Sonia Poulton seen making an ‘official statement’ on a lawsuit against her. Extracted still used for the purpose of criticism and review.

Yesterday, in the afternoon, Queen Elizabeth II died. As with any death, there are of course those who loved her, and those who did not. Basic human decency has always dictated that when a person dies their critics and enemies fall silent for a while, save to deliver eulogies. Of course, historic figures are not immune to criticism but, simply put, it can wait for a little while. In any event, there is in truth very little bad to say about the Queen. She has spent 70 years in uncomplaining public service. An exception to the rule is, of course, vile fringe journalist Sonia Poulton, who responded to news of the Queen’s death as below, including the words, “[…] the next few days is going to be a giant vomit-inducing festival of royal reverence with media tarts weeping and wailing about someone they don’t know […]” (archive). This is a public service reminder that Sonia Poulton was recently interviewed by police after naming two child torture victims who had been granted life long anonymity, and the video had to be taken down. Illegal or not, in my opinion that was serious child abuse. The charge has been levelled by others, including (according to a recent video by Natural Love) anonymous hackers. Unlike the hackers, your author is not anonymous. My name and picture are below and I will defend this article in court if need be.

Me me me: Child abuser and fringe ‘journalist’: Sonia Poulton unleashes her venom in response to the death of Queen Elizabeth II, a longstanding public servant.

Sonia Poulton likes to hold herself out as an expert on high profile allegations of child abuse, satanic abuse and VIP abuse. Her work is clearly adjacent to the Q-Anon conspiracy space. The problem is, she is in fact one of the shoddiest, so-called ‘journalists’ I have ever encountered but has chosen one of the most sensitive spaces to work in, which is clearly beyond her abilities and character. One example of her so called, ‘journalism’ is a previous video of a royal parade, made whilst the queen was alive, in which Poulton can be heard shrieking, “Nazi!” and, “She knights paedophiles!”

The case that got Sonia into trouble was a well publicised matter involving two children who were tortured by abusers into making false allegations. The judgement was placed online by the judge Mrs Justice Pauffley to try to dispel the hoax. The case citation (with link to the full judgement), is P and Q (Children: Care Proceedings: Fact Finding) [2015] EWFC 26. It opens with a reminder that the children have lifelong anonymity and naming them could be a criminal contempt of court. I am going to be careful in this article to limit what I say strictly to the judgement as follows.

The basic facts alleged were that, operating from a North London McDonalds, a satanic cult was cooking and eating babies as well as sexually abusing them (see paragraph 14),

“[…] Rituals were performed, so it was claimed, in an upstairs room at the McDonald’s restaurant where the “boss” allowed child sacrifice because he was a member of the cult. Human babies were prepared, cooked in the ovens within a secret kitchen and then eaten by cult members. […]“

The only problem is this is rubbish. The children were tortured into making it all up as the judge says at paragraphs 16 and 17,

“16. I am able to state with complete conviction that none of the allegations are true. I am entirely certain that everything Ms Draper, her partner Abraham Christie and the children said about those matters was fabricated. The claims are baseless. Those who have sought to perpetuate them are evil and / or foolish.
17. All the indications are that over a period of some weeks last summer, P and Q were forced by Mr Christie and Ms Draper, working in partnership, to provide concocted accounts of horrific events. The stories came about as the result of relentless emotional and psychological pressure as well as significant physical abuse. Torture is a strong word but it is the most accurate way to describe what was done to the children by Mr Christie in collaboration with Ms Draper.”

It is worth going on to mention that the judge exhorts people to stop harming the children by giving credence to the hoax. The last sentence of the judgement, at 165, is as follows –

“The long term emotional and psychological harm of what was done to the children is incalculable. The impact of the internet campaign is likely to have the most devastating consequences for P and Q”

Sonia Poulton’s approach to this case was first to make a video about it with Shaun Attwood, giving it currency, and second to name the children. The police got involved and interviewed her, whereupon she claimed in a witness statement in an unrelated civil case that powerful people were running a conspiracy to silence her. Statements in court have wide immunities from being sued but when she put it online, outside court on her own website, she had to remove the allegations. Now her fundraising page contains just a narcissistic statement as follows (archive) –

“Earlier this year I was interviewed by the police about a potential breach of a reporting restriction regarding an old case.
The police have come back to say No Further Action will be taken.
All involved were satisfied with the interview I gave.
There is a general feeling that this all went too far.
My brilliant criminal lawyer, Sophie Hall, attended the interview with me – as did Muhammad Butt of BNT.
I recommend that bloggers cease and desist from publishing defamatory statements about me regarding this issue.”

In the end, Sonia was not prosecuted. However, the naming of the children breached a court order and risked harming them. Even if Sonia did not know about the order, she breached the Editor’s Code of Practice which protects child witnesses in cases involving sex crime, “The press must not, even if legally free to do so, identify children under 16 who are victims or witnesses in cases involving sex offences”. Furthermore, the judgement is a high profile one, available online. Some, ‘expert’ if she had not done basic research and read it! In my opinion, naming the children was child abuse.

To be clear, I am not alleging that Sonia deliberately set out to harm the children. However, she failed to research the case, appeared to be unfamiliar with the Editors’ Code of Practice and did not demonstrate any consideration of the risks inherent in blithely naming two pre-teens involved in a case of alleged satanic abuse. I say opinion as distinguished from fact because the police and CPS chose not to prosecute (which is not the same thing as her being innocent). However, I believe that if she is innocent of any criminal offence the irresponsible decision to name them was still abuse.

It is worth mentioning something else the judge said a paragraph 3, which was that a large proportion of viewers of YouTube videos about the case were paedophiles, “It is inevitable that a large proportion of those have a sexual interest in children. Any rational adult who uploads film clips to Youtube featuring children speaking about sexual activity must be assumed to realise that fact”. There is sometimes a fine line between sensationalist reporting and paedophile fan-fiction. If the judge is correct then a significant portion of Sonia’s audience may be made up of paedophiles who find it arousing.

Regardless, what Sonia did was horrible and wrong. That is the kind of person she is. The judge called people who continue to give currency to the hoax, “evil and / or foolish”. I think that is a fair description of Sonia, if anything somewhat generous. If you agree, please share this article and #UnfollowSoniaPoulton.

Full disclosure: I am currently involved in a complex legal dispute with Sonia over her other objectionable reporting of my friend former MP John Hemming. In fact, I have previously described her coverage of him as causing distress to, and in effect amounting to abuse of, his children. She has already settled one of the cases. You can find more details in the category on this site.

[Edited by MHN 20 November 2024 to remove information relating to third parties]