Don's Inquiry Continued Some More

Continued from here.

“Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester wrote:

It is a point of fact that Bishop Manchester refused to discuss the charlatan Farrant on "World of the Unexplained" - as the hosts of that programme will confirm. Farrant used the opportunity to misrepresent and defame Bishop Manchester. You have accepted what Farrant - a convicted felon - alleged about "Lusia" on the programme and published Farrant's falsehood on Amazon. "Lusia" has never been identified and she was certainly not "Jacqueline Cooper" who should not be identified and misrepresented in this way by either you or Farrant. The latter, of course, has innumerable criminal convictions and is a compulsive liar, having had his claims exposed as being fraudulent by journalists, authors, magistrates, judges and juries. Farrant has "answered" nothing for you. All he has achieved is draw you into his world of chicanery by your duplicating his malicious falsehood about "Lusia." We, therefore, request that you remove your reference to "Jacqueline Cooper" on Amazon. The claim that Bishop Manchester cannot be contacted is also preposterous. He is contacted every day by interested people, researchers, academics, scholars and television documentary-makers who simply put his name into a search engine and discover his various forums and websites.”

Now, I will admit that the tone of this missive “irritated me” plus the fact that the note was not signed. I put my cop hat on and thought this …. had I gotten a note from Jacqueline Cooper or her family, well I would have understood that. Why would Manchester be interested? And, how did he find out about an obscure chat thread on the American Amazon dot com forum? Alright I thought, one thing at a time. I wrote them back and said,

“Dear Friends of Bishop Manchester,

My name is Don Ecker, a writer and radio broadcaster. I am a medically retired criminal investigator with a very real interest in the Highgate case.

If you write me, please have the courtesy to sign your name so I know to whom I speak. Once knowing to whom I am speaking, I will be happy to discuss this matter with you.

With regards,

Don Ecker”

Okay, after years of trying, finally the Manchester group was in communication with me. On one level I was pretty happy about that, on another level I knew that Manchester and the “FoBSM” seemed to have a very hot feud going with anyone and everybody. If he was a legitimate “man of the cloth” that seemed to me to be very un-Christian but then, who am I to judge?

Shortly after I wrote back to the “FoBSM” I received the following,

“Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester wrote:
From: Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester
To: "Don Ecker"
Subject: Re: Misrepresentation
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 10:03:58 +0100

Dear Don Ecker,

My name is irrelevant. What is relevant is the misrepresentation you have published courtesy of the convicted felon Farrant.

I am one of a number of people who sign as FoBSM. You are the first to find this a bar to addressing a damaging error you are responsible for on the internet.

If you have no intention of amending the falsehood concerning an innocent third party who is not a public figure, Amazon will have to be informed.

Regards,

Katrina Garforth-Bles
FoBSM”

Gee whiz, I felt just like I had been threatened to be taken to the school principal for throwing snowballs when I was in the 4th grade! Wow! Amazon will be informed about me. Well, at that point I did not wish to start a feud with them so I wrote her back and was very courteous.

“Dear Ms. Garforth-Bles,

Courtesy is never irrelevant. If I indeed made an error in identifying "Lusia" as one "Jacqueline Cooper" I will be more than happy to correct it in the post I made on the Amazon discussion forum.

I understand that Farrant was a convicted felon that served time in prison, and I understand what his crime was. Perhaps you might enlighten me as to why he would wish to "smear" Bishop Manchester in this manner?

My only other question is simply this, being on this side of the Atlantic I of course have limited knowledge of the events and persons involved in this case. What makes you the arbiter of the facts surrounding the Highgate case? Were you there and involved in these events or does your knowledge come "after the fact?" Please show me where I was incorrect.

With regards,

Don Ecker”

“KGB” wrote me back, and notice that “she”, if in fact it is a “she” and not Manchester masquerading as someone else, never points out why Cooper is not “Lusia.”

“Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester wrote:
From: Friends of Bishop Seán Manchester
To: "Don Ecker"
Subject: Re: Misrepresentation
Date: Sat, 7 Jul 2007 14:42:33 +0100

Dear Don Ecker,

I was there latterly. My colleague Dennis Crawford (who is the bishop's international secretary) was there from the case's inception. You have made an error concerning Farrant's malicious identification of "Jacqueline Coper" as "Lusia." Perhaps you need confirmation from Bishop Manchester himself. He certainly was there at the time and can be contacted at the aforementioned forum -
http://groups.msn.com/BishopSeanManchester.

Can you confirm whether or not you are willing to remove the name of an innocent third party, ie Jacqueline Cooper, from your comments on Amazon?

Regards,

Katrina Garforth-Bles
FoBSM”

I kept hope alive that in one of these notes I would learn of the error of my ways by “KGB” pointing out why good ol’ Jackie Cooper was not “Lusia.”Instead I found my self attempting to “keep afloat” from the deluge of crime statistics of Mr. David Farrant. Oh yes, I also asked myself this question, why would a “Christian Bishop” keep the “rap sheet” handy of his arch rival???

To be continued...