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There is an potentially interesting thread at Cluesforum which peter out, unfortunately. I think there is mileage in the analysis of this mysterious event when Simon Peter Cumbers an Irish national was shot dead apparently and Frank GArdner, the BBC’s security correspondent was put in a wheelchair by alleged Al Qaeda sympathisers in Riyadh…which means fakers.
Cumbers left a wife, Louise Bevan. They had two companies registered in Brentford at 1 Hamilton Road TW8 0QE
Radiant Television, a dormant company since 2009
https://www.duedil.com/company/03943090/radiant-television-limited/peopleo registered on 9 March 2000, which seems to have remained a shell until December 2001 when Cumbers took over from the registrars. After his apparent death in 2004, Andrew John Parkin replaced him on the board, as he did at the other company
Locum Productions, founded by Cumbers and Ashley Martin Deakins; Bevan joined in November 1999.Louise is co-director of Locum Productions, drawing on a wealth of experience in journalism and television broadcasting. She began her career as a newspaper reporter, moving on to television news where she has worked for most of the major broadcasters including the BBC and ITN. She spent several years with the breakfast broadcaster TV-am, covering the Gulf War from Israel in 1991 as well as the build-up to war during a four-week spell in Iraq. Louise has also reported from other countries including Jordan, Cyprus and Hong Kong, where she was Far East Correspondent.
In Britain, Louise has covered many of the major news events of the past 20 years and continues to do so, combining her work as a journalist with running Locum Productions.
http://www.locum-productions.com/pages/company_profile/louise_bevan.htm
the report on the Riyadh incident is here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3781803.stmGardner underwent hours of surgery, after which he was critical but stable….They were filming the house of an al-Qaeda militant killed last year when they came under fire. …..BBC Director of News Richard Sambrook said that Gardner had undergone “extensive surgery” overnight, having suffered wounds mostly to his abdomen. …
A BBC cameraman who was shot dead while filming in Saudi Arabia was “unlawfully killed”, a coroner has ruled.
Simon Cumbers, 36, was killed on 6 June 2004 when gunmen opened fire on a news team in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner was seriously injured in what West London Coroner Alison Thompson said was an “opportunistic attack”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4919756.stm
April 18 2006https://www.duedil.com/company/03614348/locum-productions-limited/people
from the Guardian
Gardner has been unconscious since suffering multiple bullet wounds in the shooting incident in a suburb of the Saudi capital, in which his BBC colleague, freelance cameraman Simon Cumbers, was killed.
Following the attack, Gardner underwent extensive surgery in which up to nine bullets were reported to have been removed. He has been in a “critical but stable” condition since.
His condition improved slightly yesterday, and the 42-year-old father of two underwent further surgery at the King Faisal specialist hospital.
“Doctors described him as young, fit and fighting for his life. He is working hard to try to stay alive,” Mrs Gardner said.
“I feel much better that I could see him. He always wanted me to come to Saudi Arabia. He loves the Middle East so much and feels so comfortable with people from the Middle East that I couldn’t imagine I could ever say anything that would stop him from coming… He was born to be a journalist,” she added.
Mrs Gardner said the couple’s two young daughters – Melissa, six, and Sasha, five – had been told what had happened.
She praised the BBC and the British embassy in Riyadh for the help they had given her to fly out to see her husband in the Saudi capital.
A team of BBC news executives has flown out to Riyadh and is also helping Cumbers’ widow, Louise Bevan, to bring her husband’s body back to the UK.
The corporation’s home news editor, John Williams, assignment editor Mark Perrow and Paul Greeves, the head of the BBC’s high risk team, are in Saudi Arabia to try and establish exactly what happened to Cumbers and Gardner, who were ambushed in a Saudi suburb that is a known al-Qaida stronghold while on a filming assignment.
A team from Scotland Yard’s SO13 anti-terrorism squad has also flown out to Riyadh to investigate the shooting.
The Scotland Yard move suggests there is growing concern that the shooting was not a random incident and that Gardner and Cumbers may have either been lured into a trap, or that a terrorist group may have been tipped off about their plans.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jun/10/broadcasting.Iraqandthemedia
Interesting case xileffilex. This guy is clearly a key front-man of military psyOpery in the UK.
The son of two diplomats he had a military and banking back-ground before journalism.
He was full-time BBC ‘Gulf Correspondent’ at the time of 9/11.
”After the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York, from 2002 Gardner specialised solely in covering stories related to the War on Terror.”Then he was shot on 6th June ( 6/6 one year before 7/7 – neat ) 2004.
By the time of the 7/7 bombing in 2005 he had recovered and was in his wheelchair and reporting as the BBC’S Security Correspondent.
What better way to ram-the-message-home? Frank Gardner is walking propaganda for the ‘War On Terror’. Well, rolling propaganda, anyway. Having Frank, the BBC Terrorism expert( a victim of terrorism himself ) sitting in his wheelchair and telling us how it is on 7/7, is a very simple and obvious ( crass, when you know) trick of propaganda, but I would say it’s probably brilliantly effective. It’s powerful affirmation and worth contriving in-time to tie-in with THE big British Op of the so-called ‘War on Terror’ – 7/7.
I had thought maybe he paralysed himself skiing ( he seems to enjoy a bit of skiing – still) or had some kind of accident and they came up with the idea of staging the mini-op, and pretending it was terrorist related.
But that seems unlikely to me.
Perhaps he has some condition which would mean he would be wheel chair bound at some point anyway and the idea was conceived with this foreknowledge. We know how useful Stephen Hawking’s motor-neurone disease has been for his career.
I note that Gardner is able to walk with a frame, which would make general mobility easier. I just can’t imagine anyone pretending to need a wheelchair every second of their public life when they didn’t need one.
It’s one of those classic situations where you think ”I can’t believe they’d go to all that trouble”.
The truth perhaps, is that Frank Gardner never has to worry. He’s protected. Right now anyway, he’s untouchable. A story is never going to ‘leak’ that Frank Gardner was seen grinning on a trampoline. He can take precautions and lead a pretty normal life probably.
He’s the safest disability swindler in the UK.
DalTampra
It’s one of those classic situations where you think ”I can’t believe they’d go to all that trouble”.
sound analysis Tom – we’ll never get to find out without the case notes from King Faisal hospital in Riyadh where Frank was “”fighting for his life” 4 days later
Following the attack, Gardner underwent extensive surgery in which up to nine bullets were reported to have been removed. He has been in a “critical but stable” condition since.
update April 19 2005, not long to go before 7/7,
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2005/apr/19/saudiarabia.broadcasting“I shouted, in Arabic, stupidly: ‘No, don’t do this!’ as soon as I saw him pulling out the pistol,” says Gardner……
….Gardner ran from the gunman, deeper into the district. He heard a shot and something stung his shoulder. A bullet had passed through him. He kept running. There were more shots. He was hit in the leg, his leg bone was fractured, and he fell, on a patch of waste ground. “The adrenalin was really pumping so initially the shooting didn’t hurt. It felt like a massive thump. With each bullet that went in it was like being picked up by a giant hand and slammed on the ground.” Still, these were not deadly wounds. He would have made a full recovery. But the militants weren’t finished.A second vehicle drew up alongside him, a cargo van. Gardner found himself looking up into the side doorway of the van where three militants crouched, looking at him. One of them was pointing a pistol.
“I pleaded with them in Arabic not to shoot me,” says Gardner. “They had a very quick discussion among themselves. I couldn’t pick up what they were saying. Then they emptied the pistol into me at pretty much point-blank range.” Four 9mm bullets smashed into Gardner’s spinal nerves, pelvis and abdomen….Gardner found himself lying on his front, amazed to be still alive and conscious. He closed his eyes and pretended to be dead. He heard the feet of one of the militants walking around him and prepared to die. “I thought this is it, this is going to be the execution shot in the back of the head.”
He felt the gunman rooting in his back trouser pockets. In one, he found Cumbers’ radio mike. In the other he found a miniature Qur’an of the kind Gardner often gave out as gifts…..Gardner rolled over and cried for help. His legs were paralysed. “My cries were just a sort of animal pain … it was almost beyond pain. I’m amazed I didn’t black out. Maybe some of the stomach acid had leaked, I don’t know.”….
and so it continues, all reading like a novel…except no mention of the British ambassador to Saudi Arabia, one of the very top jobs in the uk diplomatic service, requiring one of the safest pairs of hands beyond the representatives in Israel and New York. it was Sir Sherard Cowper-Cowles at the time, later to Afghanistan before strangely bowing out in 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10398591perhaps more to do with “trouser problems” or “afghan discussions”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2093477/Ex-wife-high-flying-diplomat-fathered-child-posting-Afghanistan-speaks-heartbreak-marriage-break-up.htmlFor security reasons, Bridget was not allowed to accompany him to the region.
this thread is worth reading…
http://shaphan.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/franks-wild-yea.html#commentshttp://shaphan.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/franks-army-yea.html
The above link is here in text version
http://shaphan.typepad.com/blog/2007/07/franks-wild-yea.html#commentsLouise Bevan, [who married Cumbers in 1996] seems to have made no statement or media appearance on the event in 2004.
Ms Cumbers, 36, and his wife of seven years Louise Bevan were joint directors of Locum Productions of Brentford, which supplied cameramen to work around the world.Bevan is also an experienced broadcaster and journalist who has worked for the BBC, ITN and TV-am and covered the Gulf War from Israel in 1991 and has worked in Iraq.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/shot-bbc-man-refused-to-carry-gun-7282964.html
June 6 2004
Cumbers’s death follows that of ITN’s Terry Lloyd in Iraq last year.The aftermath of yesterday’s attack was captured by an Arabic TV crew and film of Mr Gardner, a father of two young daughters, lying on the ground with two apparent bullet wounds was broadcast.
[BBC director of news Richard] Sambrook said: “He had extensive surgery last night. He suffered principally abdominal injuries, some gunshot wounds to his abdomen, but his condition is stable.”https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/jun/07/bbc.iraqandthemedia
“He was very much an enthusiast, always optimistic. He took on everything with enthusiasm and drive,” said Charles Miller, who worked with Cumbers at LocumHowever there is a charity in the name of Simon Cumbers for training Irish journalists for which the source of income is unclear.
http://www.simoncumbersmediafund.ie/google cache of news.sky.com/story/277631/shot-tv-reporter-flies-back-home
June 26 2004
A spokesman for the BBC said Gardner, the corporation’s security correspondent, was flown home at the end of last week and is now in hospital in the UK and making good progress in his recovery.
In a statement his wife, Amanda, said: “I am extremely grateful to the Saudi government for facilitating Frank’s medical treatment in Riyadh, and for arranging for him to be flown back to the UK.
“I also want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the doctors and medical staff at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, without whose skill and care Frank’s recovery would not have been possible.”Louise Bevan, the widow of Simon Cumbers, announced that a private funeral will take place in Simon’s home town of Navan, County Meath on June 29th.
http://tvforum.uk/tvhome/bbcs-frank-gardner-shot-10497/page-2
Marcus1,287 posts since 2 Jul 2001
15 June 2004 8:00pm
You may be interested to know that Frank had a long operation today which involved three separate procedures on Frank’s leg, abdomen and spine. The surgon believes the long-term prognosis for Frank’s full recovery is good although he will obviously need several months of intensive physiotherapy. The doctors hope that they’ll be able to take Frank off the respirator tomorrow and ease back on the sedation so he’ll be able to sit up in bed and talk. And they believe that if all continues to go well he should be able to return to the UK within two weeks.NickyS1,569 posts since 1 Apr 2001
16 June 2004 8:57am
Moz posted:I notice the BBC have a new Security Correspondent on Breakfast this morning.
Actually Gordon [Carrera] was appointed before the awful shooting of Frank .. so there were two security correspondents.
Quote:
BBC journalist moved to London
Frank Gardner, the BBC journalist who was shot and wounded two weeks ago during a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, will be moved to London today in a special aircraft, according to his wife who is attending to him in the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center.
She told Gulf News that the condition of her husband remains serious. “I was told by his doctors that he must undergo a few more operations before he is out of danger.” She praised the hospital staff and the efforts they exerted to save Gardner’s life.
She also thanked the hospital for providing her with fully equipped room, a car, a mobile telephone and Saudi companion.
Dr Qasim Alqusaibi, deputy director of the hospital, told Gulf News, “It was decided to move Gardner so that he may receive care among his friends and relatives. This is also the desire of his employer, the BBC.” He said Gardner is strong enough to endure the six-hour journey to London.
October 27 2004
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/oct/27/Iraqandthemedia.broadcasting
Gardner: ‘This is not a temporary thing… I’m a paraplegic’BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner has been told he may never walk again, five months after being gunned down by terrorists in Saudi Arabia.
The journalist is fighting to regain the use of his legs, which were left partially paralysed in the attack on June 6.
“I have to keep reminding myself that this is a slow business and that nerves can take up to two years to regenerate, if they do at all,” Gardner writes in an article for Update, the magazine of the BBC’s news division.
One of the neurosurgeons treating him has said: “If I were a betting man, I’d say you probably won’t walk again. But with the nerve damage you can’t be sure.”
Gardner says he has suffered “five months of near continual, undulating pain” since he and cameraman Simon Cumbers were attacked in the Saudi capital, Riyadh.
Cumbers died in the attack, while Gardner was left fighting for his life, after three bullets were fired into his stomach at point blank range.
He waited for half an hour before any assistance came and endured a nightmarish ride when it did. “With almost no knowledge of first aid and with no medics present, [the police] bundled me lengthways in the back seat of a dog wagon,” he writes.
“My feet and head protruded at right angles through both windows. We then set off on a bone-jarring journey across rough waste ground while I clung on to the window frame in agony.”
He was treated first at a clinic but was swiftly transferred to King Faisal specialist hospital where medics told him he would not have survived the night had he not come to them when he did.
After two and a half weeks, he was flown back to the UK, to be treated at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel, east London. He is now at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, west London.
“By August it began to dawn on me just how serious my injuries were,” Gardner writes. “I had absolutely no movement below my hips although my legs and feet were – and are – in pain all day, every day.”
He experienced an important breakthrough when he felt a twitch in his thigh muscle, but doctors have remained cautious during the course of intensive physiotherapy he has undergone.December 7 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ifs/hi/newsid_4070000/newsid_4071400/4071407.stm
BBC World Editor Jonathan Baker said: “Although in good health, it is not yet known if he will ever regain the full use of his legs due to spinal nerve damage.
“But he is able to return home for short visits and will be spending Christmas at home with his family.”
In the New Year, Frank faces a major operation on his abdomen.
Once recovered, he is “looking forward to returning to the screen and to the airwaves”, said Mr Baker.“Shot six times”, “up to nine” bullets removed, two “bloodstained areas” of clothing…
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/simon-cumbers-journalist-and-cameraman/
Simon Cumbers is remembered at the Journalists altar at St Brides Church, Fleet Street, London EC4.
Messages of condolence can be left on both the BBC website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news and at the Locum Productions website http://www.locum-productions.com Lorna Birchley and Charles Miller at Locum Productions.https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-miller-a5690048
Lorna Bower = Lorna Birchley
https://www.duedil.com/company/08007151/bowerhouse-productions-ltd/ownership
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dick-bower-8b803318from 0.29 “They ambushed us basically, they boxed us in, erm, shot my cameraman dead, erm [pause] shot me, I started to run, sh- er- bullet went through my shoulder, I carried on running. They shot me again in the leg, brought me down then put four more bullets into me and left me for dead
@2.53
“my guts were shot to pieces, I was, you know, I had all sorts of problems, some of which linger, persist today, you know because I took six bullets it wasn’t just a simple break.The fact that you know I had no life below the knees,erm, meant, you know, that I wasn’t going to pss going to walk
Interview, 2008, with Tanya Black of Attitude TV [NZ]He says his wife is a New Zealander and his two children are New Zealand nationals.
Shahpan blog post about Frank’s [missing] Territorial Army years
http://shaphan.typepad.com/blog/2007/12/franks-army-yea.htmlAn interesting little coincidence at the BBC website
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3783997.stm
Chris Cheshire, 41, from Ealing, West London was a neighbour of Simon Cumbers, who was shot dead in the attack, and an ex-army colleague of security correspondent Frank Gardner, who remains in hospital.
“I was shocked to hear of the attack,” he told BBC News Online. “Simon was a real affable, outgoing kind of guy. A good neighbour.”
“I would have never thought this kind of thing could happen to him.”
Mr Cheshire and Gardner served together in the Royal Green Jackets in London from 1989 to 1991.
“I had been concerned for some time whether Frank had been putting himself in the line of fire by reporting in such an in-depth manner on al-Qaeda.
“He and Simon have become the victims on this occasion. I will pray for Frank tonight, and will pay my respects to Simon when the family have had time to grieve,” he saidThat Cheshire and Cumbers were neighbours at the time is true – four doors away at the time.
However, and there is proof that Gardner rose to the rank of Captain in Royal Green Jackets [Territorial] 4th Batallion where Christopher Albert Cheshire also served [not officer]
https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/52465/supplement/3469
http://www.rgjphotos.org.uk/4rgj/chris_cheshire.htm^ sorry, 8 doors away, the street is consecutively numbered.
From this video interview with Frank, BBC August 23 2015
“we were right at the end of our assignment and we thought we were finished, we had booked to go home on flights the next day. But the Saudi Ministry of Information said we’re here to take you round Riyadh and they took us to an area which they didn’t realise how dangerous it was, an Al-Qaeda main team were on their way to a meeting in a safe house. They saw us, their commander gave a quick set of orders said ‘we must kill the, kill them’ and they shot my cameraman, he died, Simon Cumbers, and they erm shot me six times and left me for dead’ [which is usually the purpose of an alleged shooting. What happened to the Saudi guides?]
“I needed to get word to the embassy so that I could be rescued, which eventually did happen, just in time. So, erm, [looks to the ceiling] no I don’t particularly remember praying there. I was like ‘right, I need to roll over, my legs have completely [sic] shot to pieces, erm I’m bleeding from the stomach [as in the fuzzy photograph ^] it is probably fatal. I haven’t got long [cut]
I was seven months in hospital with you know so many operations…I’m crippled for life, that’s my, that’s what happened to me. EVery disabled person is different…”“….where on earth did you find that inner strength to come through all of that and come back to work to do the same job? It’s incredible”
“It was just never an option for me, I, I just, I remember my wife saying, you know, ‘do you just want to throw it all in or shall we go and live in somewhere like Australia or the other side of the world?’ I said no, you know, I’ve got a lot a lot more to do” [cut] no I’m not, I’m doing it for me”
Just out of interest, who was the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in Riyadh from 2003-2006, fresh from his post in Tel Aviv?
Sherard Cowper-Coles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherard_Cowper-Coles
Made CMG 1997 [good MI6 pointer, as with Dr David Kelly] after which he was 1997–1999; Principal Private Secretary to UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook MP [who mysteriously “died” up a mountain alone with his second wife, who has since quietly vanished from the scene herself, in 2005]
hmmm. see also
http://shaphan.typepad.com/blog/2006/05/questions_about.html
et seq.I really must get hold of Blood and Sand of which fragments are available on the web
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hniuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=false
where we learn of the alleged murder of a number of British hostages in Yemen in late 1998
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hniuAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA204#v=onepage&q&f=false
our man on the spot – Frank Gardner.
Lawrence and Margaret Whitehouse had gone to Yemen with Explore. Margaret died, so he relates, Frank’s first encounter with “islamic terrorism” – the “Aden Abyan Islamic Army”. hmmmmm
This looks interesting. Diplomat David Pearce was, according to Frank, a witness to the bullet ridden bodieshttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/542899.stm
Four Britons kidnapped in Yemen died when they were used as human shields during a bungled rescue attempt by state troops, an inquest has heard.
Ruth Williamson, 34, Dr Peter Rowe, 60, and Margaret Whitehouse, 52, and Andrew Thirsk, 35, were gunned down in the ensuing gun battle.
Coroner Dr Paul Knapman recorded a verdict of unlawful killing of all four victims. Knapman eh? Hmmmhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/246037.stm
January 1 1999
Eight Britons, an Australian and two Americans, who all narrowly escaped death in the bloody climax to their 24-hour kidnap ordeal, were flew home amid the growing diplomatic row and arrived at Gatwick Airport at 1913 GMT.
One of the Britons, Dr Claire Marston, 43, whose husband Dr Peter Rowe was killed along with two other Britons and an Australian in the shoot-out between Yemeni authorities and the kidnappers, was not well enough to fly home.
Dr Marston has been told she will not be well enough to make the journey home before Sunday. One other injured Australian hostage also remains in hospital.Post mortem examinations have been carried out on all four victims: including Dr Rowe, 60, from County Durham, Ruth Williamson, from Edinburgh, and Andrew Thirsk, an Australian.
Another survivor, retired teacher David Holmes, 64, from Grimsby, said: “The way we have been treated is pitiful. What Mr Whitehouse has been forced to say is complete and utter lies.
“I was standing yards from Margaret when she was killed. There were just two terrorists next to us and I would have seen if they had fired at her. The bullets definitely came from Yemeni soldiers. It’s as simple as that.
Meanwhile, back at the inquest, as always, the low ranking cop is roped in to lay out briefly the official narrative
Primary school teacher Miss Whitehouse was killed by bullets fired by Yemeni troops as she stooped to aid her injured travelling companion Mr Thirsk, the inquest was told.
Miss Williamson and Mr Rowe were shot dead by one of the hostage-takers in the midst of the hilltop gun battle, said Detective Sergeant Kevin O’Shea.It happened after the tourists’ convoy of five vehicles was intercepted by armed hostage-takers in a four-wheel drive car, between Habban and Aden, the court heard.
Dr Rowe, from Durham, was a university lecturer, Miss Williamson a development and training consultant at an NHS Health Trust in Edinburgh, Mrs Whitehouse was a primary school teacher from Hook, near Basingstoke, Hants and Mr Thirsk, who was born in Guildford, Surrey, was living in Sydney, Australia.
After the hearing, Mr Whitehouse said: “I cry every day. It’s dreadful to recall it all.”
This needs following up….
straight away I am having problems with the alleged Consul in Aden, “David Pearce” who seems to leave no other trace apart from a namesake popping up in Zambia as the Deputy High Commissioner around 2010.
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/news/archive/2010/11/leee-john-fundraises-for-new-sos-village-in-chipata
who may also have been the British Consul in Cameroon in 1993Did his career stall after Yemen? Or was he merely put in place for 1998?
Ah, here’s the key witness in Yemen, I was right.
David Pearce | Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/david.pearce.9022
Join Facebook to connect with David Pearce and others you may know. … Libreville, Douala, Sanaa, Aden, Durban, Islamabad, Lusaka,and now Dubai with HMG.Works at British Embassy
Lives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
From Royal Tunbridge Wells, KentDubai…
Doesn’t seem to be friends with Frank though.And no surprises that this event still has wheels on it, with the “imprisonment” of “Abu Hamza” in 2015, giving an opportunity for Laurence [corrected spelling from ^^] Whitehouse to be wheeled out.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-30627638
9 January 2015
“The other hostage said the Yemen army had given me the chance to shoot the person who’d killed my wife,” Laurence Whitehouse recalled.
But in the heat of the moment he didn’t understand what he was being offered. He only wanted to get back to his wife’s body, which he had just loaded into a vehicle to be taken to hospital.
The pair were on holiday in Yemen with 14 other tourists who were interested in studying Arabic societies and cultures, when they were taken hostage.How and when did he realise that?
“Then, the person who had taken us on the retreat almost certainly shot Margaret,” said Mr Whitehouse, although there was confusion whether the army had shot her.
Mr Whitehouse repeatedly shrieked: “You shot my wife!”From the Independent January 3 1999
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/at-least-we-said-goodbye-1044698.html
I’d bought her the Book of the Earth because she wanted to go to New Zealand to see the volcanoes.”
The couple’s trip to Yemen was to have been one of their last active holidays abroad because of Margaret’s arthritis.
“Margaret would wish me to remember the good times,” said Mr Whitehouse, 54, who was grazed by bullets in the rescue attempt. “I’ve been lucky to survive and I’ve got to use that luck to carry on as she would have wanted. We were lucky to have had 30 years together with few arguments.”
Just days before the couple set off on holiday, Mr Whitehouse said he was told by a work colleague about the dangers of kidnapping in Yemen. But he added that Margaret, 52, reassured him that the area they were going to was safe.
“We have been to many countries together and we have a special interest and affinity with Arab people,” said the teacher. “When I told Margaret about the kidnappings she said they had all ended satisfactorily./strong> In retrospect, there was not enough protection but how can you protect against machine guns and bazookas?”
Mr Whitehouse fought back tears as he spoke of the woman whom he fell in love with “at first sight” at teacher training college. They had already organised a trip to Tanzania to celebrate the millennium and they planned to take early retirement to indulge their shared love of travel.What of the all-important “survivors”?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/yemen-hostage-tragedy-shot-tourist-is-clinging-to-life-1194983.html
31 December 1998Claire Marston, 43, an accountancy lecturer at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne, was said to be conscious but “in a very bad way” after emergency surgery in Aden. Her husband, Peter Rowe, 60, a popular and “maverick” maths lecturer at Durham University, was one of three Britons shot dead in a bungled rescue attempt on Tuesday. The other victim was an Australian. After waking from surgery for a shoulder wound at Al-Jamhouriya hospital, Ms Marston was told her husband was dead. David Pearce, one of the British diplomats looking after the survivors, said she was “with it” and knew her husband was among those who died.
But he added: “She is in a very bad way.” He said she and the other injured hostage, an American woman shot in the pelvis, were “as well as can be expected. They are awake and receiving excellent attention”.The other survivors, who were unhurt, were named as Gill Dorey, Patricia Morris, Sue Mattocks, a teacher, Lawrence Whitehouse – a lecturer and the husband of Mrs Whitehouse – Professor Eric Firkins, a chemistry lecturer, David Holmes and Brian Smith, a postal worker. They were being cared for at the Movenpick Hotel in Aden while preparations were made for their return to Britain tomorrow.
Colleagues of Dr Rowe spoke of an unorthodox lecturer who had endeared himself to generations of students with his long hair, free spirit and lust for travel. He and Dr Marston had met when she was in one of his tutorial groups and they married shortly after she had finished her studies in the 1970s.Firkins, 70 in 2014 was surprised it had been organised in London by Abu Hamza…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/10839750/Abu-Hamza-trial-British-victims-of-Yemen-kidnapping-angry-that-preacher-was-not-stopped-sooner.html
David Holmes, who survived the ordeal but died from a tropical disease five years later, had even seen Abu Hamza preach at Finsbury Park mosque in north London, his brother said.
Martin Holmes, 76, from Hampshire, said: “He used to run a hostel for overseas students run by the Methodist church.
“He used to go to Finsbury Park mosque where Abu Hamza was preaching. Indeed, he saw him preach many times.David died in 2003 aged 68, a few days after returning from a trip to Niger, west Africa, where he had contracted cerebral malaria, his brother [Martin Holmes, 76, also of Hampshire] said
Firkins
WhitehouseHer brother in law, Stephen Sunnocks, of Seal, Kent, was being kept up to date on her condition by the Foreign Office. Describing her condition as “critical”, he said: “She is very strong, very capable. I am sure she will make it.”
Dr Rowe’s colleagues at Durham described him as a “maverick” with a passion for particle physics. Born in Canada, he moved to Britain in the 1960s. David Fairlie, professor of applied mathematics, said Dr Rowe had spent two years teaching maths in Ghana before joining the university in 1964.
“He had an indomitable sense of adventure,” said Professor Fairlie. “Eccentric would be too strong a word but he did his own thing. He was idiosyncratic. He loved travel. He would have known about the dangers of Yemen, but he had a fatalistic approach to life.”
Mrs Whitehouse was a teacher at Hook Primary School. Margery George, a colleague, said: “Margaret was a very dedicated, very hard working teacher who had the children’s interests foremost in her mind. She was very approachable and had a fantastic ability to get things across so children could understand them.The sister is correctly Louise Sunnucks
http://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=8671968&privcapId=274265Claire Marston remarried fairly quickly in 2002 Jacobus Empson an academic psychologist from Hull University, her “research assistant in 2004*, born 1944 and who was the son of [Sir] William Empson, the literary critic
who was famously expelled from Cambridge..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Empson
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/oct/29/books.booksnews
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/hetta-and-william
* https://www.icas.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/7657/46-A-Survey-of-European-Investor-Relations-Marston-ICAS.pdfwhat a dreadful crowd.
Claire Marston is now an academic at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire_Marstonhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/yemen-hostage-tragedy-kidnappers-used-britons-as-shields-1194982.html
December 31 1998
Last night, the Foreign Office asked the Yemeni government to explain why its forces attempted to rescue the 16 hostages – 12 Britons, two Americans and two Australians – in spite of a request by Victor Henderson, the British ambassador, that no rescue attempt should be made… Professor Firkins, 55, from Croydon, south London. He said a female hostage was subsequently shot in the back of the neck and died in front of him.
Mr Smith, 52, a postal worker from Peterborough, and Professor Firkins said they were in a group of 11 that had been separated from another group of five.It’s worth noting that a book came out of this adventure…
Kidnapped in Yemen: One Woman’s Amazing Escape from Terrorist Captivity
By Mary Quin [2005, Mainstram Publishing, Edinburgh]
of Anchorage,Alaska, who incidentally thanks one Kevin O’Shea – highly unusual to thank a police sergeant who introduces the official narrative to the opening of the inquests..
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=EEWthW_gBv8C&pg=PT11Ballet loving Chemistry teacher Eric Firkins gets in a quote in this absurd story about the imprisonment of the highly dangerous “preacher” Abu Hamza at “ADX Florence” in Colorado.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2633716/Inside-Alcatraz-Rockies-The-supermax-prison-Colorado-Abu-Hamza-spend-rest-life.html
May 20 2014
I-spy Firkins and Hamza above.Speaking from his south London home Mr Firkins said: ‘I am very pleased justice has been done. Anyone that has done what he has done must be evil.
‘I don’t want people in our country to tolerate what he has committed, he preached hatred against the English and he did it openly and felt free to carry out acts of terror.
‘It’s justLaurence Whitehouse also gets in a quote on the same page, another music lover [here with his wife pre-1998]
Laurence seems to share an address with an elusive companion
http://www.192.com/atoz/people/whitehouse/laurence/rg27/997383195/
https://www.facebook.com/isabel.jimenezramon
https://plus.google.com/110119679046629779260/posts
who was previously married to a Colin D Baker in 1990Louise Bevan/Cumbers keeps a low profile. The Simon Cumbers Fund judging panel can’t take up all that much time
http://www.simoncumbersmediafund.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Judging-Panel-20142.pdfLouise Bevan
As Simon Cumbers’ wife, Louise is very closely involved with the Simon Cumbers Media Fund. She also has a wealth of experience in newspapers and television broadcasting following a long career in journalism.
Louise reported for major UK networks, including the BBC and ITN. She worked as a foreign correspondent covering the Gulf War from Iraq and Israel and filed reports from many parts of the world including Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In latter years, Simon and Louise ran their own television news and production company, Locum Productions, based in London, covering news stories and features around the globe, many in developing countries.
“Naming the Media Fund after Simon is appropriate in so many ways,” said Louise. “It is exactly the kind of project that Simon would have loved to be involved in himself and a very fitting way to honour him.Locum is still active but there seems to be no visible result.
One recent “product” of the Simon Cumbers fund is this cub report on the Nepalese Earthquake psy-op
see especially from 0.48 onwards
Another lifetime actor [c.f. the recently retired Stephen Hawking], Gardner keeps having problems with his wheelchair. At least he doesn’t need a voice simulator which could be lost.
February 2018Another epic fail by @HeathrowAirport on the wheelchair front. Still stuck on the plane at T4 long after all passengers are off. Tunis airport was far more efficient. pic.twitter.com/oCjuXY5sZf
— Frank Gardner (@FrankRGardner) February 9, 2018
Frank Gardner @FrankRGardner
Another epic fail by @HeathrowAirport on the wheelchair front. Still stuck on the plane at T4 long after all passengers are off. Tunis airport was far more efficient.
8:09 AM – 9 Feb 2018 [4:09 PM UTC]March 2018
Odd that I can travel round the Middle East and elsewhere without a hitch. Yet time and again @HeathrowAirport loses my wheelchair on arrival. Now been on an empty plane 1.5 hours after landing. Believe me, I'm as bored of writing this as you are of reading it. pic.twitter.com/ZKQLFmGOIF
— Frank Gardner (@FrankRGardner) March 24, 2018
Frank Gardner @FrankRGardner
Odd that I can travel round the Middle East and elsewhere without a hitch. Yet time and again @HeathrowAirport loses my wheelchair on arrival. Now been on an empty plane 1.5 hours after landing. Believe me, I’m as bored of writing this as you are of reading it.
12:35 AM – 24 Mar 2018 [7:35 AM UTC]Another epic hoax failure by the man who brings you terror hoaxes from around the world for the BBC.
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