He went on to state that his older sister Belinda left him alone for few years until he was 12 and again, he ended up in a shed with his sister and one of her friends. However, by this time he had started to get a woody and had started to play with himself and his sister made him lay down on the floor and she pulled his trousers down and made him get a boner. What surprise him was when his sister took his cock in her mouth and stated to move it in and out of her lips and suck at the same time. I was in heaven but to my surprize she stopped and then straddled me and put my penis in her very wet vagina and started to move up and down. A short while later I told my sister that she had to stop as I need to pee, but she just carried on saying that it would be alright and to pee in her. I now know that I was then having my first dry orgasm but was still too young to produce any juice.
Barry went on to say that his older sister never left him alone after that but stopped when I told her that I was now producing some cream. It was obvious that my older sister had had sex for a few years, and I didn’t realize until much later that my father and my older brother were also having intercourse with her. Looking back, I can now see that I came from an incestuous family and at the time I never knew that it was wrong. Growing up in a large family love and attention was very thin on the ground and I suppose having sex was a way of feeling that you were loved. It wasn’t until much later in life that I realized that my father abused all my sisters although it wasn’t spoken about at the time. What convinced me that it had happened was when my father died and three of my sister’s wouldn’t go to his funeral? They told my mum that they weren’t well and at the time I never thought much about it. It was years later when my mother died that the same three sisters were again ill and never came to their mother’s funeral.
I asked my older sister Belinda what she thought was going on. It was then that my fears were confirmed. My sister told me that dad had sexually abused all of the girls and that mum must have known what was going on and three of my sisters also blamed her for not stopping it and that’s why they never showed up at either funeral service. I asked my sister why she thought that mum never told dad to stop and my sister came back with her theory that mum had produced eight children and didn’t want any more, so she let dad abuse the girls, so that she could have a rest. My sister also said that the main reason mum never left dad or reported him to the police was that she had no place to go to and deep down she still loved him.
I asked Barry if it was the incest that had led him on the path that ended up with him sitting in front of me, rather than sitting at home with his wife. He said that he had never thought that young girls were sexy and that he wasn’t a paedophile and before I asked the obvious question he said that he had never abused his daughters and would take a lie detector test to prove it. I told him I wasn’t here to judge him, but I had a duty to try and find out what had led him to my door, so that when he left, he didn’t return a few months later. Barry openly said that he was never attracted to young girls but also didn’t like big tits either. Perhaps his first experience in the garden when he was 8 had set his subconscious mind that girls who were budding were his favourites. Barry said that although he had been caught out with his victim, he honestly thought that she was 16. He said that he had been too weak and couldn’t say no to the temptation.
He was honest and said that when he was released he would make sure that he didn’t fall into the trap ever again. He would give young ladies a very wide birth. Barry asked me if I thought that incest was common amongst large families. I told him that it should be me asking the questions and not the other way around. He went on to state that he felt guilty for not doing something about the incest problem once he had heard the sorry facts. I said that in my opinion incest was a huge problem in society. It didn’t just affect large families nor did it have any class boundary’s as in my time as a prison counsellor I had faced the problem far too many times.
I went on to explain that IMO it was a genetic problem that did pass down through the generations and that some families accepted that it was part of family life. Some victims accepted the problem but as he found out three of his sisters never forgave his dad or his mother. I suppose that better education could be the answer and children as young as six should be told that their body is theirs alone and if anyone tried to touch their private parts then they should tell their teacher about it. I also said that easy access to porn on the web was a problem as some websites had sex look as if was a normal thing to do at any age. You also had the problem of girls’ and boys’ bodies maturing at a younger age and the old saying of “curiosity killed the cat” was probably true. We ended our session with a warm handshake, and he thanked me for being honest with him and I said likewise, it’s good to talk.
On checking up with Barry after his release he sadly informed me that his wife hadn’t waited for him and they now live separate lives. He was having difficulty finding a job at his age and he was happy to help me out and bring in some extra cash. Once Barry had left, I had 15 minutes to grab a cuppa before my next session and I sat back and thought about the problem society faces with paedophiles and wondered if we would ever find an answer. I knew an ex primary school governor who spent a few years with us for importing from China a child sex doll. He had been arrested at border control when they seized the 3-foot-high doll. Police visited his home and found two more dolls dressed in children's clothes and he had had sex with them. I have always had a niggle in the back of my mind that him taking out his warped passion on a piece of plastic is surely better than him going out and raping a child. I'm not condoning what he did but in my time in various prisons, I have known chaps serving less time for interfering with real children. Barry Swift will be my team leader for Team B.
Chapter 29. How gambling is ruining lives
Pete Griffith’s is 67 years young and was born in Bourneville, Birmingham, England. Pete had been married twice but is now single. He has no children and has no contact with any of his previous wives. He was the only son to Jack and Mary Griffith’s who had met when working for Cadbury’s in the chocolate factory in Bourneville near Birmingham. It was a Cadbury’s rule that married woman should be at home and not in work. It does make you think that the Cadbury brothers got it about right as they also provided medical care, housing, education, leisure facilities and much more and in its heyday was the best place to work. Pete said that he had a wonderful childhood until he was around the age of 12 when due to his dad suffering a terrible road accident and could no longer work and the family then moved to Coventry. Pete’s parents died about 10 years ago and he currently lived in a council flat in Rushden, Northants, but he would have lost his flat by now and would have to start all over again when released.
To be able to see forward one must also look back. This is my rule when performing the counselling part of my job. If I’m going to stand a chance, I must get to the bottom of the problem and therefore ask each client why they became an addict. Pete told me that he started gambling when he was 12 years old. A local café had pinball machines where you could put a shilling (5 pence) in the slot and try to get the highest score of the week and win five pounds which would be worth £100 in today’s money. A fiver in those days was a lot of money and a lot of kids would play every day after school. Some would even bunk off school just to try and win. Many stole from relatives or would take empty beer bottles back to the off-license and get a few pence back per bottle just so they had money to gamble with. This was in the days when recycling was at its best as milk was delivered to your house in the morning and the empties collected the next day instead of what we have now where plastic bottles which end up either in the landfill or the sea.
At another counselling session, I asked him to explain a little more on how he became addicted to gambling. Pete had already mentioned what he did as a child, but I needed to know what went on in his adult life. He said that he had worked in a shop that gave you a half day off on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays. In the week half-days off
there was little else to do especially during the winter and so he spent his time and the little money he had betting on the greyhounds or horses in the local betting shops. He said that he had never smoked or really drank as he had seen far too many people become addicted without realizing it, but it didn’t dawn upon him that he was also an addict.
Pete soon realised that he never stood a chance of winning any big amount and if he really hit the jackpot with a good run it was never enough to change his life. He joked about how he noticed far too late that in a betting shop there would be three or more windows where you could place your bets but only ever one window that paid winnings out. I asked Pete if he still gambled and he said not anymore. It’s a mugs game and the government doesn’t do anything to stop it. He said that when he was a young teenager there were no betting shops on the high street and bets were placed with a bookies runner who would either be in the local pub at lunch time or at your place of work. In 1961 the law then changed and allowed betting shops to open but not to display the fact in the shop window. He went on to say that he can remember a time when you had to pay a tax on either your winnings or the bookie would let you pre-pay the tax at the same time as you placed your bet. Betting tax was introduced in 1968 but was abolished in 2002 by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown. The reason given at the time was that the move to offshore betting where punters didn’t have to pay tax. Instead of the betting tax, bookmakers would be taxed on their gross profits at a rate of 15%. What Gordon Brown – or his advisers didn’t consider was that many of the UK’s top betting firms would become off-shore companies in countries where they have a low rate of corporation tax and the UK would end up with zilch.
Modern betting shops are very user friendly and you can lose your money on a wide range of bets or coin machines. Pete went on to state that he never liked the coin machines as they were set up only to pay out about a third of their takings in prize money. He believed that the percentage was laid down by one of the government quango’s, but it should be made loud and clear on the machines, what percentage of takings are actually paid out. He said that he had also tried poker on the web and even bingo, but he woke up one night and kicked himself for being such an old fool. He realized that with the casino knowing what cards they are giving you they always had the upper hand. Many online casinos would let you have a win now and again just to keep you hooked. Bingo was just as bad as they also know what numbers they are giving you and everyone else in the game. They just set up the computer their end so that they maximise their winnings. He was annoyed to see one day when he bought one of the UK’s national tabloids, an advert for bingo where it stated clearly that they pay out five million pounds in prize money every week. What the Government should make them also say in the advert is how much money gamblers put in the pot before they paid out the 5 million. If they told the truth it would be around £20 million in and £5 million out. He reckons that they should also be made to add that “Anyone who gambles is a big fool” but felt that this would be asking too much.
I asked Pete what he felt should be done to stop others following on in his footsteps. He made it clear that a total gambling ban would never work but punters should be told the truth about how much the machine will pay out for every £10 put in. He said, that if punters could see that they were only ever going to pay out 34% of monies gambled then they would probably keep their hard-earned money in their pockets. The same applies to online casinos, bingo operators and the National lottery. He said that there should be a tax of 20% levied on any betting. This way, the William Hills of this world would have to declare their UK income and pay the 20% to the tax office. Punters would then know that if they were gambling a pound then only 80 pence would be staked, or they could pre-pay the tax when placing their bet. For £1 bet they would need to part with £1.20.
I asked him if he felt that punters would just gamble on the web where there wasn’t any tax to be paid. Pete replied that such overseas websites should be blocked and apparently Australia will require overseas companies to collect goods and services tax (GST). This GST is different to VAT and will be placed on luxury items such as gambling, booze, cigarettes, etc. The USA introduced the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in 2006 to give more weight to the Federal Wire Act of 1961. The overarching purpose of the law was to prevent gambling companies from partaking in “restricted transactions,” which means they cannot accept payments related to wagers using the internet from overseas players and if they did they would run afoul of any federal or state laws already extant.
The UK needs its own UIGEA, but this would just be one of many tools used to cut out online gambling. The UK may also need a back-up plan to prevent monies being paid to overseas companies involved in gambling. The bank or card company know who these gambling companies are and should charge an extra 20% which is paid direct to the UK tax authorities. It would need a team of cyber detectives to keep an eye on what was being paid out. Pete said that the man or woman in the street just don’t realize how profitable betting companies are. He said according to the Guardian newspaper the Bet365 boss netted £323 million in a single year. The 2018/2019 year saw Bet365 customers stake £64.49bn on sports over the 12-month period, a 22.7% improvement on the prior year. Just think what good the government could do with 20% of £64 billion every year. Pete did admit that he didn’t know how much of the £64 billion came from overseas punters nor did he know how much the company paid in tax, but he would find out and let me know.
Pete went on to state that any addiction whether it be gambling, drugs, smoking or alcohol should be treated as a medical condition and the NHS should offer support to addicts. Gambling ruins thousands of lives every year and at least the betting levy of 20% would help cover the cost of any treatment. He did say that he felt that the conservative government would be reluctant to do this, as they do receive donations from gambling/betting organisations. Although Pete is getting on in years, I have asked him to join me in the heist I have planned in Bedford. He willingly accepted as he is a beaten man and doesn’t care if he gets caught and sent back to prison as at least he will have a roof over his head and three solid meals every day.
In a report in Inside Time newspaper on the 8th of June 2020 it stated that “Gambling addiction is linked to crimes. Crimes including theft, fraud and street robbery are carried out to feed gambling addictions in Britain and around the world. A review of dozens of studies carried out in the past 25 years identified a strong link, with people committing offences to fund their compulsive betting. The report was the first to be published by the Commission on Crime and Problem Gambling, set up last year by the Howard League for Penal Reform and chaired by former attorney general Lord Goldsmith QC.
Assessing the findings from previous research, the report said: “There is a clear relationship between disordered gambling and crime, with high prevalence rates of crimes being committed by people to fund their gambling. “A wide variety of crimes are committed because of gambling addiction; not just ‘white collar’ crimes such as theft and fraud, but also crimes that occur in public spaces such as street robbery. There is significant evidence of domestic abuse and child neglect linked to problem and pathological gambling.” The full report can be seen at https://insidetime.org/gambling-addiction-linked-to-crimes/.
Pete Griffith’s will be my second guest to Team B. To read another sad story about how one punter took his anger out by stopping the Derby and more on “Skin betting” which is hitting youngsters hard, please go to Afterwards - Chapter 29. Gambling extra which can be found at the end of the book.
Chapter 30. Buying his council home
The third member of team B will be William (Bill) Bennett who was married to Sophie and they had three children aged 5, 9 and 13. Bill had a good job at the Thomas Cook travel agency but when the big bosses decided to close several branches in 2014 he was made redundant. He was buying his former council house (even though the mortgage repayments would be twice that of the rent he had been paying) an
d like millions of others thought he was doing the right thing. This was fine whilst he had a job but with no income coming in he soon got behind with the mortgage and in the end he was forced to give up the house that had been his family’s home for over twenty years and his late mothers before him.
When he and his wife visited the housing department of his local council they first argued that as he had made himself homeless and they couldn't help. In the end the council had to give in as he had 3 children and they put them up in a B&B which was costing more than his mortgage had ever been. Six months later he was rehoused by the council but miles away from his previous home which meant that the children had to change schools and the part-time job his wife had would be lost. Bill finally got another job, but it wasn't in travel as most of the travel companies were closing shops and cut pricing holidays on their own websites.
The Bedford Heist Page 14