"We regard this as a true and honest account."

Donna Berry was four years of age in 1970 when she was casually photographed, clothed, not nude, in Graham's Ovenden's flat in London, where he lived with his wife, Annie. The flat consisted of a kitchen/dining area, a very small bedroom and a sitting room where Mr. Ovenden painted and took photographs. The image reproduced here shows Ms. Berry seated on the floor. Pat C., the mother of another model, is the person seated on the couch nearby. Ms. Berry was not alone. It was Pat C. who brought Ms. Berry, together with her own daughter, Lorraine, age 6, to be photographed by Mr. Ovenden. Mr. Ovenden wasn't particularly interested in photographing Ms. Berry due to her age and took only about half a dozen images of her that day. (In Mr. Ovenden's words, four-year-olds' faces are, in general, not structurally developed enough to make them interesting from the standpoint of his artwork. Indeed, conspicuous by its absence from Mr. Ovenden's work are any images of girls under the age of about five or six.) Three years later, Pat C. brought her daughter and Ms. Berry, who was then 7, to Barley Splatt for a five-day vacation. However, no photographs were taken during that visit.

In November of 2006, based on uncorroborated allegations lodged by Ms. Berry, the Metropolitan Police raided the Ovenden home at Barley Splatt and arrested Mr. Ovenden. Ms. Berry was the only alleged victim who ever "came forward" in the Ovenden case and the sole witness upon which the 2006 search and arrest warrant was based. Ultimately, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped Ms. Berry from the case. Nonetheless, the Met made use of her.

Ms. Berry's statement consisted of six pages of rambling accusations that included the "taste test," i.e., that in 1970, when she was four years old, Mr. Ovenden blindfolded her and put his penis in her mouth under the guise of having her taste different things. She also stated that Mr. Ovenden photographed her naked with her legs spread and that she was subjected to mind control. Although the Met signed off on Ms. Berry's statement with the words "We regard this as a true and honest account," someone on the force had to have known that the accusations lacked credibility from a criminal justice standpoint. So eager were they to get Mr. Ovenden, however, that any professional concerns were brushed aside. The raid was carried out, complete with frogmen who were there to dredge the pond and a disused mineshaft on the property if the need arose, and Graham Ovenden was arrested.

Although Ms. Berry's statement to the police has not been publicly divulged, she has made all of those allegations and much more in numerous forums online during the pendancy of the cases against Mr. Ovenden in 2009, 2010 and 2013. (Only the 2013 case ended in convictions and Ms. Berry was not part of that case.) Like Operation Yewtree,¹ the Ovenden case raises numerous questions regarding the Met's practice of "trawling" for victims. But it also raises serious questions of professional ethics in both using someone whose testimony is known to be juridically unreliable as a pretext to conduct a raid and arrest, and then coaxing subsequent witnesses to adopt similar stories. The Met and their investigators used Ms. Berry for their own purposes to carry out their vendetta against Mr. Ovenden, and when it became obvious that they could not rely on Ms. Berry's testimony, they dropped her. As Ms. Berry, writing under her nom de guerre, Minty Challis, stated in a comment she left on 08 April 2013, on The Guardian's website poll, "Should the Tate have removed Graham Ovenden's prints?," "im more damaged by the c.p.s. and people calling me a lier and the proceeder of getting him to court than the abuse now."

Ms. Berry's Online Comments

Ms. Berry's claims were not only taken seriously or given validity by the Met and the CPS, but she has been given a voice on anti-child abuse forums and websites devoted to vast, worldwide conspiracy theories involving Satanism, mind control and paedophilia, including one that is virulently neo-Nazi. The Daily Mail, which criticized her as an "agitprop activist" and a "rent-a-cause rebel," nevertheless devoted three separate articles to her on October 21, 2012, noting that she "has made it onto the front pages of the majority of national newspapers."²

In order to understand Ms. Berry's accusations against Graham Ovenden, it is necessary to see her online posts and their path to the present day. All misspellings, capitalizations, punctuation, etc., are as in the original, as the reader will see via the links provided. The reader should not conclude from this, however, that Ms. Berry is not intelligent. To the contrary, she is a very intelligent woman who not only is well versed in political action and propaganda, but also knows how to appeal emotionally to her audiences.

Note:"[...]" indicates that the post has been edited for inclusion here.

14 April 2001 - IndyMedia UK
"artist grayham ovenden was arrested 7 years ago,and cleared of child abuse.not one of hes child models was allowed to atend or give evidence,no justice!ACALF WAS FORMED BECAUSE OF A NEED FOR AN INDEPENT BODY TO TAKE DIRECT ACTON AGAINST PEOPLE IN POWER WHO ABUSE CHILDREN.NEWS OF THE WORLD HAS STATED THAT OVENDEN IS WITH OUT A DOUBT GUILTY AS HE ASSOCIates with known child abusers.............."³
Author's note: No case was mounted against Mr. Ovenden in the 1990s. Rather, the CPS ordered the Met to drop its investigation after it failed to uncover any evidence of wrongdoing on Mr. Ovenden's part and after numerous artists came to Mr. Ovenden's defense. No former child model made any allegation or complaint against Mr. Ovenden during the 1990s, either publicly or to the police.

13 July 2003 - IndyMedia UK
"[...] As to the comment about the gallery in which a mother artist put naked pictures of her own children in, I will tell you the same as was said to the world press, the pictures themselves I do not find pornographic. Having been in naked art myself as a child, being left in a room with a male photo artist with no adult present, in my case did lead to sexual abuse and many obsessesed with my pictures found me and abused me as well over the years."

"I’m not saying that all artists who photograph children are abusers, some are, but we have a problem that branches out of art. There are a lot of unbalanced mind out there who can not control themselves. Art is ok, abuse is not, ta ALICE OWTA WONDERLAND.MINTY. You realy should look at the Stop Child Rape web site."⁴
 
Author's note: Ms. Berry's claim that she was photographed naked and then pursued and abused by many others who saw her photos over the years has no corroboration. No nude images of Ms. Berry as a child have ever been found. As for the "Stop Child Rape" website recommended by Ms. Berry, it is no longer online, but can be viewed using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The website was "dedicated to exposing and solving the problem of our Worldwide Masonic-run Government's, Ritual Child Abuse & Murder Network."⁵

27 February 2008 - IndyMedia UK
[Ms. Berry's posts are responses to the messages headed "State-protected paedophile ring in Jersey?" and "Paedophile Freemasons involved in cases of child abuse in UK"]
"at last!
its grate to see this topic on indi,ive tried for 10 years to include this topic on our any capitalist marches no one wanted to know,so its good to see it,bless,anti child abuse liberation front,minty challis.x."

"yes not all masons are kidy feelers,a few send me letters how they do not agree with wat was done to me,we got masons fighting masons, believe!!!!look at,www.stop child rape.minty.x. minty challis"⁶

13 November 2008 - IndyMedia UK
"gaham just been charged for child porn that i found on net hes faceing the cps [Crown Prosecution Service]; well i stayed patent and look at the result,i spent years looking at hes sites and got him,one of hes sites direct link to hes other art,child porn,i was never lying just would have taken at least 48 hours to explain,yet none of you had the time,so you never got the full story,shame on you,now thats all in the past and waiting to hear if me and the 8 other children,will be taking him to court we are believed by higher inelegance,but they brought in a fuking law 2 years ago (which i did try get all ya attention on)that you can only take ya abuser to court up to 8 years after the abuse and as ours is over 30 years ago we having to fight hard,now all differences aside,weve done the trees we done the animals now its the youth!!!get in touch for the march of a million youth,(lets remember it was people in high positions of power that abused us),our time is now,bless all minty.x. minty challis"⁷

Author's Note: Mr. Ovenden was never connected to the Internet and was never accused of anything having to do with Internet child pornography. Rather, he was unsuccessfully charged for collage works that contained no actual child pornography, which works were recovered from the cache of his computer using forensic software. There were also never "8 other children" making allegations. As of November 2008, only Ms. Berry and CM had made any allegations.

On or after 18 August 2008 - Minty Challis MySpace page, opened 18-08-08
"I WAS PUT INTO CARE AT THE AGE OF 13 AND LOCKED UP IN WHAT THE GOVERNMENT CALL "ASSESSMENT CENTERS" TILL AGED 15... SHAME IS NO-ONE EVER ASKED ME WHAT MY PROBLEMS MIGHT BE, HENCE THE CONTRADICTION OF THE WORDS "ASSESSMENT CENTRES". HAVING GOT MYSELF A JOB, A ROOM AND A PLACEMENT IN THE ADELAIDE CENTRE/SCHOOL, I WALKED INTO SOCIAL SERVICES TOLD THEM I WAS SELF SUFFICIENT AND GOT MYSELF OUT OF CARE!! I SPENT 8 YEARS ON THE STREETS OF CENTRAL LONDON, HIDING FROM THE PEOPLE WHO ABUSED ME AS A CHILD, I AGAIN GOT MYSELF OFF THE STREETS AND NOW HAVE GIGGED FOR 15 YEARS WITHOUT CHARGING MONEY IN ORDER TO AVOID BEING CONTROLLED BY THE MUSIC INDUSTRY. [...] I AM CURRENTLY RUNNING THE 'ANTI CHILD ABUSE LIBERATION FUND' (A.C.A.L.F.) AND AM INVOLVED WITH THE SOUTH LONDON CEASE FIRE CREW... ARE YOU REAL READY FOR THE REVOLUTION!!!!!!!!!!!! MINTY.X. THE PROGRAM THEY ARE USING TO CONTROL US IS CALLED THE ALICE IN WONDERLAND PROJECT.IT IS AN OFFSHOOT OF PROJECT MONARCH,MK ULTRA..........PEOPLE IN AMERICA HAVE TAKEN THE C.I.A.TO COURT AND WON THEIR CASES,SO IT IS NOT CONSPIRACY!!! BLOGS.TO BLESS THE YOUTH.MINTY.X.X.X get these guys to London!!!!we love em,truth!!!!!!!!"⁸

Author's Note: Here Ms. Berry refers to the mind control project that she mentioned in her criminal complaint to the Met in 2006.

21 August 2008 - GoPetition
"Petition signature comment by minty challis
Date: August 21, 2008
Petition: The Megan Williams Case
Petition signer's comment:
i was kidnapped 8 days at 8 years old,and put in videos of child porn,im meditating for Megan.talking healed me not there system councilers as i don't trust them but to other survivors etc.with all my heart bless you,minty.x..x.x.x...x"⁹

Author's note: Ms. Berry's alleged kidnapping at 8 years of age is not an allegation she made against Mr. Ovenden but against someone whom she refers to as Mr. Rothschild. Her claim that she was "put in videos of child porn" remains uncorroborated. (Given the state of video technology in 1974, it is also improbable.)

23 November 2008 - Bebo.com
"Minty Challis said:
hi i was abused and kidnapped at 8 for 8 days and put in child porn,contact me i have songs from years ago that i wrote,there not weepy,fuking aving it,caused a few riots to,myspace.com/mintychallis....my MARCH OF A MILLION YOUTH 18TH JULY,09, myspace.com/stop_the_killin,,,,,facebook mintychallis,ill get the songs on the pages soon as,we are the,,,ANTI CHILD ABUSE LIBERATION FROUNT COME JOIN!!!!! A.C.A.L.F.X.X..X.X"¹⁰

2008-2009 - Youtube (entries on Minty Challis Youtube account captured on June 1, 2013).
"Donna El Berry replied to a comment from ffairlane57 4 years ago
i was abused by pigs and government higher intelligences have found the child porn on net to prove it,i was kidnapped for 8 days at 8 years old for sex,and it hasn't made me hate all pigs,but truth be known they are ordered to batter us,but were not all crusty skum, some of us have good reason not excuses,big up good pigs fuk of bad ones same as all groups good and bad,minty.x"

"Donna El Berry commented 4 years ago
hi i run the anti child abuse liberation front and ive never heard that rod [Rodney King] was a child abuser sorry don't belove it,bless Rodney king, blairs a peado so go bash him,minty.x."¹¹

31 October 2009 - Baby Art Blog
"got away said
hi art is ok abuse is not,he did abuse us,he changes the pics,you all sound like good people, and alot of naked art is ok,ie the mum who put her kids pics in gallery,shes cool,but he hurt me bad wen i was 4,and many more have come forward,bless you all,and hope you understand,.x.x.¹²

20 February 2010 - Causes.com
"About:
to get justice for all survivers of sexull child hood abuse by people in positions of power,there days are numberd...bless,x"
"A.C.A.L.F. was set up as an independant body because of an ever growing need to protect children,,,we are sick and tired of people in positions of power dealing with these cases,,as they are the same people who are committing these offences..we are also WOSA,,PEOPLE WHO AS KIDS WERE FILMED,PHOTOGRAPHED,RAPED,AND WHOS PICTURES WERE POSTED ON A CHILD PORN SITE CALLED WONDERLAND,,IT NOW HAS BEEN SHUT DOWN,,We along with the children of tomorow,,ask these people in there positions of power to now stand down,,or except the fact you will be taken down as in Belgim,,,you had fun with many millions of us we are now one and we do NOT intend to commit suicide,go mad,or forget... thankyou,Alice OWTA Wonderland(Minty challis,bless,X¹³

Author's Note: "Wonderland" refers to the Wonderland Club, shut down by the British National Crime Squad in 1998.¹⁴ There is no evidence that Ms Berry was ever photographed, raped and had her images posted on that or any other website.

Mid-2010 - Reverbnation.com
"DJ,BURNDEM (almost 3 years ago) I am also, Miss Jus Dis, M.C,Liberty..ON MY RECOMMENDATIONS LIST,,BUT AM BLOCKED OUT BY THE ZIONIST HACKERS,,,ALSO IM LOCKED OUT OF MY MYSPACE ACCOUNT,BUT FEEL FREE TO GO HAVE A LOOK,ITS GOT MY HISTORY THERE,myspace.com/mintychallis,,,,BLESS,X"¹⁵

Author's Note: The comment was captured on June 1, 2013.

On August 8th or 9th, 2010, - Despiertate

Author's Note: Ms. Berry appeared at a "Rally against Child Abuse" at Trafalgar Square together with David Icke,¹⁶¹⁶ among others. The videoclip of Ms. Berry speech was deleted from Youtube, but a transcription, translated into Spanish, appears on the website, Despiertate. Portions of that transcript are included here, re-translated back into English. Given both earlier and later postings by Ms. Berry, there is no reason to believe that the transcription and translations in any way misrepresent what she said that day.

"Ok, my name is Minty Challis. In 1970 I was abused by David Mellor, Mark Hayworth, Peter Blake, a famous artist, and Graham Ovenden. My pictures are in a gallery around here, naked at age four with my legs open." [...]

"Do you remember the 13 people people who died in Soho watching a pornographic movie Sorry: we lit the fire." [...]

"The first time I went to Gaza, I asked Hamas for a rocket. I said to them, 'Please, would you permit me to bomb Mr. Rothschild, who abused me when I was four years old? Please, would you permit me to shoot him?' Do you know what they said? 'No. Maintain the peace! The Messiah will return as female energy.'" [...]

"Part of military training is to double over someone fourteen years of age and simulate violating them. It's part of the instruction of the English army." [...]

"Those who hope to go to Israel and help this girl, see how many more are abused there by the Zionists, because we must confess that above the paedophile ring are them." [...]

"The program of mind control used against us, as we all know, is 'Alice in Wonderland,' the same name as my naked pictures when I was four years of age, which are in every gallery in London. Moreover, they are distributed throughout the world. In every gallery of the world you can enter and ask: 'May I see the nude pictures of Alice in Wonderland, 1980?' And there I am, with my legs spread and everything. I tried to stop these pictures. They prohibited me from entering all the galleries. I am prohibited from entering in this gallery here! In fact, I am forbidden to leave England. They took my passport for seven years." [...]

"Ok, so I went to France in 1994 and was filmed for television, was singing, giving a concert, and someone told me that they were filming for television, so then I said, 'Good, I'm from the United Kingdom, and 8 politicians abuse me as a girl - I can't get my case heard!' They took my passport on my return from France and refused to give it back to me. The woman who tried to get a passport for me so I could go to Gaza last year, she received a telephone call that said 'She is a terrorist, we don't want her leaving the country.' A terrorist, because I was abused? Because I lead the Anti-Child Abuse Liberation Front?" [...]

"Twenty years ago I did mind control, I was Alice in Wonderland, and people have told me that mind control is something that doesn't exist. Even my own family threw me out of the house." [...]

"They hypnotized me as Alice in Wonderland; I was four years old!" [...]

"Why is there an affinity between Gaza and me? Because the leaders of the paedophile ring are in Israel! They are called Rothschild y they are called Rockefeller! Rothschild organized my kidnapping when I was 8 years old. I was kidnapped for 8 days. I was given heroin and used in pornographic films, that have now been discovered." ]...]

"As many women were involved in my abuse as were men." [...]¹⁷

September 21, 2011 - Subverted Nation
"this is so true, i was abused and kidnapped by these sick pedos at 4 and 8 years old, thank you to people now LEARNING and posting, XXXX"¹⁸

Author's Note: Ms. Berry's comments were directed to an article on this a neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denial website about an Internet child pornography ring that resulted in the arrest of 22 people from around the world in 2008. Subverted Nation wrote:

It's obvious this wasn't just your garden variety group of sickos trading a few pics on the net...The whole operation stinks of jews... It was run like a jew business, and it's a typical jew business model for sure. Not to mention it's an area where jews are the majority, because their doctrine is the only one on earth, that not only condones, but encourages sex with children. [...] [I]t's like I keep saying, the depravity of the jew knows no bounds. [...] [Children] are not safe with jews walking our streets [...] You can scream Nazi all you want, but there was a good reason Germany enacted laws to confine these critters, and just look at how infested they are with disease today. I say this tie we get rid of these demonic souls once and for all. No more jews living among non-jew populations, not even on the same land mass...for as long as mankind shall last.¹⁹

June 2012 - Youtube (Donna El Berry posted 1 year ago)
"2nd.responce to xFADrelxs. im not a benefit sponger,i had an opp in 200 they removed a foreign body from my belly i lost an overy,no doctors believed me all my life then they scanned me and i had a major opp,(and was apologized to for many years of none belief,100 they had to cut it from my bowels my bladder and all other internal things as it was sticky and attached,can you imagine the pain i had all my life from this?"²⁰

Author's Note: The comment was captured on June 1, 2013.

January 17, 2013 - Novel Activist
"minty says:
the thing is why were the child models alone with him with no adult there as he paid the parents adults to go have tea in harrords wile he took naked pics of them Lorraine has had to have many years of counseling just for that she says he didn’t touch her but the modeling left her with complexes so much so she changed her name etc."²¹

Author's Note: Mr. Ovenden never paid any of his models, their parents or anyone else. Nor did he send parents to Harrods (or anywhere else) while he took nude images. Ms. Berry's statements above that Lorraine C. (referred to in the first paragraph of this article) "had to have many years of counseling" and that "modeling left her with complexes so much so she changed her name" is contradicted by two facts: First, in an email sent by Ms. Berry to this author on May 29, 2013, Mr. Berry admitting that she "lost touch with lorrain when i was 11 as my mum moved away from her mum." Second, Pat C.'s letter to Mr. Ovenden in December 2004 would not have been written by someone who believed her daughter was damaged by him. (The police are also in possession of a letter from Lorraine C. thanking Mr. Ovenden for a print of one of her images that he sent her.)

06 April 2013 - Zoompad's Blog

Author's Note: The following comment was not by Ms. Berry, but recounts what Ms. Berry was heard to say. Evidently, the writer of the comment believed what Ms. Berry told her. However, there were never any images of Ms. Berry in the Tate Gallery -- or any other gallery or museum.

"When I went to the child abuse victims get together a couple of years ago, [...] I met Minty, the lady who was in the newspapers later over the Dale Farm eviction, I had a chat with her and she told me they had got her picture in the Tate Gallery, that Ovenden had abused her and taken her picture as part of his Malice in Wonderland collection. I hope she's ok and well, if she's reading this blog, I am very glad for her that the horrible pictures have been taken down [...]"²²

08 April 2013 9:40am - The Guardian
"Donna El Berry
what is painful for us he abused is this,wile the pics were taken we were being abused this is hidden as the pics are changed a bit with bright colors etc,so its like a complex i feel everyone can see me naked,sounds mad but thats the psychological damage from hes abuse.i wish all the pics of us were removed not just from the Tate,every day he sells pics of me and the other abused girls,some for over £.2000 EACH THIS MAKES ME SICK WILE I HAD A DISTURBED LIFE FROM HIM AND HES SICK FANTICS I LIVED ON THE STREETS ETC, never able to reach my full potential staved for many years etc he feeds of my pics. for 30 years i was called a lier etc bullied to the point of suicide.now i can slowly start my life ,shame is im 47 and not eating cos of hes sick food games and abuse i have not much left of me to have a life,i dedicated my life to proving hes a abuser and abused us,its took me 40 years of demos riots and complete press harassment and lies written about me,the papers all called me a lier last year now they are all jumping on the band wagon, not one of them has apologized,im more damaged by the c.p.s. and people calling me a lier and the proceeder of getting him to court than the abuse now,love to all,always protect you kids as abuse damage is life long,peace."

(The comment was posted on The Guardian website poll, "Should the Tate have removed Graham Ovenden's prints?," but removed by shortly after it was posted due to complaints about its veracity.)

May 30, 2013, email from Minty Challis to Bruce Wagner
"[...] [Mr. Ovenden] put me naked on a hight stall and blind folded me,he had put bowels of diferent foods and when i was bliind folded he made me tast the foods one by one on hes wlly,i have had problems eatting all my life,i my self know that becaue i do not remember what foods was in the bowels when some thing has the same textures i cant eat,hence nearly starving to death all my life, i wouldnt have baths with out cloaths on till i was about 16 years old,then i worked out it was a complex from bieng photoed nude, obiosly my sub concane thought nude ,camra,as soon as i put 2 and 2 together i was ablue to bath naked [...]"

- "i was just always telling police i was abused,me and lorrain usto go to the police station and say we were abused and they usto say,do you want to see the horses ,they never did anything,i was always telling people he abued me,there must be lots of places that had been tolled, police have most of that"

- "mark haworth booth,ill telll you how that came about,i went to pat [C.'s] house years ago to punch her,as my mum tried to blame it all on pat taking me to grayham,i knocked on her door she opened the door and said sorry,(my mum never said sorry)so i forgave pat and stayed at her house 1 week ,pat said hes ruined your and lorrains life and tolled me lots,she said he wanted you for hes alice in wonderland project(which i now know is the mind control program they put me in,mkultra,alice progect)so then i looked at the vxa for the pics of me,as i had a feeeling to go print room and ask for alice pics,(thanks pat) i got there a lad was there that day,i got the pics and the boy said,hay thats you now in that pic but its got 1970 on it! i said pls say nothing this man abused me and im shure they have been folowing me all my life,he said you can contact mark haworth booth ,hes not here today,or you might know him as howerd, that esent shivers down my spine,when we went to knightsbright to grahams studio there was another abuser there him and grayham shared the kids,hes name was howerd! there more on that one,obiosly me bieng me i then studed howed(mark),,i did again complain when he was arested first time in uk, the police were crap,now david mellor,i have a slight memory of him bieng there at times at grayhams studio, so me bieng me googled david mellor and mark haworth booth as one google i got a boook they did together years ago,it was called definitan of little boys musles,it was nude kids boys flexing there muslces,yuk!i was with kevin javes at the time and we were on net togther,,kevin worked for panarama,he lives in usa now.so again i had a wittness to me finding this book,then i knew for shure david was in it with them,all sounds a bit mad,but to wright it i dont do as well as saying it [...]"

"[T]he police in my case said the defence were going to use the vid [of Ms. Berry's speech at Trafalgar Square] to make me look stupid,so i asked the girll who put it up to take it down,they didnt for 3 mouths till ii threatened thenm with leagle action [...]"

Author's Note: The account of the "taste test" offered in Ms. Berry's May 30, 2013 email contains details that were absent from her statements to the Met. As already stated above, the claim that Pat C. told Ms. Berry that Mr. Ovenden ruined her and Lorraine C.'s life is contradicted by Ms. Berry's email admitting that she lost contact with the C.'s and by Pat C.'s letter to the Ovendens in December 2004. Again, no nude pictures of Ms. Berry exist because none were ever taken. Mr. Ovenden did produce a number of "Alice" drawings and paintings, but Ms. Berry is not in them and they were created prior to 1970.

The "Alice" series that was available for view at the Tate Gallery and its website (and which can now be seen here) was begun in 1968 during Mr. Ovenden's final year at the Royal College and completed by 1970 when it was exhibited along with works by Peter Blake at the Waddington Gallery. There were 8 screen prints in the series, all modeled on Sally J, the daughter of Mr. Ovenden's frame maker, who does not resemble a four-year-old or Ms. Berry in the slightest. Nor do any of those drawings depict nudity. The second Alice series were a group of paintings modeled after a girl named Belinda, whom Mr. Ovenden photographed in 1968 and 1969. One of those paintings was used as the cover of a 1976 LP entitled "Malice in Wonderland" by British blues/rock/funk band, Paice Ashton & Lord.

Perhaps the Met did tell Ms. Berry to take her Trafalgar Square speech offline in 2010 when the CPS was preparing a case against Mr. Ovenden based on Ms. Berry's 2006 allegations, but it is a fact that when Mr. Ovenden's barrister, Robert Linford, asked for copies of the historical psychiatric reports regarding Ms. Berry, the CPS refused to hand them over until forced to do so. The reports are notable only for the fact that they contained no claims by Ms. Berry that she had been abused in 1970 by Mr. Ovenden or anyone else.

Ultimately, CM and JB adopted their own version of Ms. Berry's "taste test" story. Was it the Metropolitan Police who prompted them? Testimony by another witness, shown in an earlier post with a white blindfold, suggests that this was the case. She indicated that she had been questioned repeatedly about blindfolding (although the Met didn't know at the time that she had been blindfolded for one of the Harry Lunn drawings) and could not explain to her inquisitors why she was blindfolded, although she was sure she was never abused. CM and JB, on the other hand, told the same story, with the same doubtful details, down to the sudden visual "revelation" of the alleged event many years after the fact. For this reason, and because on cross-examination they dissembled on important aspects in their stories which they hadn't thought through, they were disbelieved by the jury. As already mentioned here, Judge Cottle was disturbed enough by the similarity of their testimony to instruct the jury to consider, among other things, whether they had "been affected by someone to make similar but false claims." These stories and the claims of Ms. Berry are relevant now because they are indicative of how the case against Graham Ovenden has been constructed and prosecuted by the Met and the CPS from the very beginning.

In the next post, we'll take a closer look at other accusations that should never have been prosecuted by the CPS: those by JB for which Mr. Ovenden was convicted by a vote of 10-2.

Endnotes

¹See, e.g., Furedi, Frank, "After Savile: policing as entertainment." Spiked: 29 April 2013. http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13580/

²See, Moir, Jan, "Minty the rent-a-cause rebel with a frothy latte," Mail Online, 21 October 2011, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2051662/Dale-Farm-eviction-Minty-rent-cause-rebel-frothy-latte.html; Reid, Sue, "The fantasist of Dale Farm: Why does the mother of gipsy camp activist Minty Challis say she's a deluded self-publicist?" Mail Online, 21 October 2011; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052079/The-fantasist-Dale-Farm-Why-does-mother-gipsy-camp-activist-Minty-say-shes-deluded-self-publicist.html; and Pendlebury, Richard and Arthur Martin, "The truth about Minty, the crucifix-waving rebel for any cause you like." Mail Online, 21 October 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051282/Dale-Farm-The-truth-Minty-crucifix-waving-rebel-cause-like.html.  

The Daily Mail is cited here not for the truth of what the articles contain, but to illustrate the fact that Ms. Berry is given voice in a wide array of forums.

³Indy Media U.K., "acalfs victory over child abuser artists, Minty Challis, 14.04.2001. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/04/2952.html

⁴Id. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2001/04/2952.html?c=on#comments

⁵Stop Child Rape Network, http://wayback.archive.org/web/20050306014328/http://stopchildrape.info.

⁶IndyMedia UK, "State-protected paedophile ring in Jersey?" and "Paedophile Freemasons involved in cases of child abuse in UK," http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/02/392266.html?c=on#comments

⁷Infra, note 3.

⁸Minty Militant Charming Challis's page on MySpace, http://www.myspace.com/mintychallis, at lower right.

⁹GoPetition: Changing the World, http://www.gopetition.com/petition-comment.php?cid=4017738

¹⁰The Anti Peado Squad's Photos [sic], on Bebo, http://www.bebo.com/c/photos/view?MemberId=1758379385&PhotoAlbumId=1830555542

¹¹Donna El Berry, YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/user/mintychallis

¹²Baby Art Blog, "graham ovenden on trial," http://www.pileup.com/babyart/blog/?p=379

¹³causes: "Anti-Child-Abuse-Liberation-Front,,A.C.A.L.F," http://www.causes.com/causes/450378-anti-child-abuse-liberation-front-a-c-a-l-f/about

¹⁴For information on the "Wonderland Club," see, Wikipedia, "Operation Cathedral," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cathedral

¹⁵DJ, BURNDEM / Comments, http://www.reverbnation.com/page_object/page_object_comments/artist_884294. (The photo is of Ms. Berry.)

¹⁶David Icke preys on people like Ms. Berry by using their emotional fragility in the service of his hate-filled, paranoid vision of the world. Mr. Icke's Wikipedia entry reveals an anti-Semitic undercurrent to his ideology, but he is probably more of an equal opportunity crackpot. Here are some typical excerpts from his website:</ br>

Put it all together and the situation is as clear as can be: paedophilia and Satanism are the cement that hold the establishment control structure together in every country, and these 'national' networks connect together to form a global network of paedophiles and Satanists all watching each others' backs - while they continue to serve the Control System.
[...]
People don't realise how organised it all is. Satanists and paedophiles (and those doing their bidding in pursuit of power, money and sheer survival) are placed in the key public offices to hide their activities. I am talking presidents and prime ministers, too.
[...]
I have been naming the former British Prime Minister, the now late Ted Heath, since 1998 to be a child-killing paedophile Satanist and, in terms of his 'high-office', he is far from a rarity (see article below this one). I know others, including one who spent a long time in that position.
[...]
The mention of Father Bush is especially significant because I have been naming him in my books and on radio for years as a serial paedophile, child torturer and killer. I said it on a live BBC radio programme once, actually twice, and this fact appeared in some national newspapers.
[...]
The US government mind and sex slave, Cathy O'Brien, exposed Bush and many others in her book, Trance-Formation of America. Here she describes what Bush did on a regular basis to her daughter, Kelly:

'Kelly's bleeding rectum was but one of many physical indicators of George Bush's pedophile perversions. I have overheard him speak blatantly of his sexual abuse of her on many occasions. He used this and threats to her life to "pull my strings" and control me.

The psychological ramifications of being raped by a pedophile President are mind shattering enough, but reportedly Bush further reinforced the traumas to Kelly's mind with sophisticated NASA electronic and drug mind-control devices.

[...]
Wherever you are in the world reading this newsletter - your country's political-intelligence-military network is doing exactly the same.
[...]
Scotland - one of the global centres for paedophila and Satanism

http://www.davidicke.com/articles/child-abuse-mainmenu-74/31148-paedophilia-and-satanism-the-fabric-of-the-web

¹⁷Despiertate, "Concentracion en Trafalgar Square Londres," 9 de agosto de 2010, http://despiertate-pronto.blogspot.com/2010/08/concentracion-en-trafalgar-square.html

¹⁸Subverted Nation, "Jew 'Honored' To Be Part of Global Child Pornography Ring," 30 May 09, http://www.subvertednation.net/jew-honored-to-be-part-of-global-child-pornography-ring/

¹⁹Id. For somewhat more accurate information on the Internet ring, see, Seattle Times, “Child-porn ring was sophisticated, March 5, 2008. http://seattletimes.com/html/nationworld/2004261109_porn05.html

²⁰Infra, note 11.

²¹Novel Activist, "Graham Ovenden Update," September 14, 2012, http://novelactivist.com/11651/graham-ovenden-update/

²²Zoompad's blog, "Graham Ovenden," http://zoompad.blogspot.nl/2013/04/graham-ovenden.html

The Fabrication of Charges Against Graham Ovenden

Graham Ovenden was acquitted by the jury of blindfolding his models and subjecting them to a “taste test” during which he was alleged to have indecently assaulted them. These accusations were laid on behalf of all four witnesses, but only two, JB and LD, chose to repeat the lie at trial. Their stories were disbelieved by the jury, most likely because they were contradicted by circumstantial evidence and mirrored each other so closely, that they smacked of collusion. One of these witnesses, JB, also accused Mr. Ovenden of two other isolated acts, for which the jury convicted Mr. Ovenden by a vote of 10-2. These “assaults” were completely unconnected with modelling, photo sessions or blindfolding and nowhere near the gravity of what one imagines when one hears the term “indecent assault.” These single incidents are worth repeating, even though they were also lies: First, that Mr. Ovenden allegedly got into a bathtub with her (when she was under the age of 6) and another girl, and asked her to wash his “John Thomas” with a washcloth. (The crime was in the asking; whether she actually did was not established.) Second, that Mr. Ovenden came up behind her (age 10) while she was clothed, reached around her and put his hands on her chest, saying “let me feel your tits.”

As to the two witnesses who refused to tell the “taste test” story and firmly stated, even under withering questioning by prosecutor Quaife, that they were never assaulted or abused by Mr. Ovenden in any way. Mr. Ovenden was also convicted of taking “indecent” photographs. The jury found 3 photographs to be indecent and convicted Mr. Ovenden on two “specimen” counts, each related to the act of taking the 3 photographs, as well as other photographs that the jury never saw. That these acts of photography were not “assaults” in any honest sense of the word can be readily understood from the fact that both of these witnesses, now age 50 and 39, respectively, supported Mr. Ovenden’s photographs of them when they were still in their 20s. This alone would seem newsworthy, but it was not reported anywhere in the British media.

Instead, when reporting Mr. Ovenden’s conviction on April 2, 2013, major newspapers (with the sole exception of The Telegraph), described as the counts of conviction precisely those charges of which Mr. Ovenden was acquitted:

The Times: “[Mr. Ovenden] abused children while they modeled for him.”¹

The Daily Mail: “Witnesses described how the artist would take his victims into his studio and make them wear Victorian-style clothing, before it was removed. He would also cover their eyes before abusing them, they told the court.”²

The Guardian: “They told how he would blindfold them and force them to take part in a "tasting game" that ended up in tricking them into taking part in oral abuse. ... [T]he jury clearly believed the testimony of some of the women who described abuse at Barley Splatt.”³

The Independent: “Witnesses described how Ovenden would take his victims into his studio and make them wear Victorian-style clothing, before it was removed. He would also cover their eyes before abusing them, they told the court.”⁴

Although The Telegraph did not report these particular lies about Mr. Ovenden’s conviction, it did repeat another lie that had been perpetrated by the prosecution and reported almost universally in the press: “The charges relate to four claimants, who contacted police long after the abuse is alleged to have taken place, and only when they realised exactly what had happened to them as girls, the court heard.”⁵ (This exact statement was also reported in The Times (the same article cited above), The Mirror⁶, The Guardian⁷, Western Morning News⁸ and BBC News⁹, among other places.

In fact, none of the witnesses at Graham Ovenden’s trial contacted the police “when they realised exactly what had happened to them as girls.”

The two witnesses whose photographs were ruled as “indecent” didn’t suddenly wake up one day to realise that Mr. Ovenden had taken “indecent” photographs of them. As already stated in greater detail in the previous post, one of them, in 1990 when she was 27, wrote in a statement for the introduction of Mr. Ovenden’s monograph, States of Grace, that “I never felt that [Graham] took away ‘me’ as a person… One of the things that’s very important, I feel, is that the work is very honest…” Yet, at trial, she testified that the single photograph of her introduced into evidence was “not me,” which is to say that she changed her mind, at least about that particular image. The other witness, Maud Hewes, did a near about-face to the statements she made in the 1990s, declaring that young girls should not be photographed as she once was by Mr. Ovenden. Obviously, when these former models, as younger adults, were supporting Mr. Ovenden’s photographs of them, they were well aware that they had been photographed, what those photographs depicted and what their experiences were.

Maud Hewes' 1993 Inscription to Graham Ovenden in his copy of States of Grace

So how did they end up as witnesses in the case?

The woman who wrote a statement for the introduction to States of Grace was contacted by the police, not vice versa, after Mr. Ovenden naively handed them a list of names and addresses of about twenty of his former models whose whereabouts he still knew. There was a discussion at the trial, out of hearing of the jury, of this witness suffering from some form of clinical depression (not related to being photographed). One can well imagine how vulnerable this woman must have been to repeated visits and contact by the police, pressuring her to accuse Mr. Ovenden of abusing her and to denounce the images he had taken of her. That she was able to stand up to the pressure and testify that she had never been abused is remarkable enough. But the pressure on her to identify her image – so that Mr. Ovenden could be convicted for “assaulting” her by clicking the camera shutter – was enormous and should not be underestimated. In January 1996, Mr. Ovenden’s daughter, Emily, told The Guardian what Mr. Ovenden’s former models faced:

Emily refuses to be interviewed by the police. They have asked her on several occasions. But she doesn't see the point and, adult now, is in the position to refuse. She has heard what it would be like from her father's other models. She knows how her friend Maud was reduced to tears, not by the recall of actual events but by the questioning about sexual acts that never took place. She knows how Maud's father felt threatened and bullied. She knows how traumatised they all were by their contact with the police – so traumatised that she's certain none of them want to talk about it.¹⁰

Ms. Ovenden also told The Guardian that

All of her friends kept copies of the work that featured them. She never felt self-conscious and none of the girls ever felt shamed by their nudity. … Emily laughs about the police displaying a print of her friend, "masked to highlight the offensive areas," and asking if she was ashamed. The girl pointed out that the original hung above her bed.¹¹

Maud Hewes, more than a decade after she defended Mr. Ovenden’s work in the 1996 Channel 4 documentary, “For the Sake of the Children,” probably decided to be a witness in the case for a number of reasons, including the poisonous atmosphere surrounding photographs of nude children that now pervades Britain. But whatever her personal reasons, the catalyst for her testimony was Mr. Ovenden’s son, Edmund Dante (“Ned”) Ovenden. Ned Ovenden was in contact with Hewes, JB and LD, as well as JB’s mother, well before any charges were laid – indeed, before any of those witnesses had any charges to lay.

Taking Sides

In 2000, Graham Ovenden and his wife, Annie, granted Ned a one-third interest in their land and house at Barley Splatt. The building is a unique and important piece of architecture, a large portion of which was physically built by Mr. Ovenden over a period of thirty years. In return for his share, Ned was to complete the building to Mr. Ovenden’s specification. At the time, the indebtedness on the property was £45,000. As Mr. Ovenden would eventually discover, the grant to Ned had been a mistake. Unbeknownst to Mr. Ovenden, Ned began taking loans against the estate in order to finance a lifestyle to which he believed he was entitled, and his purchases included numerous high value cars, a half-share in a Cessna aircraft and full ownership of another. In addition, in the mid-2000s, the Ovenden family was splitting apart, undoubtedly precipitated to some degree by the 2006 police raid on Barley Splatt and a new round of police persecution. Shortly after the 2006 raid, with tensions running high between Mr. Ovenden, on the one hand, and his wife and Ned Ovenden, on the other, Mr. Ovenden moved himself and his studio first, to an out-building on Barley Splatt, called “The Studio,” and later, when Barley Splatt was sold, to another out-building called “the Garage.” About the same time, Ned and Annie secretly obtained over £500,000 in cash from a joint mortgage against Barley Splatt and used it to purchase property in Bodmin and Lostwhithiel in their own names.

By 2008 the mortgage on Barley Splatt was a staggering £840,000. Although Ned did some work on the property, the building itself was substantially the same as it had been prior to his one-third grant. When The Telegraph reported on December 24, 2008, that Barley Splatt was on offer for £925,000, Ned stated, “If someone had £100,000 to spend on it, they could make it into a fabulous house.”¹²

In June of 2008, Mr. Ovenden fell seriously ill. He was lucky in a way: a friend and student discovered him in a disoriented and fragile state and immediately called for assistance. While the friend was helping Graham into the ambulance, Ned Ovenden stood by, completely uninterested in accompanying his father. Mr. Ovenden lay in hospital for five weeks, at least part of the time in a coma.

Shortly after Mr. Ovenden was taken into hospital, Mr. Ovenden’s sister, Elizabeth, came to Barley Splatt to stay with Annie while she visited her brother. Elizabeth was on good terms with Annie, having not yet learned of the financial dealings that had occurred. After visiting Mr. Ovenden and reporting to Annie and Ned that there was a possibility that Mr. Ovenden might not recover, Annie and Ned discussed their plans to dispose of large parts of Mr. Ovenden’s rare photographic and ephemera collections, including taking the material to New York, where Ned believed he could sell it without its original ownership being obvious. Annie and Ned had a similar conversation with a friend of Mr. Ovenden and they subsequently sent some of the purloined photographs to one of Mr. Ovenden’s acquaintances in the photographic world for an assessment of their value and sale. (That acquaintance scanned or photocopied all the images and, because Ned represented that he was acting on the authority of Mr. Ovenden, sold photographs worth approximately £4,500. He subsequently furnished Mr. Ovenden with a record of which images were brought to him by Ned and invoices of what had been sold, but by that time Ned had already taken back the unsold photographs.)

Annie and Ned did, in fact, briefly visit Mr. Ovenden in the hospital, but not to wish him well. Upon their return, they announced to a friend of Mr. Ovenden that Mr. Ovenden “should be dead.” A few days later, they left for France on vacation, hoping that upon their return Mr. Ovenden would have met his demise. Friends of Mr. Ovenden have noted that there were already intimations that steps were being taken to bring Mr. Ovenden down. At an art exhibition at Southampton City Art Gallery the previous April, JB’s mother told a friend of Mr. Ovenden that “we’re going to get him.” Also around this time, Annie Ovenden told the same friend that she was going to “put [Mr. Ovenden] in the gutter.”

Mr. Ovenden returned home from hospital in fragile health and no longer on speaking terms with Annie or Ned. When Ned submitted papers to Mr. Ovenden to authorize the sale of Barley Splatt – Mr. Ovenden was not yet aware of the full extent of the indebtedness – he refused to sign them. When Mr. Ovenden responded angrily, Ned reacted violently, throwing an encaustic tile through the reinforced double-glass panel of Mr. Ovenden’s front door. (A few months later, Mr. Ovenden discovered that Barley Splatt had been put up for sale after he read about it in The Telegraph. By then, Mr. Ovenden realised that he could do nothing to save it. The debt simply could not be serviced on the modest income Mr. Ovenden earned from his art.) During this period Ned also began telling Mr. Ovenden’s friends who would come to visit that they should stay away from Mr. Ovenden lest their careers and reputations be ruined by their association with Mr. Ovenden, advice that they took as not-so-veiled threats of defamation. In the case of at least one friend, the threat was direct. But that’s not even the half of what Ned did. In 2009, Ned went to Aberdeen to visit the homes of both JB, whose husband is a lifelong friend of Ned, and Maud Hewes, whom Ned had long known, as she was a frequent visitor to Barley Splatt throughout the 1980s. It was only after Ned’s visit to Aberdeen that Ms. Hewes and JB made any statements to the police, who came to visit them at Ned’s behest. (One of the investigating officers in the case, Maddox, is a friend of Ned.) Exactly what Ned told these former models is unknown, but the connections between Hewes, JB, JB’s mother, Ned and Annie Ovenden are undeniable, as suggested by circumstantial evidence.

Although both JB and Ms. Hewes had been living in Aberdeen for over a decade, they had little or no contact with each other. JB joined Facebook sometime during 2007 and Ms. Hewes joined Facebook on December 24, 2007, yet they didn’t “friend” each other until after Ned put them together in 2009. Also after Ned’s visit, in August 2009, JB “friended” Annie Ovenden. (By contrast, JB “friended” Emily Ovenden in 2007.) Was there a bit of a quid pro quo for JB’s delivery of testimony against Mr. Ovenden? Perhaps. On September 30, 2010, JB registered the domain name for Annie Ovenden’s website and became the site’s administrative and technical contact. (She did the same for her mother’s website.)

Through another friend who happens to be married to yet another former Ovenden model (one not involved in any accusation), Ned also contacted LD who, in turn, as with JB and Ms. Hewes, was visited by the police. As mentioned above, Ms. Hewes allowed the police to lodge sexual abuse charges on her behalf but evidently thought better of perjuring herself once she got in the witness box.¹³ JB and LD, however, followed their scripts. After all, each of the four witnesses stood to earn as much as £40,000 in victim compensation if the jury bought their stories.

Between 1964 and 1989, Graham Ovenden photographed approximately 70 young girls, some of them on multiple occasions. Yet, in the twenty years that Mr. Ovenden has been publicly “under suspicion” by the police, with his cases being discussed in nearly every British newspaper and media outlet between 1993 and 1997 and again in 2009 and 2010, not a single former model came forward of her own accord to accuse Mr. Ovenden of sexually abusing her. While researching for this article, however, this writer came across another statement in Mr. Ovenden’s support, one more typical of his former models who spoke in his defense during the 1990s. As she used her real name, Mr. Ovenden was able to recall photographing her in 1973, not long after moving to Barley Splatt, when she was ten years of age:

I was one of Graham Ovendens’ ‘models’. This beautiful man, was a perfect photographer. He was kind and patient, while I sat wearing clothes that I chose. At no time did he touch me in any way. This man is a wonderful artist and human being…. I was never asked to take my clothes off, I was able to wear what I wanted and how I wanted to wear it. If I was ever naked and a photograph was taken, I knew what was happening and was free; not sexuallised in any way. I wish Graham a happy, healthy, carefree life.¹⁴

Over the years, British police had accused Mr. Ovenden of a variety of trumped up crimes, arresting him on such transparently thin charges as “suspicion of conspiracy to indecently assault children”¹⁵ or the creation of “pseudo-photographs,” but they could never find anyone to make an actual allegation of sexual abuse. By April 2010, just as the third case against Mr. Ovenden and his images was being dismissed for police abuse, the Child Investigation Team of the Metropolitan Police announced that it was “investigating” allegations of child sexual abuse and that the Crown Prosecution Service would soon decide if charges were to be laid.¹⁶ Although the police must have spent a lot of money, it didn’t bear much fruit. Ned Ovenden and the police visited other former Ovenden models, but could not prevail upon them to make an accusation. However, thanks to Mr. Ovenden’s naïve trust that the truth would prevail when he handed over a list of names and addresses of former models, and especially thanks to machinations of Ned Ovenden, Annie Ovenden and her best friend, JB’s mother, the British police finally got what they wanted.

Frank Furedi, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent, recently wrote about the behavior of the Metropolitan Police in their investigations of Jimmy Savile. Although Mr. Ovenden’s case is hardly comparable and involved Mr. Ovenden’s son as agent provocateur, the so-called “investigative” methods of the police were the same. Instead of “solving reported crimes” they were “searching for crimes that have not been reported.”¹⁷ The danger, Mr. Furedi explained, is that

[t]his trawling for victims and search for retrospective allegations could have a disturbing impact on the way the criminal justice system works. Instead of solving crimes, the police attempt to uncover them, in order to reinforce and strengthen evidence against the targets of their investigation. A trawling operation is not a response to an allegation of abuse voluntarily made by an individual; it is an invitation to people to reinterpret their past experiences in terms of victimisation and abuse.¹⁸

What Mr. Furedi didn’t say, but will be said here, is that such overzealous behavior on the part of the police is also an invitation to people to lay false charges for any variety of motivations, including interfamily squabbles, personal animosities and jealousies, and the prospect of victim compensation.


Endnotes 

¹Artist Graham Ovenden found guilty on sex charges, The Times, April 2 2013; http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/crime/article3729068.ece.

²Cooper, Rob, Artist Graham Ovenden found guilty of indecency against young girls after usingnude children in his paintings, The Daily Mail, April 2, 2013; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302849/Artist-Graham-Ovenden-guilty-indecency-young-girls-using-nude-children-paintings.html.

³Morris, Steven, Graham Ovenden lived in rambling rural idyll with a dark side, The Guardian, April 2, 2013;http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/02/graham-ovenden-idyll-dark-side.

⁴Minchin, Rod, Artist Graham Ovenden found guilty on four counts of indecency with a child, The Independent, 02 April 2013; http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/artist-graham-ovenden-found-guilty-on-four-counts-of-indecency-with-a-child-8556873.html.

⁵Artist convicted of sex offences against children, The Telegraph, 02 April 2013; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9966939/Artist-convicted-of-sex-offences-against-children.html.

⁶Artist Graham Ovenden convicted ofsex offences against kids, The Mirror, 02 April 2013; http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/artist-graham-ovenden-convicted-sex-1798044.

⁷Graham Ovenden convicted of child sex offences, The Guardian, 02 April 2013; http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/02/graham-ovenden-convicted-child-sex-offences.

⁸Jury still out in West artist's indecency trial, Western Morning News (This is Cornwall), Thursday, March 28, 2013; http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Jury-West-artist-s-indecency-trial/story-18541598-detail/story.html.

⁹Artist Graham Ovenden's indecency case jury retires, BBC News, March 29, 2013; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-21943329.

¹⁰"Pictures of Innocence," David Newnham & Chris Townsend, The Guardian Weekend, January 13, 1996, pp. 12-15.

¹¹Id.

¹²Wilson, Mary. "Property in Cornwall: Drawn to an artists' work in progress," The Telegraph, 24 December 2008. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/westcountryproperty/3902558/Property-in-Cornwall-Drawn-to-an-artists-work-in-progress.html . The final sale price for Barley Splatt was £600,000, far below market value.

¹³It probably would have been easier for her to tell the tale of woe that had been prepared for her. She was the final witness, testified behind a screen (i.e., out of view of Mr. Ovenden) and helped along, as were the other witnesses, by a bevy of policewomen and victim advocates. When she refused to follow the script, however, prosecutor Quaife turned on her.

¹⁴Statement of GH, dated of 31 October 2009, posted at at "Graham Ovenden On Trial," the Baby Art blog of Trevor Brown, http://www.pileup.com/babyart/blog/?p=379#comments. The page also features a comment from someone posting as "got away" who complains she was abused at age 4. Investigation has revealed that "got away" is none other than "Donna El Berry" a/k/a Minty Challis, who faked the a similar post in April 2013, when The Guardian ran its poll, "Should the Tate have removed Graham Ovenden's prints?" Her comment was removed by The Guardian after the fraud was exposed. For information on Minty Challis, see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2051282/Dale-Farm-The-truth-Minty-crucifix-waving-rebel-cause-like.html; and http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052079/The-fantasist-Dale-Farm-Why-does-mother-gipsy-camp-activist-Minty-say-shes-deluded-self-publicist.html

¹⁵Sex case artist to face new inquiry, Western Morning News (This is Cornwall), 19 April 2010; http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Sex-case-artist-face-new-inquiry/story-11465531-detail/story.html.

¹⁶Id.

¹⁷Furedi, Frank, After Savile: policing as entertainment, Spiked, 29 April 2013, http://www.spiked-online.com/site/article/13580.

¹⁸Id.