Inside The Upper Echelon: A Secret World Of Sex, Sadism And Smokescreen

A few weeks ago, just as I was settling into my hundredth doom scrolling session of the New Year, X exploded with a story out of the UK that caught the attention of several high-profile influencers (not the least, Elon Musk). It detailed transcripts from a case linked to a decades-long scandal, on where Pakistani men had been systematically grooming, raping and trafficking young white girls across Britain. Though many in the UK had been aware of the issue for years, to the rest of the world, the story came as a shock. The details were damning– police persistently and knowingly neglecting a series of allegations, spanning decades, with children being treated as nothing more than collateral damage. All of it done in an apparent bid to maintain good “race relations”. 

As I absorbed the maddening details, I was quickly reminded of another sex abuse story out of the UK, one that has stayed with me since I first read about it over a decade ago. Truthfully, what surprised me most about the grooming gangs scandal was not the treatment of the victims – most of whom were working-class kids with unstable home lives – but that the perpetrators in this case were working class too. The story I stumbled on a decade ago, along with the elite sex scandals that followed, revealed a disturbing truth: some of society’s most esteemed and influential people engage in inconceivable acts of perversion and depravity, with impunity. 

Part 1 – Westminster 

In 2014, I came across an article, which eventually led to a series of articles, in The Daily Mail detailing findings from a London Met Police investigation into child sex crimes at the hands of key political figures in Britain. What the investigation uncovered was shocking; decades-old allegations linking a group of British politicians, as well as other powerful and influential members of society, involved in high profile sex trafficking and pedophilia rings. A string of child victims, now adults, had come forward to share their stories of sexual abuse, some even claiming to have witnessed murders, at the hands of some of Downing Street’s most prominent figures, throughout the 70s and 80s. Their stories, which went on to be broadcast on Australia’s 60 Minutes, were difficult to digest —claims of having been chauffeured from boarding schools, care homes, or even their own residences, and handed over to a series of powerful men, to engage in sex acts. The events, according to whistleblowers, often took place at Dolphin Square in central London, with some victims claiming to have been as young as 7 or 8 years old. Many said they were given drugs, alcohol and even gifts, and forced to partake in “sex parties” with other young children.

The media’s coverage of these events was a long time coming. Home Secretary, Jack Straw, admitted that as far back as the 1980s many cases started to emerge, with much more detail, about children being sexually abused at the hands of the country’s most powerful figures. What the public now knows is that in 1984, Lord Brittan, who was serving as Home Secretary at the time, was handed a 40-page dossier by MP Geoffrey Dickens which detailed pedophile activity including, according to Dickens, allegations concerning “people in positions of power, influence and responsibility”. Brittan had suggested in a letter to Dickens that the file would be given to police, however, police later confirmed they had no record of any investigation into it (the whereabouts of the dossier remain unknown).

A Cover-up

Given Brittan’s handling of the dossier (or lack thereof) it wasn’t until 1992 when clues around its contents began to surface. This came after the arrest of Home Office policy advisor Peter Righton who, despite being a founding member of the Pedophile Exchange Network (PIE), was listed as “an expert in child care” on a 1970s government report. A subsequent raid on his residence showed that children’s homes across Britain were being targeted for abuse by various people in positions of power. Perhaps coincidentally, that same year, a prominent, now infamous, British politician, Sir Cyril Smith, would leave Westminster for good (though his crimes would not be publicized until years later). 

Smith was a Labour councillor, and later MP, from 1972 until 1992 and, like Righton, was found to be at the centre of various child sex scandals throughout his career. Like others, he would target disadvantaged kids, most often in the care of the State. His escapades were such that The Crown Prosecution Service would go on to admit — only after his death — that Cyril should have been prosecuted for 1960s sex crimes after it was alleged that he had raped boys at Knowl View school and abused boys at Cambridge House Children’s Home in Rochdale. Incomprehensibly, in 1998, prosecutors decided not to file child abuse charges against him, despite ruling that they were likely to succeed. When Sir Cyril died in 2010, he was given a public funeral and well-attended memorial, which drew hundreds of mourners. Many in attendance offered words of praise to the man, despite the laundry list of accusations against him. These allegations weren’t properly acknowledged by Westminster until years later, however — a kind of “post-humous verdict” that would prove to be a pattern.

Two years after Sir Cyril’s death, accusations of pedophilia amongst top ranking politicians would surface once again. In October of 2012, Labour MP Tom Watson, having recently heard testimony from Carl Beech (whose claims would later be discredited), suggested in a statement to the House of Commons that a pedophile network, involving other British politicians, may have brought children to parties at a private residence confirmed to be frequented by none other than Sir Cyril. But as I discovered, by the time the media picked up on it, in late 2014, most of the newly accused had already died, or were about to. This list now included Lord Brittan, the former Home Secretary who had ignored the 40-page dossier. In October 2014, the Labour MP Jimmy Hood used parliamentary privilege to refer to claims that Brittan himself had been linked to child sex crimes. However, by January 2015, Lord Brittan was dead.

Despite his passing, Met Police went on to raid his home on multiple allegations of child sex abuse, only to later determine that there was no just cause for the raid. The Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Steve Rodhouse, wrote a letter of apology to the solicitors of Brittan’s widow, and later, Met Police would pay substantial compensation directly to Lord Brittan’s widow.

A Dismantling 

Meanwhile, as Met Police were chasing accusations against Brittan, Carl Beech, Tim Watson’s key witness in the larger investigation (dubbed Operation Midland), was being slowly discredited. The Head of Met Police would claim that a series of errors were made, most significantly, that detectives accepted the allegations made by Carl Beech without objectively investigating the credibility of his claims. Beech would ultimately be sentenced to 18 years in prison on account of making false claims against the accused, including Keith Harvey Proctor, a former Conservative MP from 1979 to 1987. By March 2016, Proctor was the last living person under investigation by Operation Midland and called for an independent inquiry into it (one that would ultimately land Beech in jail). Proctor would go on to be compensated £90,000 for “false accusations” and receive a formal and personal apology from the Commissioner of Police.

Political Ties to Infamous Pedophile Group, PIE

Some may see the sentencing of Carl Beech, and the reparations paid Lord Brittan’s widow and Proctor, as proof that the entire scandal was exaggerated; a “moral panic” echoing the 1980s satanic child sex cult hysteria. Yet, it can be difficult to accept that Operation Midland was a failure, or a case of hysteria gone awry, when placed against the backdrop of some less publicized, but equally critical details. It was revealed that very high-profile figures had links to the notorious Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE), who, in the 1970s publicly campaigned for the decriminalization of pedophilia, and for the age of consent to be lowered to ten years old. 

In 1981, five PIE members were jailed for publishing contact advertisements in Magpie, which promoted indecent acts between adults and children. But there was something more— an anonymous sixth member seemingly managed to avoid jail time, a man who went by the name of Peter Henderson. Henderson, it turns out, was actually an alias for Sir Peter Telford Hayman, a British diplomat and intelligence operative who served as Deputy Head of MI6. Hayman had previously been implicated in a pedophilia case when, in 1978, he was tracked down after he left a folder containing child porn on a city bus. Then, in 1984, Hayman was convicted and fined for an act of gross indecency with another adult in a public lavatory. Margaret Thatcher allegedly warned Hayman that a repeat offence would lead to him being stripped of his honours. 

Hayman would never face retribution; he died in April of 1992, just one month after Sir Cyril’s departure from Westminster.

The Secrets They Keep

On January 30 2015, just days after Lord Brittan’s death, it was revealed that a file was found in the National Archives titled “SECURITY. Sir Peter Hayman: allegations against former public official of unnatural sexual proclivities; security aspects”. The file is dated from October 1980 to March 1981. One document within the file noted a briefing given to then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher concerning Hayman’s sexual fantasies of children. A further document outlined the official response to be made by government ministers should they be questioned about his 1978 arrest. A different document states that Hayman was vulnerable to blackmail by foreign powers because of his “sexual perversion”, proving once again that accusations of child sex abuse were ignored at the highest levels — a theme echoed in the case of another high-profile figure embroiled in the scandal, Mr. Greville Ewan Janner.

Janner was a British politician who succeeded his father in becoming a Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester in 1970 and served as MP until 1997. Like Sir Cyril, Janner had been accused of various child sex crimes which spanned three decades, starting in the late 60s. Still, despite the allegations against him, then-Prime Minister Tony Blair nominated Janner for a peerage. In the late 90s and early 2000s, investigators decided to launch an inquiry into accusations made against Janner, but found there were deliberate actions by the Police force to withhold information from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). By 2015, CPS’s reviewing lawyer recommended that charges be brought forward but, given Janner had recently been diagnosed with dementia, the Director of Public Prosecutions determined it was not in the public interest to prosecute him. However, after an independent review, Saunders announced her earlier decision had been overturned. But Janner would die in December of that year without justice having ever been served. Much like in the Sir Cyril case, the CPS would eventually admit that they had enough evidence all along to charge Janner for the abuse of at least nine children from 1969 to 1988.

Although initial reports involving Operation Midland and related investigations gave much credibility to the whistleblowers, each time investigators began to reach the finish line, the cases seemingly fell through — whether by a lack of evidence, a decision not to prosecute, or due to perpetrators or key witnesses passing away before allegations could be properly investigated. This doesn’t stop with Westminster. 

Compromised Positions of Power 

The historical neglect of these crimes, and the failed investigations that followed, may have helped tamper public opinion on the issue, but what can’t be ignored are the big names that appear along the way. 

Belgian whistleblower Anneke Lucas alleges she was a sex slave to the political elite in the 1970s, pimped out by her mother starting at just 6 years old. She has made extensive claims about the sadistic activities that went on within these networks, including the torture and murder of children. On her Instagram account, Lucas implicates various high-ranking European officials, including a German chancellor and Russia’s former Ambassador to Canada, among many others. Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher, the U.K.’s conservative darling who served as Prime Minister during the height of the Westminster-linked pedophile ring, has not only been accused of helping to cover up the allegations of abuse against key politicians, but was also quite friendly with another high-profile pedophile — celebrity host Jimmy Savile (predictably, his predatory behaviour was only publicized after his death in 2011). In the end, allegations against Savile indicate that he sexually abused upwards of 400 people over a 54-year span, with victims ranging in age from 5 to 75.

Part 2 – Big Names, Big Crimes, Big Business

It occurred to me recently that the cultural impact of the 1980s “satanic panic” may have played a bigger role in my life than I realized. As a young girl growing up in the 90s, my female classmates and I dealt with an issue involving a male teacher at my elementary school (who was eventually charged and stripped of his teaching license). Initially though, there was some resistance from adults – including my own parents – to even acknowledge that his behaviour was predatory. Looking back, it seemed an entire generation of Boomer parents may have been primed to instinctively dismiss claims of pedophilic behavior, simply due to fear of being caught up in another “moral panic”. Many didn’t want to align themselves with the conspiracy theorists who had fallen for the “satanic sex abuse” hoax – particularly liberal parents like mine who surely associated these views with the “Christian right-wing”. 

But were these “hoaxes” everything they claimed to be? 

Satanic Panic or a Conspiracy of Silence?

It was 1983 when the infamous case out of Los Angeles was starting to take shape. The McMartin Preschool satanic abuse scandal was one of the first of its kind to hit the mainstream. Ray Buckey, the son of the school’s administrator, had been accused by Judy Johnson of sodomizing her son after she discovered blood on his anus after returning home from preschool. Interviewers from the Children’s Institute were brought in to speak with former students and identify other instances of sexual abuse. By March of 1984, the count of those diagnosed as sexually abused stood at 360 students and the accused now included Ray’s mother, his sister, and the owner of the preschool, Virginia McMartin, as well as three other staff members. They would ultimately be indicted on 115 counts of child sexual abuse. 

Shocking accusations began to unfold across the media (including claims that children were taken in planes to other locations), with the case initially being viewed as a credible one. The case was initially viewed as a credible one, and for good reason; in a 2013 CBS report, Kevin Cody, whose newspaper The Easy Reader featured extensive coverage of the case, said he had recently spoke to the alleged victims who told him that, though they had no recollection of it, they still believed they had been abused. Lead prosecutor, Lael Rubi, noted “The strongest evidence, the physical evidence, the medical evidence…was very significant.” Judy Johnson, however, never saw her day in court. In 1986, she was found dead just before she was set to testify at the pretrial hearing. In the end, charges would be dropped against all the accused, apart from Ray and Peggy Buckey who stood trial, but were ultimately acquitted. The parents of the alleged victims were not convinced. In 1990, they hired archaeologist E. Gary Stickel to investigate the school grounds for “secret underground rooms” (which were believed to be where much of the abuse took place). Stickel claimed he found evidence of tunnels, consistent with the children’s accounts, using ground-penetrating radar. However, in 1991, the building was demolished before they could perform further examinations on the property.

In 1988, another scandal would be brought to our attention, this time out of Nebraska. The Franklin Pedophile ring implicated a group of politicians and wealthy business leaders who were accused of being part of a network that engaged in child sex crimes. The alleged victims claimed that, while in foster care, they were flown to the East Coast to be sexually abused by powerful men. The accusations primarily centered on Lawrence E. King Jr., a rising figure in the Republican Party who ran the now defunct Franklin Community Federal Credit Union. The lead investigator alleged that King would host “lavish parties at which minors were sexually abused”.

Curiously, in July 1990, a private investigator hired by the Franklin Committee died when his plane disintegrated mid-air. Foul play was suspected but investigators were unable to find any proof (a cause for the crash was never established). That same month, a county investigation would determine the abuse allegations were “baseless”. By September 1990, a federal grand jury would drop the case and go on to indict one of the alleged victims, 21-year-old Alisha Owen, on eight counts of perjury. Owen would serve over four years in prison. Despite this, many involved in the case maintain that the victims’ claims were legitimate. In his book The Franklin Cover Up, lead investigator John DeCamp details what he and others believe were a series of cover ups and a deliberate mishandling of the case.

To this day, both the McMartin Preschool and Franklin pedophile rings are largely considered to have been fabricated by the victims. 

Compromised Positions of Power

Over the last few years, sex trafficking was exposed as the currency of choice among a series of well-known elites, and perhaps it should have come as no surprise. Most of us are aware of the escapades that occurred at the Playboy mansion and the lurid parties went on for decades. It was even claimed that tunnels had been built under Hugh Hefner’s home to escort celebrities and their playthings from one location to another. Tales of sex, drugs and rock and roll have often been shared by those in attendance, but it was the stories that went untold that would likely expose more sinister details.

Of course, Hollywood celebrities aren’t the only culprits. In 2020, Clare Bronfman, daughter of the late Canadian billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman Sr. and heiresses to the Seagram’s liquor dynasty, was charged with sex trafficking and extortion after being exposed for her involvement in elite sex cult NXIVM (pronounced Nexium). Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s main madame, came from a similarly privileged background. Her father, Robert Maxwell, rose from extreme poverty in Czechoslovakia, to become a decorated World War II hero, an academic publishing magnate, a UK Labour Party MP, and eventually the owner of the UK’s biggest tabloid, the Daily Mirror. Maxwell also had known links to MI6, the KGB, and Mossad, suggesting that intelligence agencies may be more connected to the jet-setting class than we realize.

The secret file on British diplomat Peter Telford warned that his sexual attraction to minors put him at risk of blackmail, but that may just be par for the course. It’s been theorized that, under the operative of their lucrative careers, both Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Combs (a.k.a. P. Diddy) were acting as Feds, commissioned to record high profile figures in compromised sex acts which could then be used to blackmail them later. This theory holds weight when we consider that, despite the avalanche of evidence in the Epstein case, and following his death under suspicious circumstances, his client list has still not been released. In the case of Combs, following the FBI’s raid on his residence in March 2024, rumors from members of his inner circle began swirling, claiming Combs kept damning evidence on a group of wealthy celebrities and well-known elites. 

And it didn’t stop there. Only a few weeks following Combs’ arrest, the public was staring down the barrel of yet another celebrity scandal, when former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO, Mike Jeffries, was arrested on his own sex trafficking charges. 

Sex, Satan and The Social Hierarchy

In researching for this article, I came across a story about Ghislaine Maxwell’s twin sisters, Christina and Isabel (who became millionaires in their own right as early Silicon Valley entrepreneurs) that gave me pause. It uncovered details about their backgrounds, which linked them to various occult-like characters. Christine is married to Roger Malina, an astrophysicist whose father was scientist Frank Malina. It is said that Malina senior hung out with a slew of interesting characters including Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, famous rocket scientist Jack Parsons (nicknamed the “sex cult Antichrist”), as well as various occultists and transhumanists (ironically, Jeffrey Epstein floated in similar circles). Isabel, meanwhile, had previously been married to the son of Carl Djerassi, the scientist known as “The Father of the Pill” for his work in developing the birth-control pill. Her third husband, Al Seckel, was a professional scammer and “optical illusionist” who co-founded a group called the Southern California Skeptics that investigated science’s relationship to the paranormal. This brought me to a realization; some of the most powerful and wealthy people in the world are not only engaging in sexual deviancy, but in spiritual deviancy as well. 

Perhaps then, it should come as no surprise that satanic symbolism has long been woven into the fabric of popular culture. Many credit its early influence to Aleister Crowley, a Cambridge educated occultist born to a wealthy English family in 1875. He was often referred to as a magician and was known to practice “sex magic” (descriptions of which echo the rituals that some elites have been rumoured to engage in today). Crowley would go on to create a belief system he called Thelema and would eventually assume control of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O), which continues to operate today. In the early 2000s, Australian psychologist, Dr. Reina Michaelson, head of the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program, would tell a tribunal that she believed the O.T.O hosted parties where naked children acted as waiters, and where members had sex with, and even murdered, children. The case was settled in 2006 when Michaelson could not provide proof of the events. 

Crowley also associated with some of the wealthiest and most powerful figures of his era, including Roald Dahl and other members of the British intelligence community (some have suggested he may have been working as a spy himself). He was hugely influential in British pop culture, and was even included on the cover art of The Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band Led Zeppelin were such big fans that Crowley’s motto of “Do What Thou Wilt” was inscribed on the their Led Zeppelin III album (Jay Z would later dawn a shirt scribed with the same). In 1971 Jimmy Page bought Crawley’s former property, Boleskine House, where they filmed The Song Remains the Same. Ozzy Osbourne, known for his own demonic antics, co-wrote a song titled “Mr. Crowley”. 

Beyond music, 1970s and 80s Hollywood would go on to be heavily influenced by Occult themes, with blockbuster hits like The Exorcist and Carrie. The 1969 Manson murders are often referenced as the single most important event that helped usher in this new era, which decidedly put an end to the hippy’s free love movement. In his 2019 book, Chaos, Tom O’Neil dives into Charles Manson’s own dealings with the FBI and his potential role as a federal informant leading up to the murder of Sharon Tate. Tate’s own father was an intelligence officer and, interestingly, her husband, Roman Polanski, directed the early occult hit Rosemary’s Baby just one year before her death (the defining scene sees Mia Farrow being raped and impregnated by Satan). 

Later, Polanski would face scandals of his own when he was charged with raping underage girls. In his book, O’Neil reveals a disturbing and previously unknown exploit by the director, which may have predicted his propensity for sexual deviance. According to O’Neil, during the murder investigation, detectives found videos at the Tate residence that showed Polanski pressuring his wife to have sex with other men while he watched (drawing parallels to allegations against Sean Combs).

The Manson murders would also mark the year a well-established American military intelligence officer, Michael Angelo Aquino, would join the Church of Satan (COS), led by Anton LaVey. The church was known to have inducted various celebrity members, including Sammy Davis Jr and Jayne Mansfield. In fact, one of Davis’ associates claimed that he continued to participate in sexual Satanic rites through the 80s, and that “during these carnal revelries, Davis would draw blood with sharp objects, including broken bottles, sometimes from the private parts” (oddly echoing accusations against yet another celebrity entertainer, Armie Hammer, who, like Maxwell, also hailed from a privileged yet ignominious family).

Acquino would leave the Church in 1975 to establish his own group, called Temple of the Set. Acquino spoke publicly about his participation in satanic rituals, and the group’s aim for self-deification by performing rituals and practicing black magic (among other things). It wasn’t until 1986, when the San Francisco Police began investigating allegations of sexual abuse in connection with the Army’s Child Development Center, a daycare in San Francisco, when his antics appeared more sinister. At least 58 out of 100 children who had attended the daycare centre showed physical and mental signs of sexual abuse, leading to a lawsuit by the parents for $60 million in damages. 

In 1987, a girl came forward and identified Aquino as her abuser and the investigation against him was launched, however, it was closed after insufficient evidence was found (Aquino was also linked to the Franklin child prostitution ring, however no charges were filed.)

Politics & Pizza

By the 1990s, conspiracy theorists like Cathy O’Brien were publicly accusing Bill and Hilary Clinton, as well as George Bush and others, of engaging in satanic ritual abuse and mind control programs. Others have pointed to various people within the Clinton’s orbit who have been found dead under “suspicious” circumstances as proof of their involvement in lurid activities, including human trafficking, which allegedly operated under the auspice of The Clinton Foundation. These rumours circulated amongst the fringe for years until, eventually, right-wing influencers like Alex Jones introduced Pizzagate to the broader public. Named for the fact that D.C. pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong, was the location where the alleged crimes took place, and “pizza” being an FBI identified codeword used by pedophiles, Pizzagate went viral during the 2016 United States presidential election cycle with uncorroborated claims that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had uncovered a sadistic pedophilia ring directly linked to members of the Democratic Party.

For the most part, the theory was dismissed as total lunacy, however as time went on, and more details emerged, some felt the story might have legs (admittedly, the fact that the letters in the name James Alefantis — owner of Comet Ping Pong — can be re-arranged to spell “J’aime les enfants” is… intriguing). Other details included bizarre emails from Hilary Clinton and her staff — and a particularly strange exchange between Tamera Luzzatto and John Podesta, where Luzzato mentions transporting three young children to a dinner party for “further entertainment”. It didn’t help matters when former police officer turned investigative journalist Jen Moore was found dead in a D.C. hotel room after publishing her own Pizzagate investigations (and hinting that DNC Staffer Seth Rich was murdered for his role in leaking emails to Wikileaks).

Whichever specifics we decide to give credence to, one thing is clear — the widening net of “conspiracy” that we’ve applied to the topic of sex rings and sadism within the upper echelons of society has done a grave injustice, particular to the victims of these crimes. The voices demanding a reckoning are growing louder, and should Trump follow through on his promise to release the Epstein client list, we might just get one.