← Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman
Master: the allegations against Neil Gaiman
The pond | Ep 3
00:35:06
New Zealand police tell the former nanny there isn’t enough evidence to actively pursue her sexual assault complaint against Neil Gaiman. He says he offered himself up for an interview with the police. But the facts may indicate otherwise.
Loading summary
Transcript107 lines
- [00:05]
Rachel Johnson
Tortoise.
- [00:13]
Scarlett
Scarlett. I apologize for upsetting you. I'm so glad.
- [00:17]
Paul Caruana Galizia
It's a really hard situation, Mother. Yeah.
- [00:21]
Scarlett
I. I can never be sitting here where you are. I never will be. I've been doing this job for 37 years.
- [00:28]
Rachel Johnson
Scarlett is at a police station in Auckland to get an update on her complaint of sexual assault against Neil Gaiman. It's the first week of March 2024. The complaint is one she filed more than a year earlier. It centers on that evening in the bath, the first time she'd met Neil Gaiman.
- [00:50]
Scarlett
In your explanation, in your interview, you've neither said anything to the other person, according to your interview, and neither have you carried out any physical actions that might suggest that you weren't consenting, apart.
- [01:09]
Paul Caruana Galizia
From lying there like a freaked out fish.
- [01:14]
Rachel Johnson
Scarlet's description of lying there like a freaked out fish isn't enough.
- [01:20]
Scarlett
It's about our role in protecting the victims from putting them through another trauma in court, where the question marks that I've got only get bigger in court when a defence lawyer comes onto where I'm at now. A defence lawyer will make you look like you asked for it and everything else.
- [01:37]
Neil Gaiman
Because the police are telling her, in summary, that her complaint wouldn't stand up in court because the they say they don't have the evidence to bring a prosecution.
- [01:48]
Scarlett
And the reasons why is because there's a question mark. There will be a question mark over what you felt was consent at the time. What I'm saying to you is, in your case with the Gaiman matter, it wouldn't stand up in court and you would probably come off for the worse. We took this to court.
- [02:11]
Neil Gaiman
It's not just that New Zealand police think Scarlett's case doesn't meet the evidential threshold. They're saying that if it went to court, the process would be too punishing for her to handle. On the face of it, the police's decision should give us pause. They've looked at her complaint and said that Scarlett's behavior with Neil Gaiman means that they do not think there's a reasonable prospect of conviction. And yet we're examining her case. Why? Alongside the general question that so many people ask of why the police don't seem to pursue allegations of sexual abuse with more zeal. There's a specific one here. How can the police investigate such allegations when there is wider evidence of consent? In other words, is it possible that the man can assume he has consent? The woman believes she has not consented to what he is doing and the complaints still be Properly investigated, is there still a gap between the protections individuals might expect and the protections the law actually provides?
- [03:26]
Paul Caruana Galizia
There were a couple questions I wanted to ask, if that's okay, just for my own solution. Have you. Have you interviewed Neil or Amanda or anyone?
- [03:37]
Scarlett
Neil Garman?
- [03:38]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Yeah.
- [03:39]
Neil Gaiman
No.
- [03:39]
Paul Caruana Galizia
No. Yeah. Or Amanda Palmer? No. Okay.
- [03:42]
Scarlett
As I explained to you when we spoke, Amanda wasn't present.
- [03:47]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And anyone else?
- [03:53]
Neil Gaiman
No.
- [03:53]
Paul Caruana Galizia
No.
- [03:54]
Scarlett
As I said to you when we kicked off, Scarlet, this is purely based on your interview alone.
- [03:59]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Yeah. Yeah.
- [04:01]
Neil Gaiman
The police don't say why they didn't talk to Neil Gaiman. According to his account, they never even asked him for an interview. We've tried to get to the bottom of this because it matters. How can the police be so sure Scarlett's complaint doesn't meet the evidential threshold without interviewing the suspect? For all they know, he might have given useful evidence. So from Neil Gaiman's account, we're told that when he learnt about the allegations against him, he hired a lawyer in New Zealand to offer the police both an interview and a transcript of his messages with Scarlett. But according to his account, the police advised him the file would be closed. His position is that this reflects a lack of substance in Scarlett's complaint. We asked New Zealand police why they didn't take up Neil Gaiman's offer of assistance and when it was made.
- [05:05]
New Zealand Police Representative
Police have made a number of attempts to speak to key people as part of this investigation and those efforts remain ongoing. At this stage, there is insufficient evidence to proceed with charges. Currently, police have reviewed the matter and will continue to consider further possible lines of inquiry if further information comes to light. Police are open to reassessing the matter and would encourage anyone with information that may assist to contact us.
- [05:33]
Neil Gaiman
When we then asked New Zealand police to help us reconcile what they told us with Neil Gaiman's position that he wasn't asked, they they.
- [05:43]
New Zealand Police Representative
There are a number of factors to take into consideration with this case, including location of all parties, meaning Neil Gaiman.
- [05:51]
Neil Gaiman
Wasn'T in New Zealand and police forces don't have much power to compel a person to return to a country and cooperate. So was Neil Gaiman's offer of assistance specifically for an interview in person in New Zealand? The police said they couldn't comment. Neil Gaiman's account was that his future travel plans were made known to the police.
- [06:17]
Rachel Johnson
Back in the meeting. Devastated that the police are telling her they won't actively pursue her complaint, Scarlett asks the officers one more question.
- [06:31]
Paul Caruana Galizia
I wanted to know if anyone else had come forward but that's clearly not.
- [06:34]
Scarlett
Well, look, I've taken on board what you said about other people and I've done an open source search and I've found nothing that supports that he's up to mischief with other people as well.
- [06:51]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Okay, that was sort of what I wanted to know over there. Yeah, it gets everything. Yeah. Thank you.
- [07:12]
Neil Gaiman
It might seem like a strange question to have to ask. What other potential crime would require the victim to track down other victims to be believed? We don't ask. But who else did he kill and disbelieve an allegation of murder simply because the accused hasn't faced previous allegations of murder. In the event of a murder, though, there's a body. In a case of sexual abuse, it's often only two people in the room, one person's account versus another. The reason police look for previous cases is that people have a sexual fingerprint, the same behaviours in and around sex. When it comes to abuse, assault and sexual violence, one of the ways that prosecutors may seek to prove the case in court is to show a pattern of behaviour. Scarlett asks the police if other women have come forward. They tell her they couldn't find anything on the Internet. They tell her that as things stand, they can't pursue her complaint any further. The news devastates her. But she saw it coming. The police had called her months earlier to suggest her complaint might not go forward. That's why on 3rd October 2023, Scarlett turns to journalists.
- [08:36]
Paul Caruana Galizia
When I reached out to you, I think it was evident to me that there was nothing that was going to happen. And I can fucking see why people don't, don't do it, because it almost makes it worse. Well, it does make it worse because it's, it's so invalidating because it took a lot to, to sort of galvanize that courage in myself to, to go to the police and to believe myself enough, you know, to, to go to the police.
- [09:17]
Rachel Johnson
We start searching not because we have to do the police work ourselves. Journalists rightly don't have the powers of the state to investigate, but because Scarlett gives us another lead. She alleges to us that Neil Gaiman's treatment of her is part of a wider pattern of behavior, that she's one part of the story. It takes months, months of interviewing people from California to New Zealand, from London to New York, even chasing leads around a sleepy market town in the south of England. We spoke to his friends. One says she's known Neil Gaiman for 12 years. She says that while she's alive to his faults. She doesn't believe him capable of the sexual misconduct alleged against him, that she'd go to the wall for him on this, that she'd be stunned if the allegations were true. This friend also said that, like her, Neil Gaiman has autism. On his social media, E described autism as both his superpower and his kryptonite. His friend said that his autism may explain what she called some of his mistakes, that it contributes to what she called his naivety. And then we spoke to another woman who's known him for about a decade, a woman who enjoys rough sex and has enjoyed it with him as his on and off lover. She said her experiences with him have been incredible. This friend, in fact said she has nothing but positive things to say about Neil Gaiman, that he has helped her through hard times and that she loves, respects and cares about him. You'll hear all sides as we try to find out if Scarlett is alone or if her question to the police about other women might yield a different answer. In the process, we learn a lot more about Neil Gaiman. We go right back to the beginning, all the way to, as his autobiographical novel puts it, the Ocean at the End. End of the Lane. I'm Rachel Johnson.
- [11:32]
Neil Gaiman
And I'm Paul Caruana Galizia. You're listening to Master from tortoise. Episode 3 the Pond.
- [12:00]
Rachel Johnson
1 moment we're amongst tidy detached homes and neat gardens of a housing estate on the edge of East Grinstead in Sussex. And the next we're on a winding narrow country lane banked by hedges. We know Neil Gaiman lived in a house at the top of this lane, but we want to follow it to the bottom and locate the body of water that that's at the heart of his bestselling novel, the Ocean at the end of the Lane.
- [12:26]
Interviewee
The ocean that was a duck pond was the place that I went into the story with. It was the thing that was there.
- [12:39]
Rachel Johnson
In the book, the pond morphs into a magical time shifting ocean.
- [12:45]
Interviewee
A short story really about the. A sort of a seven year old me. The family wasn't quite my family, but the world was my world.
- [12:56]
Rachel Johnson
Neil's given lots of interviews where he says the inspiration for the story is here from his own childhood.
- [13:04]
Interviewee
The magic of a book, the magic of a story is it's only this many pages, but you can fit the universe inside. There are people in there. There's a world in there. There's Sussex in 1968. In here.
- [13:33]
Rachel Johnson
It's an idyllic pastoral setting. The lane crosses over a stream and is bordered by clumps of wild garlic and bluebells. Right, we're almost at the end of the lane. It turns out there are several farms on this lane.
- [13:51]
Local Resident
In the 70s, at some point they built that whole estate that you can see. But when my parents bought it 44 years ago, that was all barley fields. There was no estate there at all.
- [14:04]
Rachel Johnson
We chance upon a woman who lives in a nearby farm.
- [14:07]
Local Resident
Shall I show you the ocean?
- [14:10]
Neil Gaiman
That's what we're looking for.
- [14:11]
Rachel Johnson
I know that we clearly aren't the first to make this literary pilgrimage and walk down the lane in search of a pond.
- [14:19]
Local Resident
So the ocean at the end of the lane is down here. Have you got jeans on? Oh, you'll be right. So just here. This is the ocean at the end of the lane. It was always a dark ocean surrounded.
- [14:35]
Rachel Johnson
By the inspiration for the fantastical world of. The ocean of Neil Gaiman's imagination is actually a sleepy oblong pool of uninviting dark green water at the bottom of a steep, overgrown slope. It looks quite ordinary, as largish ponds go, an unremarkable backdrop to Neil Gaiman's life in 1968. Though in truth, life wasn't that ordinary for seven year old Neil Gaiman.
- [15:04]
Neil Gaiman
Have you heard this since this was broadcast?
- [15:06]
Interviewee
I haven't.
- [15:07]
Neil Gaiman
This is you at the age of seven.
- [15:10]
Rachel Johnson
Go for it.
- [15:11]
Local Resident
It is an applied philosophy dealing with a study of knowledge. It helps you to handle quite a lot of problems.
- [15:18]
Rachel Johnson
But what problems do you have as a little boy that this helps you with?
- [15:22]
Local Resident
Only one big problem.
- [15:24]
Rachel Johnson
What's that?
- [15:25]
Local Resident
My friend Stephen.
- [15:26]
Rachel Johnson
Oh, I see.
- [15:27]
Neil Gaiman
At the age of seven, Neil Gaiman is interviewed about Scientology by the BBC.
- [15:34]
Tony Ortega
His father was probably the most famous Scientologist in England at the time, and they lived by the headquarters there and they took in lodgers.
- [15:46]
Neil Gaiman
David Gaiman moved the family to East Grinstead when Neil Gaiman was 5.
- [15:51]
Tony Ortega
The early 60s, Scientology was growing so fast, young people were coming from all over the world to new.
- [15:58]
Neil Gaiman
Ortega is a journalist and former editor of the Village Voice who now writes a blog called the Underground Bunker. He's been writing about and investigating Scientology for years.
- [16:11]
Tony Ortega
For young people from the United States, Australia, South Africa, they would all come to England to go to that place. ST Hill was huge.
- [16:21]
Neil Gaiman
For a time in the mid to late 60s, that place, St Hill, was the epicenter of the Church of Scientology. It's no longer the global HQ for the movement. Further that side there is a Sandhill Manor, but it's still there just to the south of the town, the founder of Dianetics and Scientology, Alan Hubbard. He owned it for many, many years. You enter through imposing metal gates before glimpsing a new built castle that operates as the Church. A little bit further down is an 18th century manor house set in 50 acres of landscaped grounds straight out of the prime property pages of Country Life. When the Gaimans moved nearby, this place was also the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard's family home, Neil Gaiman's father, worked for him. They usually like, you know, come from all over the planet and they like live in this green. And all those international visitors needed places to stay, so the Gamins took in lodgers. Back in the late 60s, though, things were starting to turn sour. After a spate of lurid stories and negative media attention about the church exposing the way it allegedly disconnected members from their families, founder L. Ron Hubbard was declared a Persona non grata by the British government and foreign Scientologists were banned from entering the UK.
- [18:00]
Tony Ortega
And then by 1966, 67, it became an issue in Parliament. So that's when David Gaiman, who was, like I said, one of the top two or three Scientologists in all of England, puts his son out for this interview with the BBC to show what a talented young Scientologist kid he is.
- [18:22]
Neil Gaiman
It was then that David Gaiman, whose title was Worldwide Communications head, deployed his young son, Neil Gaiman as a PR tool.
- [18:31]
Rachel Johnson
But I mean, how does this grade that you've got problems release help you.
- [18:35]
Interviewee
To deal with Stephen?
- [18:37]
Local Resident
Well, you know, I've dealt every single problem except Steven. One thing. Problem police can't help me do harm.
- [18:47]
Interviewee
So you still fight with Stephen?
- [18:50]
Local Resident
It's more of a question. He fights with me.
- [18:57]
Tony Ortega
BBC interviews him. They then take a transcript of the interview, put together a pamphlet and mail it to every member of Parliament to say, look, Scientology is great. Look at this kid, he's amazing.
- [19:11]
Neil Gaiman
After he finished school, Neil Gaiman worked as a counsellor for the Church of Scientology for about three years. Scientology has a series of steps or courses. When Neil Gaiman gave that interview to the BBC in 1968, he had just achieved his first grade. That's the problems release grade he refers to the one that wasn't helping him deal with his classmate Stephen. Tony Ortega says Neil Gaiman became a Scientology Class 8 auditor by the early 1980s and then went on my understanding.
- [19:48]
Tony Ortega
That he was OT 4 or 5.
- [19:50]
Neil Gaiman
And became something called an operating tethan, a Scientologist who's able to separate their soul from their body and see into past lives. But his father, standing in Scientology, was moving in the opposite direction. A document leaked from the Church of Scientology dated 15 February 1983, says that David Gaiman is a suppressive person. The term is used to describe Scientology's enemies or people it excommunicated. The document claims that David Gaiman had launched mindless attacks on the British government to grow his status and popularity and that he bullied staffers into joining these attacks. While behaving in this way, the document claims that David Gaiman presented himself as mild mannered and quite sociable. This, according to the document, was an additional offence of COVID hostility. To support its claims of COVID hostility, the document cites David Gaiman's history of sexual misconduct over many years. Here, the document provides no details of David Gaiman's alleged sexual misconduct. It only cites the formal charge in sexual or sexually perverted conduct contrary to the well being or good state of mind of a Scientologist in good standing or under the charge of Scientology, such as a student, a pre clear, a ward or a patient.
- [21:33]
Rachel Johnson
This is not to suggest any link between David Gaiman's alleged misconduct and his son's alleged misconduct. It's not to say like father, like son, because it's not even clear whether these are trumped up charges. As Tony Ortega explains in Scientology, once.
- [21:54]
Tony Ortega
You have fallen out of favor, they're going to say anything about you. So I wouldn't rely on that. I would say Scientology made these allegations about him as they kicked him out, but that doesn't mean it happened. I wouldn't trust Scientology with that.
- [22:12]
Rachel Johnson
We asked the Church of Scientology about the leaked document. It said our question was in poor taste before adding that David Gaiman was a beloved and active member of the Church of Scientology in the UK for decades who dedicated much of his time to helping others and his community. In any case, the Gayman family connection with Scientology persisted. The business that David Gaiman had set up with Neil's mother continued to thrive. G and G vitamins sold supplements, ones prescribed as essential for observant Scientologists. And Neil Gaiman, at 25 years old, married one of the Gaiman family lodgers, a Scientology student a few years older than him, and went on to have his first three children with her. Much of Neil Gaiman's family remain members of the Church of Scientology. Mary McGrath, his first wife, is involved with a Scientology Church in the us. One sister works for a Scientology church in LA here. Oh, that's very kind, thank you. It tells you a bit about us.
- [23:23]
Paul Caruana Galizia
Obviously, you'll get more information.
- [23:24]
Rachel Johnson
Another sister, Lizzy Calcioli, and his mother, Sheila Gayman, are still pictured in the brochure for G and G Vitamins in East Grinstead. There, isn't it? Yes, it is. Sheila, her daughter Lizzie, and Liz's husband, Maura. And they still run the business. Yes, yes. Neil Gaiman remains a shareholder in the firm. According to its most recent company filings. The firm hosts Scientology courses and remains linked to the organization. But for Neil Gaiman, things had started to change by the mid-1980s.
- [24:00]
Tony Ortega
And then something happened and he walked away.
- [24:03]
Rachel Johnson
He has said since that he no longer considers himself a member of the Church of Scientology. As such, his walking away from Scientology coincides with the start of his writing career. But we don't know if this was the reason he didn't answer any of our questions about this period of his life. Neil Gaiman's upbringing was unconventional in a world that to many would seem like a fantasy. Publicly, his Persona was shaped by a very different, equally fantastical world. The world of comic books. And it's his phenomenal success in this world that coincides with him walking away from Scientology.
- [25:03]
Neil Gaiman
Look at that.
- [25:03]
Tony Ortega
Neil Gaiman tweeted about my store.
- [25:05]
Rachel Johnson
What'd he say?
- [25:07]
Tony Ortega
Next time you're in Pasadena, check out the Comic Center. Great vibe, old school. The owner really knows his stuff. Isn't that amazing? Well, it's no Sandman.
- [25:17]
Neil Gaiman
The Big Bang Theory, the hugely popular US Sitcom that centered around four socially awkward physicists who were, crucially massive comic book fans.
- [25:29]
Interviewee
If you're interested in alternate histories, Neil Gaiman wrote one called 1602.
- [25:34]
Tony Ortega
I'm sorry, we're in the middle of something here.
- [25:38]
Interviewee
It is pretty good, actually. He takes the Marvel superheroes and he puts them into Elizabethan England.
- [25:44]
Tony Ortega
Let me guess, everyone thinks the X Men are witches.
- [25:49]
Interviewee
Yeah.
- [25:51]
Neil Gaiman
In one episode, Neil Gaiman makes a guest appearance as a customer in the comic book store. And there's no doubt playing yourself in a fictional TV show or making it into the Simpsons twice is a pretty sure sign you've made it. His reputation had been growing over many years. He's now rich and famous. In the late 80s, Neil Gaiman wrote the first Sandman comic or graphic novel. At the time, comics tended to feature superheroes. Sandman did not. It was a work of literature based on ideas and concepts, not superheroes. The Sandman universe is full of LGBTQ characters. It since spawned a Netflix hit with a budget of millions of dollars per episode. Neil Gaiman is an industry. His other works, Coraline Good Omens, American Gods, Stardust and the Ocean at the End of the Lane have all been made or are being made into TV series or films. The books themselves sell millions of copies around the world. They are a source of enormous revenue for his publishers, including Bloomsbury, HarperCollins, Simon Einschuster and DC Comics. But it was Sandman that broke the mold and in doing so, attracted a whole new women. It was also among the first graphic novels to ever feature on the New York Times bestseller list. There is no suggestion that any of these organizations knew or ought to have known about the allegations against Neil Gaiman in this podcast.
- [27:43]
Rachel Johnson
By 2008, Neil Gaiman is living in the US and seeing the feminist rock star icon Amanda Palmer, lead singer of the Dresden Dolls. They marry in 2011. In interviews, they describe their marriage as open with what they called slutty compassion. Neil Gaiman's liberal, progressive image is boosted by this partnership with famous feminist punk performer Amanda.
- [28:12]
Neil Gaiman
Sure, we're watching celebrities talk about this, but this is happening to all women everywhere.
- [28:18]
Rachel Johnson
Both of them are very vocal on sexual violence against women.
- [28:23]
Neil Gaiman
This is just this insidious, you, you know, cultural sickness that we're hopefully starting to air out.
- [28:29]
Rachel Johnson
Neil Gaiman also frequently speaks out and especially tweets in support of women who've suffered at the hands of men.
- [28:37]
Neil Gaiman
Just looking back over his tweets and on Twitter, he's got 3 million followers. On 21 April 2010, he tweeted it's Sexual Assault Awareness Month and linked to a webpage where people could buy a painting of his wife, Amanda Palmer, to raise money for a sexual abuse charity. And on 31 October 2014, he references the hashtag that went viral in that year and he tweets reading the been raped, never reported hashtag, it's hard reading, makes me slightly ashamed to be human and much more ashamed to be male.
- [29:17]
Rachel Johnson
If you're still struggling with consent, just imagine instead of initiating sex, you. You're making them a cup of tea. Then he retweets this video published by Thames Valley Police about consent and understanding consent. Then you can make them a cup of tea or not, but be aware that they might not drink it. And if they don't drink it, then, and this is the important bit, don't make them drink it. And then in 2018, he tweets, there are so many women whose innocence is not presumed when it comes to matters of sexual assault and, and rape.
- [29:54]
Neil Gaiman
We understand Neil Gaiman considers any allegation of hypocrisy in this respect to be misguided. His position is that he stands by his prior public statements about sexual violence against women, as well as on the issue of consent, that the statements are compatible with his personal conduct and that the suggestion these statements are an attempt to conceal any unethical behaviour is false. There is another cause that Newgamon has said is close to his heart. He has described himself in a recent New York Times interview as a First Amendment absolutist, the capstone of the American Constitution that protects freedom of speech and the press. When it comes to this podcast, Neil Gaiman's position is is that its publication would expose Tortoise to significant legal risk, as he believes it is not based on reporting that's accurate, responsible and is not in the public interest. We have thought long and hard, over eight months about the public interest in this story. It's one that touches on the intimate lives of various people, not least Neil Gaiman. It's one that, in his PR advisor's words, has implications for everyone involved. So the public interest has to, and in our view, does justify its publication for many reasons. It was after we researched how New Zealand police handled Scarlett's complaint and how the police appear to have been limited by the law itself, after we examined her allegations of abuse against Neil Gaiman, some of them, if proved criminal, after we reported on what we were told of the concealment of his alleged behaviour, including Scarlett's backdated NDA, Amanda Palmer's reference to 14 others and the use of the family therapist. And after we understood the laws around consent during rough sex. It was after all this that we came to believe that was a clear and convincing public interest here, and one supported by a second woman's allegations of similar behaviour by Neil Gaiman to that alleged by Scarlett. After weeks of speaking to people in the world of comics, I get a message from someone else who worked in the industry. I had contacted this person asking about sexual misconduct, but without mentioning Neil Gaiman. We agree to speak. And when we do, this person tells me, when I read your message, I thought, if this guy is working on a story about Neil Gaiman, then he's hit the jackpot. The jackpot, it turned out, was that this person once knew a girl who was once a fan of Neil Gaiman and that almost two decades ago, she met him at a book signing.
- [33:09]
Paul Caruana Galizia
It's such a murky line and it's also part of why it's hard for me to talk about. And it's not something that I felt like during the MeToo. Movement. I was like, well, I can't. I don't have a leg to stand on. I don't have, like, video proof of this, you know. But it didn't happen.
- [33:27]
Neil Gaiman
Decades and continents separate Scarlett from this second woman. They've never met or spoken. She was 18 years old when she met Neil Gaiman in the Noughties, and the way she talks about her time with him is familiar. Neil Gaiman's position is that the only similarity between her account and Scarlet's is that in both cases, contemporaneous messages contradict their narratives.
- [34:12]
Rachel Johnson
This series is reported by me, Rachel Johnson, and by Paul Caruana Galizia. It is written by us and by Katie Gunning, who is also the producer. Sound design and original music is by Tom Kinsella. Additional reporting is by Jess Swinburne. Artwork is by John Hill. The series editor is Matt Russell. The editor is Jasper Corbett. Tortoise.