Vanessa Redbrigade

The Bedfordshire Police website is suffering from a very bad case of bollocks. By this, I mean it has a slogan (‘Protecting the public and fighting crime’), is covered in ways to report a hate crime, has umpteen ways to support those ‘traumastised by any criminal offence’, and includes quite a few corkers like this one: ‘We are a Stonewall Diversity Champion which highlights our commitment to ensuring we create the right working environment for our lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) officers and staff.’

What the Force doesn’t have is someone to answer the confidential help number on the Befordshire Slaves case, nothing but an answer machine in its media room, and no service at all for bloggers traumatised by coppers who can’t spell traumatised. Is there a clue in here as to why it took 38 warnings/reported sightings of the peripatetic concentration camp before Bedforshire’s thin blue line got onto the case?

This is a shame, because there do seem to be a number of odd elements to the Bedfordsire slaves case. This is the one where fifteen people have all their human rights (and most of their food) forcibly removed, and there isn’t a Vanessa Redgave or Travellers’ Support agitprop in sight anywhere. There’s nothing at all odd in that – nor in the fact that it happened near Luton. It’s amazing, when you trace the facts back, how many weird crime stories end with the words ‘The accused will appear before Luton Magistrates later today’.

What is very odd, however, is that 9 of the 24 victims discharged themselves from hospital – and refused to cooperate with the police. You’ve been kept against your will for up to 15 years, you’re covered in excrement, and you’re half-starved, but you shrug, say, “Well – whatever, live and let live, that’s my motto”, and move on. It’s bollocks, isn’t it?

“We can’t prejudge what has happened here,” said Paul Donohoe, of Anti-Slavery International. “But you do find sometimes that institutionalisation creates a situation where captives psychologically identify with their captors.”  This sounds like bollocks, but it isn’t always: many years ago I did a survey of prostitutes (the way you do) and it was clear that, despite appalling treatment from abusive pimps, one or two of the women had built a belief system suggesting that without the pimp, they’d be unhappy. It is just one of the many ways the odd human brain will learn to cope with awful circumstances and a mad existence. Only last year, for example, Lloyd Blankfein told the media he was doing God’s work. Poor man, this is undoubtedly the only way he can cope with a life spent ramming yardbrushes up the back passage of everyone who doesn’t work for Goldman Sachs.

Cases like the kidnappee Patti Hearst are, however, very much the exception. The thing that stops most folks from getting away is fear. Fear of their captors, fear of those they have double-crossed….and fear of the police. I’d be willing to wager a few quid that a good 50% of the No-talkee Nine are illegals. Some of them will be felons evading justice. One or two may even be escapees from prisons or mental hospitals. If your trade is preying on people in an inhuman manner, it’s very important to target only those victims unlikely to spill the beans to Plod. Such people only rarely turn out to be social workers.

But in our culture, the complex, psychobabble explanation must be hauled into view. I’d imagine this is the last we’ll hear of the nine forgiving victims. And I bet none of them wanted their fingerprints taken – which is their right by the way, as it should be.

Another common way for people to adapt their belief system to reality is to talk bollocks, and issue truly insane press releases to the media. This from yesterday’s Indie:

‘Travellers groups have expressed concerns that the arrests, carried out in front of television cameras, will lead to a backlash against their community.’

The Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is also very concerned that an occasional tendency to shoot hundreds of demonstrators has been caught on mobile phone videos, and thus blown the issue out of all proportion. “The use of mobile phones without my knowledge is a flagrant abuse of my human rights,” said Mr al-Assad on Syrian State television last night.