When someone has to point to the Daily Mail as 'research' then you know its desparate

This article is clearly designed to try and discredit the SWP by state employed agent provocateurs

Why does this have to be a troll? The authoritarian SWP would more than likely try sweeping any further sexual abuse of its members under the carpet.

"I won't link to the Daily Mail... but" sounds like "I ain't a racist, but"! "The most sickening thing about the committee who cleared you know who of rape with their Victorian questioning of the the young comrade was was sexually assaulted (sic) Was that one of them is a rape counsellor in Sheffield"? Really? Bearing in mind that it was the woman who made the original allegation who CHOSE not to take her allegation to the police, are you saying it is (in your opinion) "sickening" that the SWP appointed someone with serious professional experience of these issues, or is it "sickening" that their investigation seems to have found in favour of the defendant in this case?

What would you have preferred, that the SWP hand the case to a police force who are bitter enemies of the "defendant" in this case, the same police force who covered-up for their friend Jimmy Savile, and the same police force who are widely reported to routinely ask rape victims to go away and shut up? Or would you prefer that the SWP appoint an investigator whose professional experience lay in the field of installing cable TV systems, librarianship or unblocking drains for instance? If the alleged victims aren't happy with their treatment they still have the option of going to the police.

"the same police force who covered-up for their friend Jimmy Savile"

Got any evidence of that?

most of their "judges" knew the accused

talk about a kangaroo court - what a joke.
leave it to the police next time

I don't agree with or like Trotskyism or Trot sects, but everyone should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and if there's one thing that's much worse than serious allegations being tried by a self-appointed SWP court, it's potentially innocent people being found "guilty" by virtue of a few lines of gossip posted on Indymedia

In his autobiography Jimmy Savile stated - years ago and totally openly - that "A high-ranking lady police officer came in one night and showed me a picture of an attractive girl who had run away from a remand home. "Ah," says I all serious, "if she comes in I’ll bring her back tomorrow but I’ll keep her all night first as my reward"." Savile describes how the girl came to one of his dances that evening and stayed the night with him before he handed her over. He added: "The officeress was dissuaded from bringing charges against me by her colleagues for it was well known that were I to go, I would probably take half the station with me."

 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/jimmy-saviles-autobiography-shock-as-pages-1359536

In other words Savile knew so much dirt on the police that if they pursued him for sexually abusing children he'd expose all the dirt he knew about the police. Elsewhere Savile described running what's been called a "Breakfast Club" with senior police

 http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jimmy-saviles-friday-morning-club-1736283

Met police sex crime unit dismissed rape claim against Jean Say, who went on to murder his children, and pressured other victims to drop cases so the cops could improve their clear-up stats -

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/26/rape-victims-police-allegations

The kind of sources The Daily Mail are able to quote include (to use their words) "someone who knows her"... do you reckon that'll stand up in court? An SWP court may not be much cop by trial-by-media is far worse

And it just so happens the person the Mail are really using this case to slander is Candy Udwin - who the Mail describe as the "daughter of an eminent psychiatrist", rather than pointing out she just happens to be a leading campaigner against the Tory policy of privatising the NHS.... coincidence?

Here's how The Daily Mail smeared 26 March 2011 protestors and the Dale Farm campaign -

 https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/09/485095.html

The Mail also waged a relentless & vicious smear campaign against OSLX

It's amazing how many comments from SWP supporters here are trying to cover this up, I wonder who ordered them to come and post comments in their defence?

Special report: Did Socialist Workers Party cover up NINE rapes? Kangaroo court may have cleared an official of raping teenage member… but scandal goes far deeper

Previous allegation of rape against senior member heard in 'kangaroo court'
SWP leadership survived unprecedented motion of no confidence last week
Claims party's 'disputes committee' heard nine separate allegations of rape
Another alleged victim who quit party has come forward with her testimony
SWP 'strongly contests' account and said they took 'prompt action'
The SWP also insists there have only been two such cases investigated

Earlier this week, Ciara Squires, a student at Queen Mary, University of London, and a hitherto enthusiastic member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), posted this message on Twitter: ‘I’ve left the SWP but in absolute tears. So absolutely gutted. Gonna drink wine till I don’t care about anything.’

Behind her emotional and very public admission is a deepening scandal that is threatening to engulf Britain’s largest far-Left organisation, which prides itself on its promotion of women’s rights.

The scandal first came to light earlier this year and involved an allegation of rape against a senior figure in the party by a junior colleague.

Instead of calling in the police, the party set up what can only be described as a kangaroo court, comprised mainly of the alleged attacker’s friends, to investigate the complaint, and effectively act as judge and jury.

The spurious justification for this charade was that the SWP did not recognise Britain’s ‘bourgeois’ system of justice. That’s the law of the land, to you and me. The official in question, a middle-aged, full-time activist, who has a long-term partner, was subsequently exonerated.

The girl, on the other hand, just 17 when she began a relationship with the veteran party apparatchik, and just 19 when she claims she was assaulted, was subjected to embarrassing questions about her sexual history and made to feel like a ‘slut who asked for it’, to quote someone who knows her. Precisely the kind of behaviour the SWP has frequently accused the State of.

Friends say the young woman, who we will call Miss X, and who made a formal complaint to the party hierarchy in September of last year, has been left traumatised by the process. Apart from anything else, her anonymity has been compromised. Her accusation has been so widely discussed and debated because of the way it was handled that many in the party know who she is.

Those are the brief, shameful facts the Mail exposed in a report back in February. Since then, we can reveal, female members of the SWP, such as Ciara Squires, have been leaving the party in droves. Many attended an ‘emergency’ conference at Hammersmith Town Hall last weekend where the SWP leadership survived an unprecedented motion of no confidence by 483 votes to 133. Critics furiously branded the result a ‘whitewash’.

They say that had all the estimated 1,000 or so party members been allowed to participate, under the time-honoured principle of ‘one person, one vote’, the leadership would have been forced to resign en masse. But then the central committee, the Soviet-style ruling body of the SWP, was never going to let that happen.

It was a Pyrrhic victory in any event; the party is now haemorrhaging support and is said to be on the brink of collapse.

Many other women, aside from Miss Squires, appeared visibly upset when they left Hammersmith Town Hall late on Sunday afternoon. Some, eyes to the ground, looked close to tears as they went silently on their way. Their party, after all, has always professed to champion the cause of feminism. The sense of betrayal was palpable — and today the full extent of that betrayal can be laid bare.

For, according to a former veteran party member of 18 years standing, the SWP’s internal court — otherwise known as the disputes committee — has been convened on no fewer than nine separate occasions to investigate allegations of rape against nine different men in the party.

Yes, that’s right. Nine occasions where amateur justice has been dispensed in circumstances that could hardly be more controversial. The SWP vehemently denies the fact — but you can judge the veracity of that denial when you have finished reading what follows.

What is beyond all reasonable doubt is that Miss X is not the only woman to have found, to her dismay, that the party insists on playing judge and jury when its male activists are accused of raping their colleagues.

Another alleged victim came forward on the eve of Sunday’s emergency conference. We shall call her Susan. Her testimony, which has striking similarities to the account of Miss X has been posted on the internet.

Susan was a student in Sheffield and a committed member of the SWP until, she claims, a senior party organiser pressured her into meeting him and then raped her in a bedroom in 2011.

She felt that if she’d gone to the police, she would have been expelled from the party. ‘If you go to the police you get kicked out automatically,’ she wrote.

The SWP insists that women such as Susan choose not to go to the police: again, judge the truth for yourself. Susan decided to quit the party of her own volition anyway, but was persuaded by a party official to take her allegations to the disputes committee, the mechanism for resolving routine grievances and disciplinary matters in the party ranks. Up to eight senior SWP officials can sit on the committee.

Many of them are women, including Amy Leather, 37, from Manchester, a regular contributor to the Socialist Worker newspaper who was involved in the protest camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral, and Candy Udwin, 58, daughter of an eminent psychiatrist.

Writing about giving evidence to the committee, Susan says: ‘They asked me had you been drinking? Are you sure that you said no, and are you sure you didn’t consent? Was he drunk? Because it would be different if he was drunk.’

She says she was also interrogated about her previous sexual history.

During the hearing, two other women made allegations against the same official, who is in his 20s, including claims of attempted rape and sexual impropriety.

Later that same afternoon, Susan was called back and given the verdict. The committee did not rule on the truth of the rape allegation, she said — instead they just ordered her to shut up about it.

‘They said, if you go around calling him a rapist, you’ll be in trouble. If you tell anyone, you’ll be in trouble. They didn’t elaborate. They’re not the kind of people to get on the wrong side of.’ Why has she chosen to speak out now? ‘I want people to know it’s a systemic thing,’ she explained. ‘They’ve done this a few times, covered things up in the interests of the party, and it’s a dangerous environment to be in.’

The man she accused of raping her, meanwhile, is understood to have been suspended from the party for two years for sexist and improper behaviour. He has apparently been encouraged to read up on women’s liberation as part of his rehabilitation.

His reading list is said to include the works of Lindsey German, a former Mayor of London candidate, and author of Material Girls: Women, Men And Work. Presumably, he will be eligible to return to the fold once he has completed his rehabilitation. Could anyone, if tasked, come up with a better way of trivialising rape?

Responding to the allegations, Charlie Kimber, the party’s national secretary, said: ‘The SWP strongly contests major elements of this account of the disputes committee hearing. The woman brought serious accusations to our attention, we investigated, found against the accused and took prompt action. Those are the facts of the case.’

When asked to elaborate on exactly which ‘elements’ of her account were wrong, he declined to do so.

We have also learned of a third alleged rape case in London, which went before the disputes committee and resulted in the accused — a party member also in his 20s — being expelled from the SWP. How many others are there? Linda Rodgers, a shop steward at Scottish Women’s Aid in Edinburgh, an organisation that supports victims of domestic abuse, answers that question in a blog on a Left-wing internet forum.

She says the disputes committee, or DC, ‘has investigated nine rapes in the past . . . I believe this is put forward to reassure comrades of the competency of the DC. I don’t find it reassuring in the slightest; in fact I find it terrifying.’

She is in a position to know. Miss Rodgers was a member of the SWP for nearly two decades before becoming disillusioned with the party over the rape scandal; she is now believed to have resigned.

In a stinging memo to the central committee of the SWP back in January, which has also been posted online, she wrote: ‘Would the DC [disputes committee] have investigated murder?

‘I would guess not, but then what does that say about the level of seriousness with which the CC [central committee] and DC treat rape?’

The SWP insists there have been only two such cases.

But we have already highlighted three in this article, so you must decide who to believe: The Socialist Workers Party, or Linda Rodgers, a woman who has spent her life helping abused women.

And whatever the actual figure, the fact that any woman alleging rape could be subjected to the vagaries of a kangaroo court in 21st-century Britain is surely deeply disturbing.

In the words of Miss Rodgers, referring to the case of Miss X: ‘The shambolic playing at investigator, judge and jury held a real risk of ruining someone’s life, and it is no thanks to the leadership of the SWP and only testimony to the woman’s strength if it hasn’t.’

More revelations about the case of Miss X — who was, remember, just 17 when she encountered her alleged attacker — emerged this week

They are documented, point by disturbing point, in a ‘pre-conference bulletin’ compiled by party members opposed to the current leadership.

‘In this case, the comrade making the complaint was kept waiting for four hours before she was called to the DC [disputes committee] to give evidence. This added stress made it harder to put her side of the case.

‘In this case, the DC made a one-sentence decision — that the allegation of rape was unproven — with no further explanation. As might have been expected, the comrade who had made the accusation was extremely distressed.

‘The DC took a full two weeks to provide a statement. Yet the DC’s statement did not explain why it did not accept her account, or why it failed to make any criticism at all of the male comrade’s behaviour.

‘In this case, the comrade against whom the complaint was made broke discipline. The CC [central committee] had instructed him to give up his normal party activities, but he spoke in a public meeting and travelled to the city where the comrade making the complaint lived in the week before the hearing, which she and her witnesses found intimidating.

‘Both incidents were raised with the DC and the CC, and both bodies confirmed that these matters would be dealt with, yet it seems that no action has been taken.’

To quote Charlie Kimber, the national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party, ‘those are the facts of the case’. And, Comrade Kimber, they make for shameful reading.

Source:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294198/Special-report-Did-Socialist-Workers-Party-cover-NINE-rapes-Kangaroo-court-cleared-official-raping-teenage-member-scandal-goes-far-deeper.html

Can somebody please explain why IMC is being spammed with Daily Mail articles?

The Daily Mail frequently makes things up or simply invents stories to sell papers. Everybody knows this so why is this garbage being reprinted here?

Also, the SWP is a hierarchy political body which IMC does not support...read our mission statement, its pretty clear that disseminating the political agenda of the SWP and the commercial agenda of the Daily Mail is not really what we do here.

This article should be removed.

The only people who want it removed are embarassed SWPers trying to stifle debate, but there's nothing new there and this is relevant because abuse of women is relevant to IM UK readers!

Another dangerous cult run by power hungry leaders who use threats to get their way.

Woman should of just left the SWP and gone to the police and get the guy put in a proper court of law. Kicked out of the party if talking to the police?! Sums it up to me.

So if i get burgled, or mugged, or someone trys to kill me, then I'm not allowed to talk to the police according to SWP policy????! wank*ers

I do think this is a deliberate smear campaign, but am not an SWPer or trying to stifle debate (I'm happy to see The Daily Mail article reproduced here, not least since anyone with the internet can find it in seconds anyway)

Fact is the Mail published their smear against Candy Udwin on the same day thousands of people marched against massive cuts at the Whittington Hospital in North London - that's not a coincidence

"Laughing at SWP spin monkeys!" thinks (wrongly) that critics of this smear campaign must all be SWP supporters but hasn't even attempted to deal with the points raised in this actual debate... QED

I'm not an "SWP spin monkey", I'm a life-long Anarchist who's grown sick unto the back teeth of the constant bollocks spouted on Indymedia by some Anarchists

For the record I totally agree the SWP are a "dangerous cult", the Anarchist "movement" however is another cult, that's only dangerous insofar as it allows itself to be used as a minor pawn of the right-wing media etc

As Orwell once said, some things are true even if they appear in the Evening Telegraph.

The CC has ultimate power in their party, including the ability to intimidate its members away from going to the police. And that ultimate power has gone to their heads. Why be surprised to learn that, again and again, that ultimate power has gone to their dicks as well?

It's just not true that you get expelled from the SWP if you go to the police. I'm no SWP cheerleader, but that bit isn't true. I wonder what else is about the article is a bit exaggerated.

Predictably, and inevitably, a witch-hunt against the SWP involving rightest forces followed the outing of "unproven" rape and sexual violence allegations against a leading "Comrade Delta" which the SWP 'leadership' desperately tried to conceal from the 'mere membership'. In the 'digital age' that was never going to work and the SWP has been caught out, 'hoist on their own petard'. It really is no defence at all for party "loyalists" to point the finger at the Daily Fascist as if they actually expect the rest of the world to look the other way.

"A serious allegation is referred to the Disputes Committee of the Socialist Workers Party, my party, to investigate. The Disputes Committee is composed largely of individuals who know the accused. The Disputes Committee asks the person making the allegations a series of completely inappropriate questions that, had they been asked of someone making such allegations in a police station, we would rightly denounce them as sexist. Another comrade makes a related allegation against the same accused, and submits a statement. The committee subjects this comrade to similar treatment. The committee reaches a verdict of 'not proven'. The conference of the party is then lied to about the nature of the allegations. The Central Committee and the Disputes Committee collude in a cover-up. They suppress it. This is already a disgrace.

But word does get around. People begin to hear what has happened, and are outraged. They begin to hear of senior party members spreading the most disgusting rumours about the two women involved. Many members, especially young members, begin to kick off about it. It becomes clear that this will be an issue in the party conference of 2013. So, there is a preemptive strike against four members for participating in a Facebook thread discussing the case, which is alleged - on the basis of selective excerpts - to be evidence of 'secret factionalising', which is prohibited. The expulsion is enacted immediately, with no due process, no disciplinary hearing. The four comrades are expelled by email. This is totally at odds with the party's usual procedures. It is a clear bureaucratic manoeuvre to stymy the upsurge. But it produces a revolt."

Revolting indeed. If Richard Seymour is lying, if published transcripts are false, if the young women accusing a senior member were not asked "completely inappropriate questions" and smeared, the SWP has had every opportunity to correct the record.

Just consider the gross hypocrisy of this "anti-capitalist" party and its feigned contempt for bourgeois 'justice': when Julian Assange was similarly accused, the SWP demanded he face rape charges in a bourgeois court in the knowledge that the US already has his place reserved in those special dark corners kept for deemed enemies of the 'War of Terror'. Now, we do not know if Comrade Delta has yet taken Holy Orders but the SWP leadership demonstrably believes in its entitlement to something akin to medieval 'benefit of clergy' so-called because clergymen could only be tried by other clergymen who would understand. So while the bourgeois court is good enough for Assange, Delta is heard by his mates on the DC.

SWP: if you're going to disdain bourgeois justice, you had better have something better to put in its place.

At least then you might not get laughed out of court.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JllQnXl208&feature=player_embedded