: did not matter or mattered the least in the hierarchy
3:00
Speaker 1: of race. I'm a trained anti racist. They trained me
3:04
Speaker 1: in anti racism work. It's what I started off doing
3:07
Speaker 1: when when they first claimed I was a far right racist,
3:13
Speaker 1: my mother was still alive and my mother treasured dis
3:17
Speaker 1: medals I received. It was it was the main thing
3:20
Speaker 1: in her life that this random son of hers who
3:23
Speaker 1: never really conformed, got to take her to visit the Queen.
3:29
Speaker 1: And I was twenty nine thirty years old and I
3:32
Speaker 1: and I got this MB and it was for my
3:35
Speaker 1: work in safeguarding children and our communities from extremism from
3:42
Speaker 1: the old al Qaeda stuff, you know. That's that's where
3:45
Speaker 1: my background was in terms of experience, and then she's
3:49
Speaker 1: like scratching her head and saying, your aunt has been around,
3:52
Speaker 1: You've been in a newspaper. They've announced he was a
3:55
Speaker 1: far right racist. And I'm looking at and she was
4:00
Speaker 1: having or dipping her rich teina in her cup of tea,
4:03
Speaker 1: and she she couldn't make sense of it, and she's like, well,
4:06
Speaker 1: what will happen now to this medal of yours, medal
4:11
Speaker 1: of mine? Mum, I've not seen it since. I'd imagine
4:15
Speaker 1: it's been buried with her, you know, it is where
4:18
Speaker 1: I think it's gone. But when they come after you,
4:22
Speaker 1: it is absolutely relentless. But the beginnings of this when
4:26
Speaker 1: I went to them for help, which is where I
4:28
Speaker 1: think this story needs to start. The leader of the
4:31
Speaker 1: council and I name names. I'm comfortable naming names. They've
4:34
Speaker 1: tried to see him multiple times and every time I've
4:36
Speaker 1: said I'll see him in the High Court, and it disappears.
4:39
Speaker 1: At one point one of my legal team, legal team,
4:43
Speaker 1: he says, mates of mine, who are who are lawyers?
4:45
Speaker 1: Who I who I plead for help? One of them
4:49
Speaker 1: formed me up and said, Roger, it's got serious now,
4:51
Speaker 1: said why is it serious now? Was it not serious before? No,
4:55
Speaker 1: they've got Johnny Depp's lawyers on you now. Well, Johnny
5:00
Speaker 1: Depp's lawyers went the same way as everyone else's lawyers,
5:03
Speaker 1: because the truth is the truth, you know, and we've
5:07
Speaker 1: got to have the courage to stand up and say
5:09
Speaker 1: the truth, no matter what they throw at us. And
5:12
Speaker 1: I first went to a council in a town that
5:17
Speaker 1: I was raised. And you've got to understand my first
5:19
Speaker 1: memory of the civic Center. It's called they've now moved out,
5:23
Speaker 1: but it's this tall, imposing building. Anyone in those oldham
5:25
Speaker 1: you can see it from anywhere in the town and
5:28
Speaker 1: the skyline. It's the Civic Center. The first time I
5:31
Speaker 1: went in that building, I was four years old. My
5:33
Speaker 1: father took me in. I'm holding his hand. He has
5:38
Speaker 1: a word with the guard the reception, and he takes
5:40
Speaker 1: me in the lift. I'd never been in a lift before,
5:42
Speaker 1: and he takes me up to the top floor and
5:45
Speaker 1: I look out over the town and that was my home.
5:48
Speaker 1: You know. It took me there for a reason. This
5:50
Speaker 1: is your home. You belong to it, you contribute to it.
5:53
Speaker 1: He died when I was young, but it's one of
5:55
Speaker 1: those lessons that I took with me on my life,
5:59
Speaker 1: and fate brought me back to the town. My mother
6:04
Speaker 1: was terminally ill. I had a daughter from a different relation,
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Speaker 1: from a relationship that hadn't worked out, and I'd promised
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Speaker 1: myself that I needed to see my mom through the
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Speaker 1: end of her life, and I needed to be part
6:15
Speaker 1: of my daughter's life. And I came back up. I
6:17
Speaker 1: came back home having worked for the government all over
6:19
Speaker 1: the place, and an old man, Warren Bates this week
6:24
Speaker 1: he died. It's his anniversary this week, pestered me NonStop.
6:28
Speaker 1: I thought, who is this madman? Sorry, probably people like you,
6:31
Speaker 1: I would have considered at the time, Who is this nutcase?
6:35
Speaker 1: Why does he believe all this stuff? I went to
6:39
Speaker 1: see him ex U kip Er counselor. He started off
6:42
Speaker 1: as a working in the mines as a twelve year old,
6:45
Speaker 1: so you know, working class down he worked in. He
6:47
Speaker 1: was a miner at the age of twelve. Put in
6:50
Speaker 1: front of me a dossier of files. Rajah, we've gone everywhere.
6:56
Speaker 1: We need your help. And the dossier of files clearly
7:00
Speaker 1: evidenced the BBC complicit. Working in partnership with Greater Manchester Police,
7:08
Speaker 1: the MP at the time, a man called Michael Meetscher
7:10
Speaker 1: and the leader of Oldham Council now Secretary of State,
7:13
Speaker 1: Jim McMahon, all working together, conspiring with each other to
7:19
Speaker 1: keep hidden the news of the gang rape of children
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Speaker 1: being dragged off the streets of my town in broad
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Speaker 1: daylight into shisha bars where their rooms were being let
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Speaker 1: out by the hour, blacked out windows. And this isn't
7:35
Speaker 1: fifty years ago or one hundred years ago, this is,
7:38
Speaker 1: you know, twenty first century United Kingdom. Have you not
7:45
Speaker 1: gone to the press, Yes, of course we have. We
7:49
Speaker 1: went to the Manchester Evening News. Woman's name is Jennifer Williams.
7:56
Speaker 1: She now works for the Financial Times. Do you see
7:59
Speaker 1: how all of this always is connected? She now worked
8:01
Speaker 1: for the Final She didn't want anything to do with
8:03
Speaker 1: it because Labor Party politicians were involved, the establishment were involved,
8:08
Speaker 1: but there were children involved. We went to the BBC,
8:13
Speaker 1: they went everywhere, no one would touch it. Asked me
8:17
Speaker 1: for help. I had come off the back of removing
8:22
Speaker 1: a convicted sex offender who was the chairman of my mosque,
8:26
Speaker 1: so I'd come back to my town and a friend's
8:29
Speaker 1: wife got in touch with me and said Roger please
8:31
Speaker 1: say do something. No one will say anything. The chairman's
8:34
Speaker 1: a convicted sex offender and he's allowed to be very
8:36
Speaker 1: because of his political links. I spoke out. I outed
8:41
Speaker 1: him and nearly got a good kicking before outing him,
8:45
Speaker 1: and Warren Bates asked me for help, and I helped.
8:50
Speaker 1: I write I understand politics. I released information in the
8:54
Speaker 1: way I released it, and I mobilized a group of
8:59
Speaker 1: mainly elderly people. Now in the sixties, seventies, eighties. I
9:03
Speaker 1: don't know what elderly is, I ma'am on the other
9:05
Speaker 1: side of fifteen now, so man thinking what can you
9:07
Speaker 1: class as elderly? And they went to the council meeting.
9:12
Speaker 1: Is that No? How democracy works. You go to the
9:15
Speaker 1: council meeting and you say, is any of this truth?
9:18
Speaker 1: We must do something about it. The council leader man
9:22
Speaker 1: called Sean Feelding going places in the Labor Party. Well
9:27
Speaker 1: he was at the time. He stood up and marched
9:32
Speaker 1: out of the council meeting, not once but twice. Rather
9:35
Speaker 1: than answer a simple question about the cover up of
9:39
Speaker 1: the gang grape of children in the town to an
9:41
Speaker 1: elderly disabled woman and her team of friends who went
9:45
Speaker 1: with her and then the police were called in and
9:48
Speaker 1: all of it we videoed. We videoed all of it,
9:51
Speaker 1: and it was a beginning in a story of beginnings.
9:52
Speaker 1: This was one of our beginnings. The policeman threatened to
9:59
Speaker 1: drag out the old women from the council chamber. It
10:03
Speaker 1: caused outrage. I did what I did. I'm accused of exaggerating,
10:09
Speaker 1: whipping things up. I'm a campaigner. You know. If you
10:12
Speaker 1: want to criticize me for being successfully campaigning, then fine,
10:15
Speaker 1: criticized me for successfully campaigning. My job is to raise
10:18
Speaker 1: awareness and instigate change and hold people to account who've
10:21
Speaker 1: done wrong. We took a hundred people to the next
10:26
Speaker 1: council meeting. The leader of the council stood up against
10:29
Speaker 1: Sean Fielding and claimed, it's words you guys will be
10:33
Speaker 1: familiar with in the various forms bare faced lies. He
10:38
Speaker 1: claimed the cover up of the grooming and gang grape
10:40
Speaker 1: of children was bare face lies. So much so he said,
10:44
Speaker 1: I repeat bare faced lies. We captured what he said.
10:50
Speaker 1: We launched our campaign and I am political. I looked
10:53
Speaker 1: at this, I spoke with survivors, I looked at the
10:56
Speaker 1: work of Maggie Oliver, and I respect them. No issue whatsoever.
11:02
Speaker 1: But we can work and work and continue to work
11:05
Speaker 1: for another one hundred years with those who have survived
11:08
Speaker 1: these horrific crimes, and no change will happen. I'm very
11:12
Speaker 1: clear on what needs to happen. We need a national inquiry.
11:16
Speaker 1: We need people who were responsible for the cover up
11:20
Speaker 1: to be held to account, and we need the underlying
11:23
Speaker 1: conditions which facilitated that, cultural traditions which facilitated that to
11:29
Speaker 1: be addressed again. I come from an anti racist background.
11:34
Speaker 1: In the world I was raised in, in the world I
11:36
Speaker 1: operated in, we accepted certain communities and views and opinions
11:41
Speaker 1: that were not aligned with the values that we have
11:44
Speaker 1: as a society, and we wanted to challenge and encourage
11:47
Speaker 1: people to change. But when you come to dealing with
11:50
Speaker 1: this issue, no one wants to deal with this issue
11:54
Speaker 1: because everyone in power is complicit in some way or another.
12:00
Speaker 1: At the time we started campaigning, the Labor Party alled
12:04
Speaker 1: them held forty seven of the sixty seats. We're pushing
12:09
Speaker 1: for a national inquiry and we're pushing for votes every
12:11
Speaker 1: time we takeing motions to the council, motion to the council,
12:14
Speaker 1: and people think, what are you bothering with you'll never
12:16
Speaker 1: get this over the line. Watch. We targeted the leaders
12:22
Speaker 1: of the council. So the first guy was a man
12:24
Speaker 1: called Sean Fielding, safe labor seat. Most of the town
12:29
Speaker 1: is safe labor seat. Apart from the rural areas of
12:31
Speaker 1: Saddleworth where you get the odd conservative or live them.
12:34
Speaker 1: The rest of the town is labor All this has
12:36
Speaker 1: been you know, and we targeted in such a way.
12:42
Speaker 1: We've removed him. We took out the first Labor Party
12:45
Speaker 1: leader ever done in this way, and he was replaced
12:48
Speaker 1: by a woman called Arud Shah. Arrud Shah is the
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Speaker 1: sort of Labor Party politician that this country should fear.
13:02
Speaker 1: She hangs off the arm of a convicted heroine dealer
13:07
Speaker 1: who goes by the name of irish Imi irish Immy
13:11
Speaker 1: Pakistani al Pakistani. He actually claim his Irish heritage. Irish
13:15
Speaker 1: Immy was convicted in the dark alongside a man called
13:21
Speaker 1: dale Kregan. Dale Kregan killed two police officers. All of
13:27
Speaker 1: this is a matter of fact. She became the leader
13:30
Speaker 1: of Oldham Council. She'd celebrated her last election victory in
13:37
Speaker 1: a picture with two other individuals. One was a brother
13:41
Speaker 1: and you can't pick your family, so I don't pick
13:43
Speaker 1: on him in that way. He is a convicted money
13:45
Speaker 1: launderer who was involved in the heroine business, in the
13:48
Speaker 1: drugs business. The other guy was a guy called Zia Hussein.
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Speaker 1: Zia Hussain was convicted for kidnap and torture. This is
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Speaker 1: the council leader Red Labor Party Rosettes in my town.
14:03
Speaker 1: Zia Hussein kidnapped and tortured a young man where the
14:06
Speaker 1: police turned up and found blood splattered all over the world.
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Speaker 1: His torture had included using broomsticks and inserting them into
14:16
Speaker 1: various parts of the body of the young man he'd kidnapped.
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Speaker 1: Arrud Shah Now is the Equalities lead for the Greater
14:28
Speaker 1: Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. Ar Rud Shah Now is the
14:33
Speaker 1: chair of the National Constitutional Committee of the Labor Party.
14:39
Speaker 1: This is how deep this goes. And this is just
14:43
Speaker 1: the beginning of how deep this goes. So in my town,
14:47
Speaker 1: what the Labor Party very quickly worked out was to
14:50
Speaker 1: maintain power, they needed to get in bed with the
14:56
Speaker 1: block Muslim vote. And it's the same across the country
14:59
Speaker 1: where it's operates. The last count as I think the
15:03
Speaker 1: Muslim political organizations themselves as identified eighty constituencies, and I
15:08
Speaker 1: think we've only got what six hundred and fifty eighty
15:10
Speaker 1: constituencies were the block Muslim vote held sway. This block
15:15
Speaker 1: Muslim vote across the country is controlled by two factions.
15:20
Speaker 1: One is what I make reference to as the car tells,
15:24
Speaker 1: which is organized crime, essentially Pakistani organized crime. And the
15:28
Speaker 1: other faction, which makes me prefer the organized crime, is
15:34
Speaker 1: these limits. They don't hide it outright's limits and the
15:39
Speaker 1: Labor Party is juggling this. So our rude shark comes along.
15:45
Speaker 1: We campaign. Of course the gangsters come after me, but
15:49
Speaker 1: the gangsters isn't where it stops. This is where it
15:51
Speaker 1: really got sinister. They never really bothered me when we
15:54
Speaker 1: got rid of Sean Feeling because I don't think they
15:56
Speaker 1: expected to get rid of a council leader. And I
15:58
Speaker 1: thought they'd fizzle out. They thought it fiz allowed. But
16:01
Speaker 1: every day our numbers are growing in a town that's apathetic,
16:04
Speaker 1: politically epathetic. I think you know our local election turn
16:07
Speaker 1: out to twenty percent in some wards. If you if
16:10
Speaker 1: you went round the pubs on a Saturday night, you'd
16:13
Speaker 1: get enough people to vote you in on the on
16:15
Speaker 1: the election on the Thursday. It's it's you know, some
16:17
Speaker 1: of those wards were like that. Our numbers were growing,
16:21
Speaker 1: Our numbers were growing. And I get a phone call
16:24
Speaker 1: from a police and the detective chief inspector at the
16:29
Speaker 1: time decent man Raja and moving on. There are things
16:34
Speaker 1: going on in this town. I'm not comfortable with again names.
16:37
Speaker 1: His name is Jim Fonkner DCI in the town. Moved on.
16:42
Speaker 1: Next thing I know, eight police officers don raid my house.
16:47
Speaker 1: I live with my at the time six year old daughter.
16:51
Speaker 1: Bear in mind. Decorated individual sat in rooms with prime
16:56
Speaker 1: ministers represented this country all around the world. A front
17:00
Speaker 1: doors kicked in by eight police officers. They'd arrested. They
17:06
Speaker 1: arrested me for two crimes. One I was a racist,
17:15
Speaker 1: and I was a racist because I'd spoken out against
17:22
Speaker 1: the way in which the Gaza conflict was being weaponized
17:29
Speaker 1: by many of the Muslims in my in the place
17:32
Speaker 1: where I lived, and they were encouraging the support of Hamas.
17:37
Speaker 1: And they'd gone around, These idiots had gone around and
17:39
Speaker 1: they were smashing the windows of Jewish buildings, Jewish owned buildings.
17:43
Speaker 1: So I'd used the word crystal knat in an article
17:48
Speaker 1: the police officers. Two idiots sat there in the interview
17:51
Speaker 1: room and am in my pajamas. Says to me, you
17:55
Speaker 1: could have objected. You might have offended someone Jewish. Hold on,
18:00
Speaker 1: I might have offended someone Jewish because I use the
18:03
Speaker 1: word crystal night to describe the dangers of you know,
18:08
Speaker 1: the symbolism of smashing windows of a Jewish own building.
18:11
Speaker 1: And I said to him, it's the equivalent of someone
18:15
Speaker 1: posting a ham sandwich for the letterbox of a mox mosque.
18:19
Speaker 1: The symbolism is far more than just the act itself.
18:24
Speaker 1: Have you spoken to anyone Jewish? No, but you might have.
18:31
Speaker 1: So eight of you have hammered down my door because
18:33
Speaker 1: of that. Oh no, no, we've got something else as well.
18:36
Speaker 1: There's a video you put out. He said, yes, remember
18:40
Speaker 1: the Irish imigai. There's a video you put out. Will
18:45
Speaker 1: you You've said these things in that video and it's
18:49
Speaker 1: offended such and such a body. I said, Okay, have
18:52
Speaker 1: you watched the video? No, have you spoken to the
18:56
Speaker 1: person you've offended? No, we've not took a statement yet.
19:00
Speaker 1: Oh but you've sent eight people to come and arrest me,
19:02
Speaker 1: you know, on a dawn raid. Three years I was
19:06
Speaker 1: in and out of court rooms all this time. The
19:09
Speaker 1: purpose of that was twofold threefold. One was to discredit
19:13
Speaker 1: me completely, to discredit me because by the time I
19:17
Speaker 1: came out of the police cell that first time, and
19:20
Speaker 1: it was one of many times I've been arrested on
19:22
Speaker 1: this journey, they had worked with the local newspaper. They're
19:27
Speaker 1: all connected. And I learned this as I went along.
19:30
Speaker 1: You know, what I considered to be conspiracy theories I
19:34
Speaker 1: experienced as actually there was nothing at all conspiracy about
19:39
Speaker 1: any of these things. They were real, and I was
19:41
Speaker 1: living through a nightmare. The local newspaper ran aheadline, I've
19:45
Speaker 1: been arrested as a child sex offender. Completely fabricated it.
19:51
Speaker 1: And of course, as you learn this on this journey,
19:54
Speaker 1: you complain to the press complaints and you realize they're
19:56
Speaker 1: not really independent. And now I've learned that anything that
19:59
Speaker 1: says independent the beginning of their title is anything but independent. Yes,
20:04
Speaker 1: I went through the press complaints pointless. My enemies were
20:09
Speaker 1: using it to try and demonstrate that, you know, I'm
20:12
Speaker 1: the one who who's the child sex offender, completely fabricated
20:16
Speaker 1: by a journalist who then gets promoted as is the
20:20
Speaker 1: you know, I think she now works on one of
20:22
Speaker 1: the fact fact checking organizations. The trials come and go,
20:30
Speaker 1: the cases collapse, the second case collapses. I'm in the dark,
20:37
Speaker 1: the judges looking at me. The CPS's position was that
20:43
Speaker 1: the witness against me, remember three years in the paper,
20:47
Speaker 1: all the time, photographs, all the time, three years. The
20:52
Speaker 1: defense was that the victim has gone on holiday. But
20:57
Speaker 1: they're just like her statement to be read out, and
21:00
Speaker 1: my defense cannot cross examine or test hurt the evidence
21:05
Speaker 1: against me, and they'd like to proceed on that basis.
21:10
Speaker 1: I'm sat in the dark, scratching my head, thinking I've
21:12
Speaker 1: been in Banana Republic, so it's you know, where it's
21:15
Speaker 1: fairer than here. The judge to her credit at that point,
21:19
Speaker 1: and I don't think she would have necessarily done that,
21:22
Speaker 1: because I went to trial after case after hearing after hearing,
21:27
Speaker 1: and the public gallery is packed, and it's packed full
21:30
Speaker 1: of people of my town who finally found someone who
21:35
Speaker 1: would stand for them, and they weren't going to let
21:39
Speaker 1: me down. And that's why I walked out of that
21:43
Speaker 1: cord a free man. Three years later. During that time,
21:47
Speaker 1: they arrested me again and again and again, and each
21:51
Speaker 1: time from the first time. Onwards, they were very clear,
21:53
Speaker 1: we are arresting you because you are politically campaigning. We
21:57
Speaker 1: want you to stop. If you stop campaign, this will stop.
22:03
Speaker 1: What am I campaigning for, to stop to end the
22:08
Speaker 1: gang rape of children. That's what I'm campaigning for. I'm
22:12
Speaker 1: not campaigning for anything else. These aren't my children as
22:16
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, these are our children. We all
22:19
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to these children, you know. And it's outragious.
22:28
Speaker 1: So let me talk to you about the political journey
22:32
Speaker 1: we've go on. So we take rid of we get
22:34
Speaker 1: rid of a rude shah. Despite what happens, another council
22:38
Speaker 1: leader comes in, woman called Amanda Chaddington, and by this
22:41
Speaker 1: time they have to do an inquiry, so they brought
22:44
Speaker 1: in Andy Burnham, King of the cover ups, right, They're
22:47
Speaker 1: bringing Andy Burnham. He launches a review, an assurance review,
22:52
Speaker 1: and you know, he presents himself, goes to all the
22:55
Speaker 1: meetings and he talks and they and the assurance review
22:59
Speaker 1: comes out. The leader called Amandy Chadditon, she stands up
23:01
Speaker 1: and says, you can't say it destroyed their lives. The
23:07
Speaker 1: leader of the council stands up in a meeting and says,
23:09
Speaker 1: you can't say being groomed and gang graped destroyed lives.
23:15
Speaker 1: What do I do a video? What she says, knock
23:18
Speaker 1: on every door in the water where she's standing. The
23:22
Speaker 1: police arrest me again. We remove her, third council leader
23:29
Speaker 1: in a row, removed. All this time, the national press
23:33
Speaker 1: are starting to think, whoops, there's something going on in
23:35
Speaker 1: this northern town. They've taken out leader after leader after leader.
23:39
Speaker 1: They're not going away. The far right conspiracy theory isn't
23:42
Speaker 1: stopping any of them, and of course a brown faced
23:45
Speaker 1: Muslim face leading the campaign makes it even more ridiculous
23:49
Speaker 1: the allegation of her of it being a fire right
23:52
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory. Andy Burnham's review comes out two guys malcolmk
23:58
Speaker 1: new some Gary Ridgeway. One's retired police officer. One's one
24:02
Speaker 1: of those civil servants that I spent a lifetime working with.
24:06
Speaker 1: They can be trusted to protect those who need protecting.
24:12
Speaker 1: We found no evidence of a cover up. May your
24:17
Speaker 1: terms of reference did not include whether or not you
24:20
Speaker 1: were meant to go and find evidence of a cover up.
24:22
Speaker 1: How can you not find something that you didn't go
24:24
Speaker 1: looking for? That's the terms of reference. But they think
24:27
Speaker 1: we're stupid. You know we're working classdoven just because you've
24:30
Speaker 1: got a plum voice, or will you know, we'll believe it.
24:36
Speaker 1: What we exposed was that there was a guy called
24:40
Speaker 1: Shaber Ahmed Daddy. He's known as in the Three Girls
24:44
Speaker 1: They Betrayed Girls, he'd have seen reference to him. It
24:47
Speaker 1: was the ringleader of the Rochdale Grimming Gang. Of course,
24:50
Speaker 1: these gangs didn't operate in one town. They operated across you,
24:54
Speaker 1: across county lines, and indeed girls were traffic from one
24:58
Speaker 1: end of the country to another. The survivors have clearly
25:01
Speaker 1: made reference to how taxes were used to traffic them
25:03
Speaker 1: all across the country. He worked for the council. They
25:08
Speaker 1: kept it hidden. He worked for the council accessing children.
25:13
Speaker 1: They kept it hidden. He worked for the council and
25:16
Speaker 1: sat in a room in an advisory role where in
25:20
Speaker 1: his little black book he took appointments for children who
25:25
Speaker 1: would be gang grapes later and to make matters worse,
25:31
Speaker 1: nine times even buried in that report. Nine times. They
25:36
Speaker 1: could have and should have arrested nine times. They let
25:40
Speaker 1: him go. Why because he was a senior member of
25:44
Speaker 1: the Labor Party and he delivered votes. And this scandal,
25:50
Speaker 1: whether it's an all them, Rochdale, Burnley, Bradford, wherever you go,
25:53
Speaker 1: tell it's the same. The kingpins in these rape gangs
25:59
Speaker 1: delivered votes to those in power, and it was an
26:02
Speaker 1: exchange children in this country. As uncomfortable as it may sound,
26:08
Speaker 1: children in this country were systematically groomed and gang raped
26:14
Speaker 1: in exchange, in exchange for the votes that the men
26:19
Speaker 1: who controlled these communities delivered. And what do we do
26:24
Speaker 1: about that, Well, we call it out for what it is.
26:28
Speaker 1: The narrative they spun at the beginning of this, and
26:31
Speaker 1: it's what made me angry at the beginning, Roger, we're
26:35
Speaker 1: maintaining community relations. Go and find any man, regardless of
26:42
Speaker 1: what background is from, who will agree with you maintaining
26:46
Speaker 1: community relations at the expense of children being raped. I've
26:52
Speaker 1: yet to come across a single person from my community
26:55
Speaker 1: who agrees with that. However, what these people have done,
27:00
Speaker 1: and what you understand, is the divide and rule tactics
27:07
Speaker 1: that they deploy. So they have been determined from the
27:12
Speaker 1: outset to portray this cover up as a not a conspiracy,
27:18
Speaker 1: but a far right conspiracy. So those who speak out
27:22
Speaker 1: against it are racist and far right, and people like
27:26
Speaker 1: me from communities like mine need to stay quiet otherwise
27:31
Speaker 1: and I'm sorry, I'm looking around this room and it's
27:33
Speaker 1: mainly why Otherwise people like you will come and get
27:36
Speaker 1: people like me. And that is the tactic they the
27:41
Speaker 1: state has always used in maintaining power. It turns one
27:46
Speaker 1: group against another group. And in the middle of that
27:51
Speaker 1: you get evil men. They are evil who will prosper?
27:57
Speaker 1: And I say this to you now, our political class
28:02
Speaker 1: is evil. I come to no other conclusion other than
28:07
Speaker 1: that it is evil. And Brian used the word evil
28:10
Speaker 1: last night when I was having talking to her, and
28:12
Speaker 1: he just reinforced what I've been. You know, if there's
28:16
Speaker 1: right and there's wrong, there's good and there's evil, then
28:19
Speaker 1: the selling of children to be gang raped for votes,
28:24
Speaker 1: that's evil. And equally as evil is then using that
28:28
Speaker 1: to divide communities against each other. And stepping back and
28:32
Speaker 1: was do you fight with me and I fight with you?
28:35
Speaker 1: They prosper? Is that not what they do? Is that
28:38
Speaker 1: not what they've always done? Now I'm completely apolitical. I
28:49
Speaker 1: think I've said this. And during all of this, by
28:53
Speaker 1: the way, I was, to my embarrassment, possibly I was
28:58
Speaker 1: a member of the Labor Party, and that in rooms
29:00
Speaker 1: with Labor Party prime ministers that had worked for him
29:02
Speaker 1: for a long time. I was a member of the
29:03
Speaker 1: Labor Party. I was brought up in a trade union household.
29:06
Speaker 1: My father was a trade unionist. They threw me out.
29:10
Speaker 1: They threw me out because I wouldn't shut up about
29:13
Speaker 1: the you know, about child abuse, and they threw me
29:18
Speaker 1: out because I take this to a place where it's
29:22
Speaker 1: more than actually about the power of the child abuse.
29:25
Speaker 1: As horrific as the child abuse is, this is actually
29:28
Speaker 1: more than just about child abuse. This is about how
29:30
Speaker 1: they maintain power and what they're prepared to do to
29:35
Speaker 1: maintain power. Now. I don't know how familiar you are
29:39
Speaker 1: with the mechanics of government, but there's this thing called
29:43
Speaker 1: postal voting. Tony Bair introduced it in a way where
29:47
Speaker 1: postal vote became available to everyone prior to that year
29:51
Speaker 1: to apply and it was likely disabled that the elderly
29:53
Speaker 1: could be postal votes in the places where I come from.
29:56
Speaker 1: And remember we're talking about eighty constituencies now growing, you know,
30:00
Speaker 1: demographics is what demographics is? Eighty constituencies and it's growing.
30:05
Speaker 1: Postal vote fraud is endemic. The criminals and the Islamists
30:09
Speaker 1: can pick up these postal votes, and the elections are
30:14
Speaker 1: rigged our electoral system. If we believe in democracy, if
30:20
Speaker 1: we believe in democracy, then the fundamental feature of democracy
30:24
Speaker 1: has got to be the ballot box. If we believe
30:27
Speaker 1: that we want to bring about the changes we want
30:29
Speaker 1: to see in our society lawfully and legally, then it's
30:32
Speaker 1: through electing representatives who will speak on behalf of us.
30:37
Speaker 1: For me, this fight has always been political, and this
30:39
Speaker 1: is why they despise me the way they do, because
30:43
Speaker 1: I've took the fight to a place where they feel
30:45
Speaker 1: very uncomfortable, and now I'm exposing them to say, well, actually,
30:49
Speaker 1: the elections are rigged. I don't know what the Conservatives
30:53
Speaker 1: will do. I don't know what reform will do. I
30:55
Speaker 1: don't know any of that. All I do is smile,
30:58
Speaker 1: go to meetings and try encourage anyone who has an
31:01
Speaker 1: interest in this to do something for the right reason.
31:06
Speaker 1: And if they benefit as a consequence, I don't care.
31:09
Speaker 1: I don't have the luxury of choice. We're from a
31:12
Speaker 1: working class mill town. We know we don't have that.
31:16
Speaker 1: What we do have is a desire to see this
31:20
Speaker 1: evil confronted, eliminated, and anyone who is prepared to help
31:29
Speaker 1: we will work with, and we will encourage and support,
31:32
Speaker 1: so that that is our story. In essence, that is
31:36
Speaker 1: our story. This is what happens when you speak out,
31:39
Speaker 1: but more so is to be expected. Why would anyone
31:45
Speaker 1: expect not to be dragged out of that house and
31:47
Speaker 1: put in a police off if you for me. The
31:51
Speaker 1: first time that happened to me, I knew we were winning.
31:57
Speaker 1: The first time they dragged me out, I knew they
31:59
Speaker 1: were winning. We were winning. The second time they dragged
32:03
Speaker 1: me out and put me in a police cell and
32:04
Speaker 1: dragged me into wherever they took me, I knew we'd
32:07
Speaker 1: already won. And the last time they did it, I
32:12
Speaker 1: used it against them. The very clothes they put me
32:17
Speaker 1: in I went out campaigning. They when they lock you up.
32:20
Speaker 1: I don't know if any of you have been blocked up,
32:22
Speaker 1: but they you know, they take all your clothes off
32:23
Speaker 1: you and humiliate you with whatever they the garb they
32:27
Speaker 1: address you in, I wore that uniform with pride, and
32:31
Speaker 1: I went and knocked on people's houses. I genuinely believe
32:45
Speaker 1: in the end, it is up to us. We are
32:49
Speaker 1: the ones in power. We are the ones who have control,
32:51
Speaker 1: not them, and we need to believe that we need
32:53
Speaker 1: to exercise that and there's nothing they can do. So
32:58
Speaker 1: I'm grateful. I'm grateful, But you guys were promoting my
33:03
Speaker 1: work before I'd even come across you. Someone sent me
33:05
Speaker 1: a link to say, you know, there's this guy called
33:07
Speaker 1: Rajia and me and he's annoying the right people. And
33:10
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, And then I started to look and
33:14
Speaker 1: I said, you understand it. There's layers to this. You know,
33:18
Speaker 1: the people this snd out against you are the people
33:20
Speaker 1: who are connected. Who are the people who are connected.
33:22
Speaker 1: There's layers to this. And this isn't ten different fights
33:26
Speaker 1: or twenty different fights. This is one fight. So thank you,
33:33
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to me, thank you for inviting me.
34:07
Speaker 2: What a start, Absolutely spellbinding, and I think we could
34:11
Speaker 2: probably compile an entire book of quotations from what Rajah
34:16
Speaker 2: has just delivered. Life at the sharp End, and my goodness,
34:22
Speaker 2: what an incredible story, absolutely reinforcing the point that truth
34:27
Speaker 2: will always be stranger than fiction. Now I'm pleased to
34:32
Speaker 2: say that we do have a little bit of time
34:33
Speaker 2: for questions, but I mean questions so phrases that are
34:43
Speaker 2: short and end with a question mark. Here we go.
34:50
Speaker 2: We'll have an example here.
34:52
Speaker 3: Did you The questquestion was did you sue them for
35:01
Speaker 3: that slur?
35:02
Speaker 2: But you're right, we will get a microphone.
35:05
Speaker 1: No. I realized very quickly that one of the things
35:08
Speaker 1: that they wanted me to do was to deflect my
35:12
Speaker 1: energy and my attention into fighting them on issue in
35:17
Speaker 1: a way that they wanted, which was timing up in courtroom,
35:20
Speaker 1: sue them. I was hurting them at the ballot box.
35:23
Speaker 1: I was hurting them campaigning. I'm a working class. You
35:27
Speaker 1: go into a fight, you get hit. I knew I was.
35:29
Speaker 1: You know, I expected to get hit. I got hit,
35:31
Speaker 1: and I continue to get It's fine, hit me as
35:33
Speaker 1: many times as you want. But we're going to carry
35:36
Speaker 1: on doing this, and I'm not going to divert or
35:38
Speaker 1: deflect away. Of course I could sue them. Of course
35:40
Speaker 1: I might get ten. This isn't about money. It was
35:43
Speaker 1: never about money. It's about getting the justice delivered. And
35:47
Speaker 1: my energy has always been best used in campaigning on
35:51
Speaker 1: this issue. Not woe is me, you know, but whatever
35:57
Speaker 1: they do to me is you know, it's nothing compared
36:03
Speaker 1: to the testimonies. Of those children. You should read some
36:07
Speaker 1: of that stuff. You'll cry, you know you will. You
36:10
Speaker 1: will cry when you read what they did to these children,
36:13
Speaker 1: and then what those in authority did to cover up
36:17
Speaker 1: what was done to these children. I mean, I I
36:20
Speaker 1: just now, you know, it fills me up with emotion
36:23
Speaker 1: because I will never unread some of those things that
36:26
Speaker 1: I've read. I will never forget the look of anguish
36:31
Speaker 1: in those young women. And many of these young women,
36:34
Speaker 1: Many of these young women, they weren't the damaged social
36:38
Speaker 1: services sort of you know profile that they like to present.
36:41
Speaker 1: They were young women living in multicultural communities who viewed
36:48
Speaker 1: people like me and from my backgrounds with equity. There
36:52
Speaker 1: was no suspicion to it. They were exploited. The decency
36:56
Speaker 1: was exploited. So no, I didn't sue them. And you
37:00
Speaker 1: know why we're winning. Who wants money going to do? Yeah?
37:10
Speaker 2: You just shout it out all Brenette's.
37:15
Speaker 4: Private criminal prosecution of some of the.
37:22
Speaker 2: The question is is the scape for a private prosecution
37:25
Speaker 2: in relation to the some of the malfeasans that's been
37:27
Speaker 2: going on.
37:29
Speaker 1: My My focus has been for the last year or
37:32
Speaker 1: so on trying to drive this public inquiry forward. So
37:35
Speaker 1: if many of you who've come across this in this
37:38
Speaker 1: latest wave will have come across it when the Children's
37:42
Speaker 1: Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips the say you know, she's a
37:45
Speaker 1: safeguarding Minister for girls wrote back to my town and
37:49
Speaker 1: refused a public inquiry into the cover up of gang
37:52
Speaker 1: grape of girls in my town, you know. And I
37:55
Speaker 1: genuinely believe that will come through when we get to
38:00
Speaker 1: where we need to get to with the public inquiry.
38:03
Speaker 1: It's and and and this has gone on for years. Yeah,
38:10
Speaker 1: this has this has gone on for years. I I
38:12
Speaker 1: came into this six years ago, and I speak to
38:15
Speaker 1: people and they've been working on this for you know,
38:18
Speaker 1: twenty years before me. And I agree with you, I know,
38:22
Speaker 1: I I I agree with you. But who's going to
38:24
Speaker 1: do it?
38:27
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm a labor party too.
38:34
Speaker 1: Oh that's two of us. Then it's a labor party. Future.
38:43
Speaker 1: Is it going to suicide?
38:46
Speaker 3: Because it's becoming increasingly.
38:50
Speaker 2: Question is is the Labor Party going to commit suicide
38:54
Speaker 2: because it's becoming increasingly irrelevant.
38:56
Speaker 1: I I spent a lot of my time in a demographic.
39:05
Speaker 1: Now I mock and I make reference to them as
39:07
Speaker 1: the fake liberal metropolitan elite. It is more relevant to
39:14
Speaker 1: that demographic now than it ever has been. So whilst
39:17
Speaker 1: it becomes irrelevant to us, there are certain groups it
39:20
Speaker 1: is more relevant too. And what the Labor Party is
39:25
Speaker 1: doing in towns and cities across the country is doubling
39:29
Speaker 1: down on its core vote one and two. It's trying
39:33
Speaker 1: to make sure that those who don't vote, and if
39:37
Speaker 1: you look at our country, there's increasing numbers who don't
39:39
Speaker 1: vote never vote, so you never see the value of voting,
39:44
Speaker 1: and those who do vote that divide it. So I
39:46
Speaker 1: think they're becoming more relevant than ever to the vote,
39:50
Speaker 1: to the core voters, sadly, and I think the rest
39:53
Speaker 1: of us, who perhaps could or should, we're divided. And
39:59
Speaker 1: that's if we care in enough. I mean, just just
40:01
Speaker 1: look at the I don't know what any of your
40:02
Speaker 1: politics are. I don't know any of you well enough,
40:05
Speaker 1: but just just look at the you know where the
40:07
Speaker 1: Conservatives now are worthy the civil war in reform at
40:12
Speaker 1: the moment you can you know if if if you,
40:15
Speaker 1: I I don't sense hope from from any of the
40:18
Speaker 1: mainstream voices up at this moment in time. Sadly, it's just.
40:24
Speaker 2: That at the back of your hand up, Uh, thank you.
40:28
Speaker 4: I think our future and youth.
40:35
Speaker 1: So you're saying, because all of.
40:38
Speaker 4: The nurses buking wonders, is there anything personally by your
40:45
Speaker 4: trying to get the eighteens, the twenties to thirty year
40:48
Speaker 4: oles important because there are future so that then we're
40:52
Speaker 4: we're always going to be very question.
40:56
Speaker 2: Is about looking at the future, how we are to
40:58
Speaker 2: engage the youth in in what Rod has been doing
41:00
Speaker 2: and talking about.
41:03
Speaker 1: I I agree with you one hundred percent. First and
41:07
Speaker 1: foremost they agreed. I agreed you. I spent again, to
41:11
Speaker 1: my shame, perhaps I spent a chunk of my time
41:13
Speaker 1: working with an organization called the Young Foundation, which trained
41:17
Speaker 1: a whole host of young people to enter politics. I
41:21
Speaker 1: devised her programs for about three or four years, and
41:25
Speaker 1: what I learned from that was actually they didn't want
41:28
Speaker 1: to diversify the political talent pool. What they wanted was
41:34
Speaker 1: people who just looked different to do exactly as they did,
41:38
Speaker 1: you know. And and then then that was the end
41:40
Speaker 1: of our journey. When I understood that, I'm always told
41:47
Speaker 1: young people don't care, and in terms of politics and stuff,
41:51
Speaker 1: young people don't care, don't care enough and then I look,
41:53
Speaker 1: because I come from those sorts of places where the
41:58
Speaker 1: gaza conflict, whatever your views opinion, is very real. And
42:01
Speaker 1: I see the protests, and the protests are full of
42:04
Speaker 1: young people. And I would argue, young people do care.
42:08
Speaker 1: Perhaps they care for the wrong reasons, perhaps so you
42:10
Speaker 1: can trigger them to you know, motivate them and manipulate
42:13
Speaker 1: them to care. So young people do care. It's how
42:16
Speaker 1: we engage with those young people to care and have
42:20
Speaker 1: And then the challenge we've got because in the communities
42:24
Speaker 1: I come from, the social fabric is still there, you know,
42:31
Speaker 1: where people know each other all you know, all in
42:34
Speaker 1: that sense of community still there. And if someone said
42:37
Speaker 1: something a hundred one hundred young people turn up or
42:40
Speaker 1: two hundred young people turn up, can we say that?
42:44
Speaker 1: Can we say the same for that for the wider
42:46
Speaker 1: communities in this country? I don't think we can. So
42:50
Speaker 1: how do we rebuild communities is what I'd start off with.
42:53
Speaker 1: And then how do we educate those children to see
42:56
Speaker 1: the world the way we see it. No one would
43:00
Speaker 1: let me into a school, no no, no one would
43:05
Speaker 1: let me into a college, my friends, I came from
43:10
Speaker 1: at all you, I came from that world my teacher friends.
43:13
Speaker 1: Not a single one of them talk to me anymore.
43:15
Speaker 1: You know that that world I came from has you know,
43:20
Speaker 1: I'm a prior to them. Why and what do we do?
43:25
Speaker 1: I agree, we create our own parallel education systems, We
43:28
Speaker 1: create our own resources. And I spoke to someone last
43:31
Speaker 1: night and the power of the Internet is something that
43:34
Speaker 1: they've yet to control properly. And young people are drawn
43:38
Speaker 1: to that, you know, you know, in a way never before.
43:40
Speaker 1: When I speak to young people about politics, the political education,
43:44
Speaker 1: a political viewpoint does not come from a newspaper, does
43:48
Speaker 1: not come from the BBC, It doesn't even come from
43:50
Speaker 1: the school. It comes from something they've seen on TikTok
43:52
Speaker 1: or something they've seen on you know, on on YouTube.
43:55
Speaker 1: And I would say, that's where we mobilize, if you
43:57
Speaker 1: want young people, that's where we mobilize, and that's where
44:02
Speaker 1: we understand how to convey some of these messages and
44:06
Speaker 1: communicate them in a way of that day they understand.
44:10
Speaker 1: That's yeah,