Through a Glass Darkly

from the Observer Sunday 16th January 2005: 'The Truth about Ravensworth' an Observer Exclusive!

A few months on, precisely what happened on a lonely Yorkshire hilltop the night of February the 7th remains obscure. The Observer has an exclusive interview with James Elliott, who was closely involved in the tragedy.

James was one of a group of six people from London commissioned to do what was ostensibly a bit of archaeological detective work. However there is very real doubt about what was the real purpose of the group. Precisely who organised the expedition is a mystery. This is the subject of an on-going inquiry, and on which nobody is free to comment.

"Believe me there are good reasons why that information cannot be made public right now. It could prejudice the investigation or future legal processes."

What we do know is who went. James himself was primarily there for his local knowledge. He was born and brought up in Ravensworth village. Myra Patel was a friend who introduced him to the group. An archaeologist who had recently had some very bad experiences in Iraq, Myra may have been suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Contrary to some reports James is convinced that she was not a terrorist.

"It is probable that Myra had been a victim of terrorism before she went to Yorkshire. It is complete nonsense to suggest she had anything to do with terrorism, other than as a victim of it."

The other archaeologist in the party was Dr Belinda Durham, an academic of good standing. James has no doubt that she was acting in good faith. Fortunately for her, but unfortunately for those of us interested in the truth, she returned to London early and was not around for the violent denouement. James is uncertain why Dr Elisa Jameson MD was involved. However it was her second brush with terrorism and she may also have PTSD. "If she didn't before, it is a fair bet she does now."

The fifth member was Adam Walters who James describes as "a hippy". He has practised as a faith healer, and was recently released from prison after servicing a sentence for the manslaughter of one of his patients.

Finally there was Bernard Connelly: "I had never met him before, but Myra knew of him. She said he thought he was Indiana Jones. Important artefacts tend to go missing when he is around and then appear for sale on the black market. I think it is safe to say that neither of the archaeologists welcomed his presence, and with the benefit of hindsight their assessment was unduly charitable."

The stated purpose of the expedition was to locate the parts of the Ummayad Font, an Iraqi artefact. This "font", or as James prefers to refer to it, "bird bath", was a large slab of marble weighing around 150kg, with an inscription around the edge and a depression in the middle. Nobody knows precisely what it was for. It was long ago broken into two unequal pieces. The smaller part was found by Lord Ravensworth, about eighty years ago. The larger was only found comparatively recently and was in the Baghdad museum until stolen. The assumption was that the thieves would wish to obtain the Ravensworth fragment as the complete artefact would be far more valuable than the component parts. According the mission was to find the smaller fragment and try to find out who else was interested in it.

James is scathing about the organisation of the trip: "If the intention really was to find the thieves they should have sent a group with more criminal investigation experience and fewer nut-cases. I don't think that Jameson made any real contribution; both Walters and Connelly were liabilities. We weren't sent to find anything out, we were sent to distract somebody."

James had misgivings from the start: "I thought if that bunch of misfits are going to be trampling around my parents' home village, I am better off there to keep an eye on them.

"All of us, except Connelly, travelled up by train together and hired a Range-Rover in Darlington. We drove to Ravensworth. Connelly, who took an earlier train and the bus, finally turned up about hour after the rest of us."

Precisely what Connelly was up to at this point seems to be a mystery, but James is convinced he had some special reason for travelling separately from the others.

"Over lunch we discussed how to approach Lord Ravensworth about his collection. Myra phoned and was invited up more or less immediately. Dr Durham drove her up. Meanwhile the rest of us scouted around to see if any other strangers were in the vicinity.

"Myra and Durham returned to say there is no problem accessing the catalogue of the collection, but that going through it would be about a full day's work. The actual collection was in storage in York. Apparently the collection was catalogued by a man called Baxter, who was dismissed over an alleged theft."

Investigating this turned the first occult connection. James stresses that absolutely nothing paranormal happened. "It was all in the mind of a few unbalanced individuals. With the exception of this man Baxter, all of those individuals we had brought with us.

"Baxter had recently hanged himself on Gallows Hill. Up until the incident, Gallows Hill was just a local landmark with a sinister reputation. It was the place that kids go for a dare, to frighten themselves and each other. It is no more dangerous than any other bit of deciduous woodland in England. I suspect that it was chosen as the place in the locality which was least likely to have people wandering about it at night.

"Baxter had only been buried the previous week. This was a bit of a blow as we were hoping to talk to him. The rest of the party seemed to take a morbid and unhealthy interest in the sordid details of his death and the local superstitions about the location."

Whereas James found many of his confederates behaviour foolish, Connelly's he believes was worse than that: "Connelly got drunk and made an exhibition of himself. At the time I just thought he was just being a prat. In retrospect, I think it was deliberate. He was making damned sure that we were noticed and talked about."

That however was not what prompted James to phone the police: "Myra noticed that one of the graves in the cemetery had been disturbed, Baxter's as it happens, and Myra took it very, very badly. I don't actually know what happened to her in Iraq, she never talked about it, but I think it must have struck a chord. She had a fit of the screaming abdabs, and I had to fetch a car to drive her home."

The police confirm that James did report the vandalism to them, at the time of writing it remains an unsolved crime, and far from the top of their current priorities. The next day they continued to follow the Baxter lead. Local contacts lead them to Richmond where Baxter's effects were up for auction. Large and very obvious among them was the hundredweight lump of marble that they were looking for, but that wasn't all.

"There was also some other weird stuff in the collection. Baxter had clearly been some sort of occult nutter, and judging from their reaction to the stuff, so were at least some of my partners in this venture. I noticed a pair of home-made binoculars, yes really; an eye mask made of bone and a strange little whistle. There were also a lot of occult books."

They consulted their patron in London and were instructed to bid in the auction up to £2000 for the marble block.

"In retrospect, I think this was merely to prevent some local wanting a bit of marble from winning the auction. No-one who did not know its significance would have paid more than about fifty quid for it. I reckon by the amount our patron was spending sending us their, he must have reckoned that the whole artefact was worth at least a hundred thousand."

At this point, considering the job done, Dr Durham chose to go home. James says he would have gone home too, but he already was home.

The auction was on Thursday. They all attended to bid on the stone and to see who else did. It wasn't the only lot that they bid on. Patel and Connelly both bid on various bits of occult paraphernalia: "I would have hoped Myra had more sense, but she bought the whistle and a book described as an 'Uncommon Prayer Book'. At least she only wasted about a tenner. Connelly bought the binoculars, the mask and tried but failed to get Baxter's journal. When Connelly failed on that lot, he used it as an excuse to run off. I had to bid on the stone and a power-dressing young lady out bid us. On leaving she was overheard arranging collection for Friday."

The young lady was Karen Doherty. She had been missing since about Christmas and was found dead on Saturday, after an apparent sex attack. There was initially some confusion about this which has been latched onto by various conspiracy theorists. Initial reports suggested that she had died shortly after disappearing. These reports seem to have been based merely on the assumption that most sex attack victims are dead with 24 hours of disappearing. The limp corpse was assumed to be long past rigour mortis. However a few hours later rigour mortis set in, and it was realised that this was in fact a very fresh corpse. The police now believe that Doherty was employed by the terrorists and killed when she had outlived her usefulness.

Then comes the strangest incident of James's tale. The remaining five all visited Gallows Hill, the night BEFORE the terrorist outrage. I put it to James, why?

"To answer that you need to ask Connelly. It was Connelly's idea to go. A more pointless activity was hard to imagine, but I had decided that Connelly needed humouring to some degree. I insisted that we stop chez my parents so I could get old clothes, hiking boots and a torch.

"There is a track up the hill. It would have made more sense to park at the bottom, but Connelly insisted on, entirely pointlessly, driving up to the top. It was impossible to turn round, so it merely necessitated reversing back the whole way.

"The track ends some way short of the summit, so we all had to walk the rest. I had the only torch so I led the way. At the top we found the foundation stones for the old gallows and very near to it a tree branch with rope marks of the recent hanging."

However it seems the place had an unsettling effect on most of them. "I can only assume that none of them had been in woodland at night before. Connelly had, or pretended to have, a truly impressive attack of screaming abdabs and ran off. Myra started walking in a small circle chanting prayers. Dr. Jameson assaulted her. I am not quite sure what Walters was up to, but generally it was a mad-house. A couple of minutes later they all seemed to have decided they had to go, immediately. Fortunately Connelly had left the keys in the car, so with Walters leading the way with my torch, I was able to very carefully reverse down the hill. On the way, both Jameson and Walters had panic attacks. Jameson was shouting that I needed to go faster, when it was absolutely the last thing I should do. No thanks to my hysterical passengers, I got to the bottom without incident.

"When I saw the 'Blair Witch Project' I thought it wholly implausible that anyone could be freaked out by something as benign, banal and boring as mixed woodland. Apparently this medieval paranoia is alive and well and living in London.

"We found Connelly at the bottom. He had managed to injure the front of his abdomen quite badly. That he had managed to find something sufficiently sharp in the wood was surprising, but there may some abandoned agricultural machinery lying around. We drove to the Memorial Hospital, Darlington and Connelly was admitted."

The hospital does confirm that Bernard Connelly was admitted that night and discharged in the morning. Patient confidentially does not allow them to release any information about his injuries.

The next day, Friday, was the day they were to observe the collection of the marble block.

"I was disappointed when Connelly was discharged. I would have been far happier without him. We were supposed to be passively observing the collection of this rock."

In Richmond, James was worried by a number of developments. "Firstly, all our mobile phones stopped working."

Several phone companies confirm that someone was using a jammer in the vicinity. Then a van and four men arrived to collect the stone. It is now known that the men were terrorists, but that was not obvious at the time: "We really, really did not want to be noticed by the men in the van. However Connelly went out of his way to draw attention to himself. In fact he annoyed one of the men so much that he got thumped. Around this time Walters, without a word to any of us, got into a car with some men and drove off.

"Finally the van with the stone left and we followed. I managed to tail them okay. We had been expecting them to head off to somewhere like London. Instead they turned off towards Ravensworth. Dr. Jameson decided that there was a car without lights following us; at the time I thought it was her over-heated imagination, but in retrospect it is possible. Connelly was prattling some occult nonsense, probably to distract us and prevent us noticing something. To my surprise, the terrorist van turned onto the track up Gallows Hill. Turning in after them would have been too obvious so I drove past. I said I was going home to phone our patron (as the mobiles were still out). All of the rest decided to stay. I was definitely glad to be shot of Connelly and Jameson, but I was a bit worried about leaving Myra.

"At home, I phoned London and was told that I should not go near Gallows Hill for my own safety."

As we now know, Gallows Hill was about to become the scene of a pitched battle between a desperate group of terrorists with chemical or biological weapons and anti-terrorist special forces. The advice was good, but too late to save Myra Patel who was already on the hill.

"Nevertheless I decided to watch from a safe distance so I drove to suitable vantage point. I was not there long when I heard some gun fire. It wasn't shotguns; it was automatic weapons. Initially short bursts, but there were also a few very long bursts. There was also an odd blue glow from the top of the hill, some sort of arc-light I would guess. Whatever was going on, it wasn't something I wanted to be mixed up in. I don't think it lasted more than ten minutes. I was still watching and waiting when Walters turned up, wide-eyed and disturbed. At least this time there was some excuse; automatic weapons really are dangerous.

"I drove him back to the pub where he was staying. On the way, he was prattling the most incredible nonsense. I told him that I was going to phone the police and he said that I shouldn't, it was too dangerous for the police. I dropped him at the pub and phoned the police."

The police have confirmed that James did phone late on Friday night. However he told them little if anything that they did not already know. In the morning James reported to the police. Due to an administrative error James was briefly listed as 'wanted' in the afternoon, when he had in fact already been talking to the police for several hours. Again this has been seized on by conspiracy theorists who doubt the official account. James is emphatic: "It was a simple mistake. I wasn't on the computer as detained as I wasn't. I was voluntarily helping the police. In the confusion, and it was hectic, someone decided to start a man-hunt"

Nevertheless James had been too close to the action not to be a suspect. He was moved to London on Sunday and finally released on Wednesday. James is philosophical about spending four full days in custody. "It could have been a great deal worse. Myra after all is dead, as are a number of soldiers."

Of the six, James and Durham survived unscathed; Jamieson and Walters suffered minor injuries and serious shock; Myra Patel is dead and Connelly is missing.

James remains scathing of the various weird rumours circulating about the incident and, as he implies, conspiracy theories abound as to the true nature of the events. However, all James' one-time colleagues are refusing to talk and it's clear the security services support them in their silence.

So we may have to wait, thirty, fifty or a hundred years before the documents are made available for public scrutiny.