Daniel Obachike's blog - Tavistock Square survivor

[karlos]

[Prole]

Staraker's reply to stelios' previous post edited IN

[Prole]

[karlos]

[Prole]

[karlos]

[karlos]

Prole - over the last few months i have learned that you tend to spend most of your time sitting on the fence. As Rachel said you have avoided stating on your own board that you believe the 4 were not guilty of the bombings, yet you have expressed that view on third party boards.
I have learned that you like arguing over tiny meaningless things such as above instead of the bigger issues.
Rachel has posted that the bomb was 08.55 which contradicts the known facts. Why have you not argued abou that? There are other differences too.

[Nick Cooper]

[karlos]

Nobody is looking to expose her. i told you before she is the sole example of a traceable person meaning some of the others should similarly be traceable as well.
As Rachel said she uses a fake name, it is possible that all the other news reports have used altered names as well. She is traceable because she has sought the limelight the others have not.

Having said that once you read her book you will i assume dissect it in the same way as Daniels?

[Prole]

[guzman]

[guzman]

[guzman]

[TonyGosling]

Prole's approach is a wise one Stelios. You on the other hand are very judgemental.

Why is it that people go around trying to turn everyon into clones of themselves?

Both of your approaches are valid, Prole's particularly because of the responsibilities she has at the J7 Campaign.

[alwun]

Stelios,

you get to be in a public strop with prole. Unwise, since your position is well-nigh indefensible.


............edit IN

[Rachel]

Ok, I am going to explain some background - which is all in my book and blog - so people can understand why I am upset by the last week's goings-on over here. I think that there is a lot of misunderstanding about me and perhaps if I explain it here, people will stop being so vicious.
I live in hope, anyway, I always do.

I am having my background, my credibility, my motives and my identity challenged on this board and I would like it to stop. I would like to never have to read any more threads where you discuss Rachel North.

Here you go and I hope this will mark a watershed and a change and positive action being taken.


In 2002 I was almost killed and brutally attacked by a man. This experience almost killed me and fundementally changed my life. It was my first experience of horrifying violence and evil.

I do not reveal his name for the simple reason that I do not want him or his criminal associates coming after me on his release, and I want to protect the other women he attacked from thinking of him every time they see me on screen.

I revealed what happened to me under a psuedonym 'Rachel North' in a long article.

I did so to help other people who had suffered PTSD. Telling what has happened, getting justice is an important part of recovery and it helps other victims. Reading how other people survived extreme violence, and PTSD, got justice, told their stories and survived to live fulfilling lives once saved my life.

I vowed then that I would do the same when I was stronger, and I did.
My book is the final part of this process.

All victims of sexual assaults are entitled to anonymity for their whole lives. I spoke out on this basis.

The only time I gave my maiden name voluntarily was on 7/705 when, shocked and hurt, I was interviewed outside UCH by the media. I wish I had never given them my name, but I did. I was not thinking straight.And how could I ever have forseen the future when people would search for that interview a year later to try to hurt and harass me?

At that time I had never written about my rape and shown my face and name. But a single account of my rape written about a woman pseudonym and unpictured, called 'Sarah' appeared in a UK magazine on 7/7/05. It described the attack and my recovery from PTSD. By dreadful coincidence I had just read it when the suicide bomb went off. It was not written by me, but by a magazine writer. I was unpaid. I did it as I have said, to help other vicitms, this was part of my journey to recovery

Then I was on the train when it exploded. I came home in shock and wrote about it on my favourite website, where I used to post with others about cooking and gardening and books and politics. That website has been my lunchtime diversion since February 2005. I enjoy discussing things on the net and keeping in contact with friends - like millions of others who use message boards and now, sites like Facebook

The BBC saw my account and asked me to write for them for a week, so I did. (Also unpaid.) Other survivors saw it and got in touch. We set up a support network. I sw writing and supporting others as a way of trying to use the terrible experiences I had suffered to some good end, since now not only had I re-developed PTSD but others on my train had too.
We looked after each other. We divided tasks amongst ourselves: several people handled registration inquiries, one person organised meeting venues, another set up a messaging system, as the writer, I got landed with the writing and the media. We were and are a group of all ages and races and beliefs, religious and political - we were simply people who had shared a terrible journey. This strength found in other strangers became my bulwark against the horrifying savagery of 2 strangers .

We spoke to the media for a week because we wanted to help other passengers and support for people like us at the time was chaotic. We did a week of press activity with me and another member of the group corodinating it and several of us doing interviews.

The size of the group tripled.

We were happy that more people had found help and we carried on privately buddying each other through the hard times and cheering each other up. A lot of people said the group really helped.

But the media were very obsessed with 7/7 stories. They wouldn't leave the group alone. They kept contacting me as they had my number.

Meanwhile, in Dec 05 Blair said he ruled out an inquiry. There was outrage.

I said I would do what i could to help, use my advertising training and writing and my activist ( antiwar, antinuclear, antiracist/antifacist protest background) and my personal blog to support the survivors and families who wanted an inquiry. I have done this ever since. All unpaid, and it takes up a lot of time and energy and its often sad and demanding and thankless work.

During this time I became aware of the conspiracy theories and I moved from being puzzled to angry, especially as people were emailing me and attacking me on the internet and some wrote to my family and I found this horrible and disturbing. I talked to others who were equally upset, and I wrote about my anger hoping peole woud see how it was upsetting me and other survivors and leave us alone. The problem got even worse.

Meanwhile the media interest in 7/7 never waned. I tried to use the platform I had ended up with to raise awareness of PTSD and the need for an inquiry, and the creeping anti-libertarain nature of Blair's Britain - things I feel are important to talk about.

In January 2006 as a result of the profile dealing with the media as a result of the work I did with survivors with PTSD, and campaigning for an inquiry etc, my blog attracted the attentions of a vicious criminal stalker. She has been in prison for harassing people before and I was just the latest in a long line of her targets.

This person, as part of the harassment campaign outed my maiden name as well as spreading lies about me for over a year in an attempt to destroy my repuatation and to cause me maximum distress.

At the time I was writing a book about PTSD and reliving the worst moments of my life for the book and dealing with the harassment made the symptoms return for a third time.

In June 2007 this person went to prison for the maximum sentence and is prevented from harssing me and 15 other victims by court order. As a result of my court case, many other people were able to gain protection.

I have always tried to balance being visible and contactable as part of my campaigning work ( which I do to honour a promise I made to other survivors and families)
with protecting my family and private life, especially my husband.

My maiden name is now out, and I have tried to manage this as best as I can, and try to protect my family, particularly my father, who has in the past been contacted by aggressive ''Truth campaigners''. He supports the campaign for an inquiry and he supports me. But it does not mean he wants to be phoned or written to by people who want to talk to him about 9/11 and 7/7. He finds that distressing. Especially when they say horrible things about me.


My rapist is still in prison, but will be out soon.

I have always been very careful never to reveal my address. It is believed that the man who raped me and attacked other women has links to organised crime/gangs, and he is also an extremely dangerous individual as per the psychiatric reports which showed 'worrying degrees of sadism and control'. He remains a threat to me and other women. If I was cautious, I would remain invisible. But I do not want to live a life in fear, and as I ended up with this platform, I will use it to try to get an inquiry as I promised and to help victims, even though it costs me something.

Thus, I remain 'Rachel North' when I am visible in public campaigning. It is a delicate balance. Certainly it would be easier and safer for me to not be so visible. But I believe convictions must be acted upon, otherwise they are not convictions.

I am obviously identifiable by face, and easily contactable by email, so people can write to me, but at least nobody knows my address so they can't come to my door and hurt me or threaten me or worse.

The flat the Polish film was shot in is not mine, it is a friends. I took some stuff over to make it look more authentic - substituting her photos in frames for mine. It was her tabby, not mine.


I have never revealed my partner J''s name, or whether he is Black, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Jewish, or Atheist, or Taoist or Buddist or Russian, or French or any colour or religion. All I've ever said is that he is a lawyer. I've never even said what kind of law.

But for the record, he's not Jewish and neither am I. And neither of us are pro-the Israeli government's terrible human rights record. My father regularly led pilgrimages of people to the Holy land until 15 years ago, and whiklt there made Palestinian and Jewish friends. As a family we continue to abhor what happens in the Holy Land, a sacred place for 3 beauutiful world religions. We continue to abhor attacks in the name of God, anywhere, by whatever name you call God. We also abhor anti semitism and racism. We always have. (I should not even have to explain this to you people, it is so offensive, some of the stuff that has been written here about me, my husband and my father)

Right now I am in the process of moving house, and I never want anyone to publish my married name and address, and say 'Rachel North's real name is xx and she lives at xx with xx' because, as I have explained, I have a stalker, as well as a violent man coming out of prison soon and I do not want them to be able to find my address for serious safety reasons.

Rachel North, the 7.7 campaigner is recognisable as the woman who was left for dead in August 2002 and blown up on 7/7 and has a personal blog- if you are my attacker and if you are my stalker.

OK? I hope you all understand this now.

Re. the latest on this board.

A while ago Daniel Obachike contacted me.


He told me he had been at Tavistock and that he had some theories which struck me as very odd and which did not fit with any other Tavistock survivors. I listened politely and extended my sympathies to him as a survivor, and as a sufferer of PTSD and traumatic shock. When he wrote to me again I left a short message on his blog and since then I have heard no more. I've never met him or invited him into my confidence or written about him and he has not crossed my mind for many months.

This week I got an email from a blog reader with a legal background to tell me that someone on this board was saying my book was 'fiction'. I read it and contacted my publishers. In the first instance I decided it would be best for me rather than the publishers to to ask for the stuff to be taken down as it was defamatory, rather than go legal immediately. The moderator Ian Neal agreed it was certainly defamatory and removed the stuff promptly - thanks.

Then I found out, by having a read about the board, from a post, that Daniel's book was out -with a very strange passage about me.

I looked on the J7 site and they said that too and they had asked why I had not publicly diassociated myself from it.

So I asked to see it , saw the pasages about me - and expressed my dismay and then I immediately publicly disassociated myself from it.

It is horrible to have someone write about your home and your private life so inaccurately.

It feels sickening and creepy.

I wonder if you can imagine how it feels?

Even so, I have not gone to court and sued for damages and the removal of the book.

I have simply expressed my distress on a board I know he reads. I have publicly disassociated myself from it, on the places where the people most likely to buy the book are reading.

I've also gone to some length to give specific examples of WHERE AND HOW HIS BOOK IS misleading and inaccurate

rather than just say 'it's wrong'.

The facts are indisputable.

He has never met me or been to my house, and yet

he has indisputably written about me in a way which indicates that he has met me and has been to my house.

He has lifted content from my blog without permission -

and a cursory checking of the facts of the blog which has been online since 2005 reveal where he has made errors or not told the truth or made things up. Many times.

On this basis, both of the dishonourable matter of stealing copyright, defamation and passing off, and of being flat-out inaccurate, I have serious doubts about the rest of his book, which is entirely natural in my position. After all, as I know and can prove what he has written about me is made up nonsense, then why should I trust the rest? Especially when it is nothing like what other Tavistock people have told me?

I have no interest in ''9/11 Truth'' theories although I am interested in 7/7 for obvious reasons. I have been upset by the content of CT boards and CT comments and emails in the past and I have said so, and it has only made the abuse worse.

I do dislike people endlessly discussing me on this board but I can't stop you.


But I will object if I am defamed, libelled, attacked, bullied, and harassed by people here.

The attempts to discover my partner's name and my address are reprehensible.

Calling my a liar and my book fiction is defamatory.

It is particularly disgusting to do so knowing my background.

Are you actually trying to get me hurt, or possibly killed?

Because that is the reason my name and address is protected.

To stop a violent man with Yardie connections and now, a 'vicious, vitriolic and vindictive' stalker ( that's the District Judge's summing up) from finding out where I live.

On that basis, I say it is totally unacceptable to do what you are doing.

Fortunately, in this instance, you do not have the right address or name of my husband.

But you should still never have done this.

In a week of lows, this is the worst so far.

I am next PM-ing the Moderators to ask what the hell is going on here.

I don't want to post here any more: I came to sort the book defamation out, on honeymoon I had to log on and sort out someone breaking the sexual offences act here with ref to anonymity, and then I answered some questions, as I was being badgered to, and I hoped it might stop people saying such awful things about me, but it didn't and I found out about the Daniel book and tried to sort that out , and I really do not want to have to keep coming here

but for the love of God, will you, or someone here, preferably a Moderator, get a grip, because this behaviour - defamation, calling my book fiction and me a liar, and then this bullying attempt to try to publish my husband's name and address is sinister, frightening, distressing, and horrible.

Also totally unneccessary . I am not hiding, anyone can email me. I simply ask for the basic human right of privacy to be respected, since I am not only Rachel North campaigner, but someone who is a wife, a daughter, a ssiter, a colleague and someone who is also dealing with having nearly been killed in incredibly violent circumstances and then harassed by a stalker in the last year and whose mother died tragically suddenly in the summer, since when I have barely blogged and only spoken out as part of the legal campaign to get an inquiry.

So you might like to exercise a little common decency and humanity. I am a real person with real feelings, not something to project all your anger onto. and whilst you might not agree with me or all the other people who think 7/7 was suicide bombings, there is no need to attack and bully in this way. I agree that in the past I have been angry with you and the theories which I find hugely upsetting ( I am not alone in that) and I have called you 'conspraloons'. I have projected some of my despair and anger here onto you, I have let my emtions and sadness show.

I have never, and would never, attempt to do to you what you have just attempted to do to me and my family.



If your intention was to cause extreme distress, and actual , physical, nausea and fear, then you have succeeded. I can only assume that was your aim.

I think that the Moderators need to have a think about what is going on and ask themselves if this is what they want the 9/11 Truth movement to be about and percieved as. Because like it or not, this is what is happening and it is sick and it is wrong.

If you can't see that, and if you leap to attack me once more then there really is nothing more to be said on these boards.

edited for spelling and greater clarity

[TonyGosling]

Dear Rachel,

I understand and hear your concerns and ask right her and now that there should be no........

1. Unubstantiated - that is without concrete proof, references and hard evidence - accuastions of terrorism victims or their relatives being liars or agents.

2. Racist remarks or insinuations.

3. Tacit or otherwise threats of violence.

Maybe we can all flessh this list out further in the future but we clearly ould do with an updated et of rules about what posts are permisible.

Any such posts may be removed and such posters considered for suspension from this forum.

[Prole]

Rachel

I have great sympathy for your situation but don't share your views on the causes of your distress.

Your maiden & married names have been all over the media, yet you choose to blame the people here for disclosing this information.

The issue of Daniel's book could easily have been taken up with Daniel himself. He also claims to have read 4 chapters of your book before it was published, which he says you sent him. Is this untrue?

As for your article in Marie Claire:

[Rachel]

Thank you Tony and I hope that you will remove the guzman and astro3 and stelios stuff which breaches this.

If you want to remove any of my posts for any reason I do not object, my sole aim in coming here has been to try to stop myself, my husband and my family and my fellow survivors being misrepresented, defamed, libelled and bullied.

I continue to exptend sympathy to Daniel if he was there. And I continue to extend sympathy to him if he has PTSD. As I have made clear in the past and recently.

I have, as asked, publicly diassociated myself from his book, which in its broader theories I do not endorse and which in its specific writing about me is provably extremely inaccurate, distressing and a breach of my copyright.

Because of my residual sympathy to him if he is what he says he is, and I cannot be sure if he is or is not, because his story is so different to everyone else's from Tavistock, I am not going to go to court over the stuff in his book even though it is flat-out wrong and mispreresentative.

I feel very upset and freaked out by the way he has written about me and my priovate life, and I feel the same about the attempt to find out private information about me by looking at a billing address on a website, which fortunately, is not where I live, and the name of a man on a petition.

And I hope that now I have explained why that due action will be taken to stop this sort of thing ever happening again.

For the record, I also think attempts to contact survivors on this board or any other 'truth'board ( so-billed) by tracing their details and publishing addresses or work places is wholly inappropriate and likely to cause distress to people who owe you nothing, no explanation, no time, who simply happened to be involved in a tragedy.

And I do not want to answer any more questions here and I do not want to be harangued for not doing so, as I am sure anyone humane can see how the tratement of people who were there on 7/7 has panned out on this board, and I would advise anyone reading who was there not to engage with this board, because of what has happened to me, and because of what I have seen written about people like me here.

I am not the first survivor who can PROVE their involvement to be called a liar here or to be gracelessly attacked and I think it should stop, this is a discussion board but there are real people with feelings and personal lives and public reputations/employers/families here, and when you wrote about them, I wonder if you remember that?

Right, I have boxes to unpack and I am outtahere in ten mins.

[Rachel]

Prole - my married name is not in the media. I have never given it, never.

The Marie Claire pics are cropped, hidden, unrecognisable. One taken from behind, the other with my eyes and face hidden, only my mouth and chin showing - it is cropped.

The Sunday Times put the picture in of my attacker without my knowledge, thank God they never gave his name as well.

My pcture has always been Rachel North, the stalker is the person who outed my maiden name - helped, I am afraid to say, by her surfing CT sites

It should be clear to all why I have tried to safeguard my anonymity, and I wonder why people obsessively search down these details KNOWING why I try to stay semi anonymous?
This is not a game. It is not fun 'research', this has consequences.

If I had known that my giving my name to a reporter in a state of shock outside UCH, and an article coming out, which I'd forgotten about, would lead to people outing me AFTER I'd come out about the rape, and a stalker harassing me - but I didn't.

That one small mistake, made when I was still covered in other people's blood and glass led to me being stalked, and today attacked yet again.

And I only spoke to that reporter on 7/7 to try to help someone else!

How could I know then that I had just walked into a global news storm?

I have tried and tried to show why I ask this one small thing, this semi anonymity soI can campaign, and help people with PTSD, and write, and deal with PTSD myself and recover and try to live a normal life without fear - and now that one thing that protects me is repeatedly torn away, and always for reasons which are unnecessary and cruel. I am visible, I am contactable, there is not need to put my safety at risk like this.


Your site demanded I publicly diassociate myself from Daniels book and I have done so.

It needed to be said publicly, just what he has done. Why should I let somehting so bad pass without comment? Especially when I have been asked why I have not publicly diassociated from it?

This was on a thread to discuss his book and I am not the first to be sceptical, but I am the one who can prove what he has written is wrong, because he wrote about me and my life. He is lucky I am not suing him.

I know who my enemies are, they are people who attack and use violence and cruelty. They are everyones enemies. I wonder though that I should be attacked three times by hateful strangers for no reason at all - at home, on a train, via the internet - by people whose reasons for attacking me I cannot understand.

And I am fed up with being attacked and just taking it all the time for other people to get their jollies . And I expect if you were me, you would be too.

[blackbear]

Hello Tony..

Dear Rachel,

I understand and hear your concerns and ask right her and now that there should be no........

2. Racist remarks or insinuations.

Srange.!

Since, Rachel introduced + is playing the race card........

[Prole]

Rachel the only place that anyone could have accessed your maiden name is via the media, not via forums such as this. The publicity given to your father in the press and TV has also put your maiden name into the public domain and I also know your married name from an interview you gave that broadcast it.

You are also very recognisable from the Marie Claire article which you claimed was an unpictured article:



I think you should take some responsibility for your own actions and choices. Why not sue the Sunday Times for showing a picture of the man that raped you, surely until that article came out it wouldn't have been possible to link Rachel 'North' and your attacker?

I refused to have a photograph of myself placed in the Guardian article because I couldn't take the chance that the family of the children I've adopted would see it and then being able to trace them, so I do know something about needing to protect ones identity.

[TonyGosling]

I'm just a humble user like your good self here still, not a moderator for the time being, and not able to do as you ask, but at least one of the present moderators has seen this and agreed to keep a close eye on things.

See here for communication with the mods
http://www.nineeleven.co.uk/board/groupcp.php?g=281

[Rachel]

a moment, I am reviewing what I want to post and hit send not preview

[Rachel]

[Prole]

[Rachel]

Prole,

give it a rest, .

You know what you are trying to make out, and I am querying why you are even bothering.

What purpose does it serve your 7/7 ''truth'' campaign to bait Rachel North at twenty past midnight on a Thursday?

[Prole]

[Rachel]

x post

[Rachel]

Yes, Prole I ask you to give it a rest.

And I can pull out threads where you call people on u75 'bigots', and other things that I am sure you wouldn't like me to post up here, and where you got upset where people were extremely rude to you, and lost it, but I won't, because it will embarass you if people see you losing your cool on a 3rd party side, under provocation I admit, but then why post there, knowing the anti CT house rules?.

I also refer you to where you have clearly said you understand what being in the public eye can do to people's families, and ask you therefore to imagine what this has done to mine, and I ask you to give it a rest for their sake as well. Was there a need to post up a 2.5 year old article and a 3.5 year old photo? Really? Was there?

It existed, but it's never been posted up before. In public. Now anyone can see it. Now I've seen it for the first time since 7 July. Now my sister, who is reading this site, because I have just told her how sickened I am by all this, has seen it too.

What did you want me to feel when I saw it, Prole? Happy? Nostalgic? That article, where I was anonymously named, where I tried to hide my face?

What was the point of posting it? Why did anyone else need to see it? What did it do for the J7 investigatation?

Nothing.


Why do you even have a copy? Don't you think that's a bit ....creepy?

What if I compiled a dossier of your photos? School photos, say, wedding shots, local paper, you on a demo?
Published them all on the web, said I know all about you, B?

Wouldn't that make you feel a little odd?

After all, I'd say, you have a blog You spoke to the Guardian!

Here's you at a demo, ten years ago. Here's you at a meeting.

I know you And I disagree with you. And I'll show you not to mess with me - I know all about you

Nice, hey?


I wonder why you and others must read everything I wrote, track down everything about me and pore over it. How would you feel if someone did that to your son? Or you?

I don't suppose you ever think of that do you?

What purpose does J7 ''truth'' get from you going on about all this, now, here, after all?

And if I say I find your posts baiting, then you are baiting me, even if you don't mean to, you can still stop can't you? So stop, if you can.

And if it will make you fell better to make a pretty little speech now, and have the last word please feel free, I am going to bed.