My serial killer dad stopped horrific sex attack to call & wish me happy birthday…then sent me X-rated letters from jail
EVERY family has a secret, but none so dark as Donna Carr's.
For almost 50 years she has tried to hide the fact that her dad was a serial killer, rapist and paedophile.
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Donna, pictured with her daughter Hailey, lives with her husband Jim, right, in West Virginia and has been taunted by her dark family secret for 50 years
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Donna's dad was serial killer, rapist and paedophile Robert Frederick Carr III
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Donna, 60, pictured with Hailey, who lives in Wyoming, says now her dad is dead, she finally feels free of him
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Baby Donna pictured with her dad Robert
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Joanne, Donna's mother, was subjected to 'horrific abuse' by her dad while she was growing up
Robert Frederick Carr III was arrested in 1976 for raping a hitchhiker - and then shocked detectives by confessing to four rapes and murders, and six further rapes.
He'd kept his first victim, a 16-year-old girl, captive in a forest for 10 days, raping her throughout before finally strangling her. He also picked up two 11-year-old boys who were hitchhiking, raped them, strangled one and killed the other four days later.
During one of his sickening sex attacks, evil Carr told his victim that he had to stop so he could find a payphone to call Donna to wish her a happy birthday.
Donna was just 12 years old when his twisted crimes - nearly all of which involved children under the age of 18 - were exposed, and along with her mother and younger brother, she was vilified in her local community.
They were forced to live their lives in the shadow of their father's horrifying crimes, bearing the stigma of being the children of a sadistic killer.
When teenage Donna refused to go and see her father in prison, sickeningly this led Carr to send sexually explicit letters to his own daughter from his cell.
He died in prison of prostate cancer, aged 63, and after years of hiding her family's devastating secret, Donna decided to bring it out into the open in the hope of making peace with her heritage.
Donna, from West Virginia, says: 'That is the secret I have been keeping my entire life and it has affected every aspect of my life.
"I honestly feel like it is time for me to move past this. It happened when I was 12 and I am now 60 and I am tired of it hanging over my head.
'I honestly think that there are some mental illnesses that you are born with. I honestly do believe that some people are just born evil -and I think my father was one of those people.'
The Dull Truth About Serial Killers
In the years before he was caught, Carr - a TV repairman and car salesman - was constantly on the move, trying to out-run his evil crimes.
For most of Donna's childhood she lived out of her father's car as he moved the family from state to state.
He kept them under tight control, subjecting her mother to horrific abuse and making sure they never stayed in one place long enough to put down roots.
'The memories with my father, there are very few that are good,' she recalls.
'They were mostly bad. He always had an underlying anger about him... when I was 12 my dad was actually caught in the process of a rape and he was arrested, and that was when he decided to tell them that he had murdered four people, raped and murdered them.
'When he had one of his victims he told her he had to stop and find a payphone to call me for my birthday, and I remember that phone call.
I honestly think that there are some mental illnesses that you are born with. I honestly do believe that some people are just born evil - and I think my father was one of those people
Donna Carr
'I've always felt horrible for what he did. It bothered me for a very long time, when this came out I was no more than 13 years old and it had been all over the national news.
'For years I was afraid of sharing my story and that is because my father was still alive in prison. He is dead now.
"One of the reasons this became such a family secret is because every time I shared the information, immediately I no longer mattered. It became about what he had done, and so I stopped talking about it.'
'Long line of bad men'
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Prior to being caught, Robert kept his family on the move (pictured with Donna's mum)
15
Donna grew up in a 'controlled' home with her mother and younger brother
15
Young Donna was 12 when her dad was finally caught
15
Robert admitted to raping and murdering four people
Credit:15
State police remove a body found in a 4ft-deep grave after Robert showed Florida officials the location
Thirty years ago Donna decided to begin searching her family history in the hope she would find someone good from her ancestry to help her put to bed the horrors of her father.
Donna, who is married to husband Jim and has a 27-year-old daughter, Hailey, says: 'Family means everything to me.
"I started doing family history research because I wanted to find somebody in my family who was good, who was a little bit better along the Carr family line, because my father is a serial killer.'
She adds: 'I just think that to know that not everybody in that line of family was bad... that at some point in time there was somebody I could've looked up to.'
But Donna had her work cut out, coming from a "long line of not very good men".
Her grandfather spent time in prison for a grand-theft auto charge.
But her 10-year search also led her to a man she suspected was her great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Carr.
Donna hoped that he would be the kind, family man she longed for in her family's history.
I started doing family history research because I wanted to find somebody in my family who was good, who was a little bit better along the Carr family line, because my father is a serial killer
Donna Carr
But there were two Nicholas Carrs - so a new documentary for Acorn TV, called Relative Secrets with
Natasha explains: 'I think Donna found comfort in looking at the genealogy, trying to find someone who was relatively good in all the other male figures of her family line. She had been doing it for 30 years.
"She had folders and folders of all the information she had collated over that time. She was just trying to find an answer.
"It took her 10 years to find Nicholas Carr, but there were two of them and she couldn't find which one was her ancestor, which is where we came in.
'She was carrying that surname and it was tainted by all these abusive men.'
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Donna believes her father, pictured, was simply 'born evil'
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Donna, pictured in her late teens, started researching her family history to find someone 'good'
Natasha's team of experts uncovered that the Nicholas Carr who matched her family tree had travelled alone from Ireland, where he was born, to New York by ship in 1853, just after the end of the potato famine.
As Donna's DNA revealed she had very few ancestors left, they believed Nicholas fled Ireland after losing his entire family to the famine.
But that wasn't the end of his tragedy, In 1866 he had an altercation with a neighbour that ended in bloodshed and Nicholas Carr spent a year in prison in 1867 for manslaughter.
Donna says: 'Hearing that is a little gut-wrenching. The last thing I wanted to find in my family history was another person that was a murderer.'
Reformed character
But unlike many prisoners at that time, Nicholas didn't attempt a prison escape, even when his young daughter died.
He stayed and served his sentence - and tried to atone for his crime in the most unusual way.
Natasha says: 'He stopped the other prisoners trying to escape. And he made a record of all the prisoners which he gave to the police. Prison records were not well-kept at the time.'
A letter from the local sheriff was published in the local newspaper declaring: 'We are indebted to Mr Nicholas Carr for a list of prisoners confined in the county jail since last 24 October with the nature of their crimes.'
Natasha says: 'Courage and honour. Like Donna, Nicholas was brave enough to confront his past.'
Despite his conviction for manslaughter, he became Detective Carr and opened up his own detective agency, the first of its kind in Wilmington where he lived.
And Natasha's team found more than 100 newspaper articles detailing how Nicholas Carr went on to help people.
Natasha says: 'There are so many - a child went missing, within two weeks he found her. A young lad who wanted to go to Ireland to meet his family. He went to buy a ticket and was scammed of his money.
"What did Nicholas Carr do? He went and found who scammed the young man and got the money back and got him on the ship to go to Ireland. He has gone above and beyond for his community.
'There is respect associated with his name, and we see it built up over a decade. We can see his determination and perseverance for justice, wanting to help his community.'
Robert Frederick Carr III's crimes
ON May 30, 1976, Carr was caught by police while he was raping a hitchhiker at knifepoint.
On his arrest he shocked detectives by confessing to four murders, explaining the crimes in detail.
Tammy Ruth Huntley, 16, vanished while waiting for her mother to pick her up. Carr drove her from Miami to Mississippi. On April 7, 1972, after raping her over the 10 days he kept her captive in the woods, he strangled her, saying, "I killed her because she looked like she was getting despondent.'
In late 1972 Carr visited Florida, and on November 13 that year he picked up 11-year-old friends Todd Payton and Mark Wilson, who were hitchhiking from North Miami Beach.
The inside back doors in the car were disabled and the boot was filled with food, jars of petroleum jelly, and a shovel. Carr raped the boys and strangled Payton. Four days later he strangled Wilson.
In 1973, Carr was convicted of rape in Connecticut and sentenced to four to eight years in prison, but was paroled in 1976, after serving less than three years.
Upon his release in Connecticut, he would kill his fourth and final victim, 21-year-old Rhonda Holloway, before burying her body in a rural area.
Carr confessed that after Tammy Huntley's murder he raped an additional four girls and two boys. Only four were reported, for which he was charged and pleaded guilty.
He was sentenced to life in prison for the rapes and murders. He died of prostate cancer in prison in 2006.
David Simmons, the detective who arrested Carr, said: "In my 33-year career in law enforcement, Carr ranks as the most dangerous child sexual predator-murderer I ever investigated."
A tearful Donna says: 'A developing city needed him. Not bad for a hungry boy from Ireland.
"I needed this. I do have a father and what he did is horrific. But I didn't do it.
'I have had to out-run this my entire life, so learning about Nicholas and finding out what kind of person he was is just amazing to me.
"I know he is the good one in the family line. He was a human and he was part of the community and loved.
'I believe I am drawing closer, learning to deal with emotions. Letting it out for the first time in my life has been therapeutic and difficult, but good.'
Natasha adds: 'It is hard enough to read about it, let alone speak to someone who is the daughter of a serial killer, and that being her defining phrase that has always gone with her, she can't escape it.
'I just had so much respect for Donna, that she was able to live through that, overcome it, and also see that it was not normal, and break the cycle, make her own path - and also to tell others that if you have been through trauma, you can get through it.'
Relative Secrets with Jane Seymour is streaming now on Acorn TV.
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Donna with her husband Jim and daughter Hailey
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Relative Secrets is hosted by Natasha Billson, left, and Jane Seymour, right
Credit: Deirdre Brennan/AcornTV
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Relative Secrets is streaming now on Acorn TV Family
Credit: Deirdre Brennan/AcornTV
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The Irish Sun
21 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
My serial killer dad stopped horrific sex attack to call & wish me happy birthday…then sent me X-rated letters from jail
EVERY family has a secret, but none so dark as Donna Carr's. For almost 50 years she has tried to hide the fact that her dad was a serial killer, rapist and paedophile. 15 Donna, pictured with her daughter Hailey, lives with her husband Jim, right, in West Virginia and has been taunted by her dark family secret for 50 years 15 Donna's dad was serial killer, rapist and paedophile Robert Frederick Carr III 15 Donna, 60, pictured with Hailey, who lives in Wyoming, says now her dad is dead, she finally feels free of him 15 Baby Donna pictured with her dad Robert 15 Joanne, Donna's mother, was subjected to 'horrific abuse' by her dad while she was growing up Robert Frederick Carr III was arrested in 1976 for raping a hitchhiker - and then shocked detectives by confessing to four rapes and murders, and six further rapes. He'd kept his first victim, a 16-year-old girl, captive in a forest for 10 days, raping her throughout before finally strangling her. He also picked up two 11-year-old boys who were hitchhiking, raped them, strangled one and killed the other four days later. During one of his sickening sex attacks, evil Carr told his victim that he had to stop so he could find a payphone to call Donna to wish her a happy birthday. Donna was just 12 years old when his twisted crimes - nearly all of which involved children under the age of 18 - were exposed, and along with her mother and younger brother, she was vilified in her local community. They were forced to live their lives in the shadow of their father's horrifying crimes, bearing the stigma of being the children of a sadistic killer. When teenage Donna refused to go and see her father in prison, sickeningly this led Carr to send sexually explicit letters to his own daughter from his cell. He died in prison of prostate cancer, aged 63, and after years of hiding her family's devastating secret, Donna decided to bring it out into the open in the hope of making peace with her heritage. Donna, from West Virginia, says: 'That is the secret I have been keeping my entire life and it has affected every aspect of my life. "I honestly feel like it is time for me to move past this. It happened when I was 12 and I am now 60 and I am tired of it hanging over my head. 'I honestly think that there are some mental illnesses that you are born with. I honestly do believe that some people are just born evil -and I think my father was one of those people.' The Dull Truth About Serial Killers In the years before he was caught, Carr - a TV repairman and car salesman - was constantly on the move, trying to out-run his evil crimes. For most of Donna's childhood she lived out of her father's car as he moved the family from state to state. He kept them under tight control, subjecting her mother to horrific abuse and making sure they never stayed in one place long enough to put down roots. 'The memories with my father, there are very few that are good,' she recalls. 'They were mostly bad. He always had an underlying anger about him... when I was 12 my dad was actually caught in the process of a rape and he was arrested, and that was when he decided to tell them that he had murdered four people, raped and murdered them. 'When he had one of his victims he told her he had to stop and find a payphone to call me for my birthday, and I remember that phone call. I honestly think that there are some mental illnesses that you are born with. I honestly do believe that some people are just born evil - and I think my father was one of those people Donna Carr 'I've always felt horrible for what he did. It bothered me for a very long time, when this came out I was no more than 13 years old and it had been all over the national news. 'For years I was afraid of sharing my story and that is because my father was still alive in prison. He is dead now. "One of the reasons this became such a family secret is because every time I shared the information, immediately I no longer mattered. It became about what he had done, and so I stopped talking about it.' 'Long line of bad men' 15 Prior to being caught, Robert kept his family on the move (pictured with Donna's mum) 15 Donna grew up in a 'controlled' home with her mother and younger brother 15 Young Donna was 12 when her dad was finally caught 15 Robert admitted to raping and murdering four people Credit:15 State police remove a body found in a 4ft-deep grave after Robert showed Florida officials the location Thirty years ago Donna decided to begin searching her family history in the hope she would find someone good from her ancestry to help her put to bed the horrors of her father. Donna, who is married to husband Jim and has a 27-year-old daughter, Hailey, says: 'Family means everything to me. "I started doing family history research because I wanted to find somebody in my family who was good, who was a little bit better along the Carr family line, because my father is a serial killer.' She adds: 'I just think that to know that not everybody in that line of family was bad... that at some point in time there was somebody I could've looked up to.' But Donna had her work cut out, coming from a "long line of not very good men". Her grandfather spent time in prison for a grand-theft auto charge. But her 10-year search also led her to a man she suspected was her great-great-grandfather, Nicholas Carr. Donna hoped that he would be the kind, family man she longed for in her family's history. I started doing family history research because I wanted to find somebody in my family who was good, who was a little bit better along the Carr family line, because my father is a serial killer Donna Carr But there were two Nicholas Carrs - so a new documentary for Acorn TV, called Relative Secrets with Natasha explains: 'I think Donna found comfort in looking at the genealogy, trying to find someone who was relatively good in all the other male figures of her family line. She had been doing it for 30 years. "She had folders and folders of all the information she had collated over that time. She was just trying to find an answer. "It took her 10 years to find Nicholas Carr, but there were two of them and she couldn't find which one was her ancestor, which is where we came in. 'She was carrying that surname and it was tainted by all these abusive men.' 15 Donna believes her father, pictured, was simply 'born evil' 15 Donna, pictured in her late teens, started researching her family history to find someone 'good' Natasha's team of experts uncovered that the Nicholas Carr who matched her family tree had travelled alone from Ireland, where he was born, to New York by ship in 1853, just after the end of the potato famine. As Donna's DNA revealed she had very few ancestors left, they believed Nicholas fled Ireland after losing his entire family to the famine. But that wasn't the end of his tragedy, In 1866 he had an altercation with a neighbour that ended in bloodshed and Nicholas Carr spent a year in prison in 1867 for manslaughter. Donna says: 'Hearing that is a little gut-wrenching. The last thing I wanted to find in my family history was another person that was a murderer.' Reformed character But unlike many prisoners at that time, Nicholas didn't attempt a prison escape, even when his young daughter died. He stayed and served his sentence - and tried to atone for his crime in the most unusual way. Natasha says: 'He stopped the other prisoners trying to escape. And he made a record of all the prisoners which he gave to the police. Prison records were not well-kept at the time.' A letter from the local sheriff was published in the local newspaper declaring: 'We are indebted to Mr Nicholas Carr for a list of prisoners confined in the county jail since last 24 October with the nature of their crimes.' Natasha says: 'Courage and honour. Like Donna, Nicholas was brave enough to confront his past.' Despite his conviction for manslaughter, he became Detective Carr and opened up his own detective agency, the first of its kind in Wilmington where he lived. And Natasha's team found more than 100 newspaper articles detailing how Nicholas Carr went on to help people. Natasha says: 'There are so many - a child went missing, within two weeks he found her. A young lad who wanted to go to Ireland to meet his family. He went to buy a ticket and was scammed of his money. "What did Nicholas Carr do? He went and found who scammed the young man and got the money back and got him on the ship to go to Ireland. He has gone above and beyond for his community. 'There is respect associated with his name, and we see it built up over a decade. We can see his determination and perseverance for justice, wanting to help his community.' Robert Frederick Carr III's crimes ON May 30, 1976, Carr was caught by police while he was raping a hitchhiker at knifepoint. On his arrest he shocked detectives by confessing to four murders, explaining the crimes in detail. Tammy Ruth Huntley, 16, vanished while waiting for her mother to pick her up. Carr drove her from Miami to Mississippi. On April 7, 1972, after raping her over the 10 days he kept her captive in the woods, he strangled her, saying, "I killed her because she looked like she was getting despondent.' In late 1972 Carr visited Florida, and on November 13 that year he picked up 11-year-old friends Todd Payton and Mark Wilson, who were hitchhiking from North Miami Beach. The inside back doors in the car were disabled and the boot was filled with food, jars of petroleum jelly, and a shovel. Carr raped the boys and strangled Payton. Four days later he strangled Wilson. In 1973, Carr was convicted of rape in Connecticut and sentenced to four to eight years in prison, but was paroled in 1976, after serving less than three years. Upon his release in Connecticut, he would kill his fourth and final victim, 21-year-old Rhonda Holloway, before burying her body in a rural area. Carr confessed that after Tammy Huntley's murder he raped an additional four girls and two boys. Only four were reported, for which he was charged and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison for the rapes and murders. He died of prostate cancer in prison in 2006. David Simmons, the detective who arrested Carr, said: "In my 33-year career in law enforcement, Carr ranks as the most dangerous child sexual predator-murderer I ever investigated." A tearful Donna says: 'A developing city needed him. Not bad for a hungry boy from Ireland. "I needed this. I do have a father and what he did is horrific. But I didn't do it. 'I have had to out-run this my entire life, so learning about Nicholas and finding out what kind of person he was is just amazing to me. "I know he is the good one in the family line. He was a human and he was part of the community and loved. 'I believe I am drawing closer, learning to deal with emotions. Letting it out for the first time in my life has been therapeutic and difficult, but good.' Natasha adds: 'It is hard enough to read about it, let alone speak to someone who is the daughter of a serial killer, and that being her defining phrase that has always gone with her, she can't escape it. 'I just had so much respect for Donna, that she was able to live through that, overcome it, and also see that it was not normal, and break the cycle, make her own path - and also to tell others that if you have been through trauma, you can get through it.' Relative Secrets with Jane Seymour is streaming now on Acorn TV. 15 Donna with her husband Jim and daughter Hailey 15 Relative Secrets is hosted by Natasha Billson, left, and Jane Seymour, right Credit: Deirdre Brennan/AcornTV 15 Relative Secrets is streaming now on Acorn TV Family Credit: Deirdre Brennan/AcornTV
The Journal
2 days ago
- The Journal
The full story of how the operator of gossip site Tattle Life was unmasked in an Irish court
Aoife Moore & Sinéad O'Carroll TATTLE LIFE COULD now be the most consequential website you may never have heard of. The so-called gossip platform has been at the centre of a potentially landmark but until now secretive court case. Last week, the identity of the site's operator was uncovered for the first time during those legal proceedings. The full Tattle Life tale is more salacious than anything that was allowed to be posted - without verification or moderation – on the site itself as part of the operator's £320,000-a-year grift. Pseudonyms, incognito email addresses, cryptocurrency exchanges, proxy servers, VPNs, global payment services… the modern world provides tools aplenty to gift anonymity and protection to Internet entrepreneurs when they go rogue. So, how then did one Irish couple unmask the identity of one of the most-wanted men of the social media world? It's a story that brings us from Termonfeckin to Thailand, has us hearing from forensic accountants and Instagram influencers, and leads to judges googling for 'threads'. It's a story that has seen countless lives changed or ruined irrevocably. It's a story of how the Internet isn't always the anonymous place we deem it to be. And it's a story showing that free speech online may have as many consequences as it does in real life. Tattle Life was set up in 2017, quickly becoming one of the most notorious corners of the Internet for people who use social media as businesspeople or influencers. The basic-looking message board describes itself as a place for 'commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain'. Although many people are ignorant of its popularity or even existence, the site attracts up to 12 million visitors monthly. The views mostly come from the UK but there are threads related to a significant number of Irish personalities. One click through any conversation will have you running the gamut of insults – from messages about 'her energy being off' to jibes about 'dead daddy' (a literal reference to a woman whose father had died). Unsurprisingly, problematic weight gain and weight loss commentary is a mainstay. *** 'Some days I didn't feel like I could get out of bed,' Donna Sands says of 2021. When she did sleep, she woke up with a 'knot in her stomach'. The restless nights and the grim awakenings were not due to work concerns, business objectives or even Covid-19. Donna owns the clothing brand Sylkie which prides itself in being 'Sylkie chic, effortless and fun' and sells its wares online. Founded in 2020, the Sylkie Instagram page has 30,000 followers. As a byproduct of a modern fashion business, Donna herself is popular with over 20,000 people following her personal account on Instagram. Despite the pandemic, the headaches of the business were paling in comparison to the major issue in her life. Donna and her then partner, now husband, Neil Sands were being tormented and harassed online. A friend came to Donna during the week of 20 February 2021, telling her that people had been discussing the couple on a 'gossip' website called Tattle Life. Users mostly comment on the threads anonymously and in doing so, often claim to have inside knowledge about influencers and business people, much of it false, insulting and defamatory. The only rule to start a thread is that the target has a discernible following online. 'Neil barely had social media and had never heard of Tattle,' Donna recalls. But because I had shared photos or videos of him, both of us had our lives dissected for years. As Donna's profile online had risen with the success of her businesses, she began sharing her experiences and life online, which included Neil, a tech businessman with very little social media. *** The creation of the Tattle thread about the Sands', which would ultimately grow to 45 pages, consumed the couple's lives, left them fearing for their safety, their businesses and had a profound effect on their mental health. 'It went into themes,' Neil said. 'The first was clear defamation about our businesses and how we conducted our personal and private lives, horrendous stuff. 'The second was stalking. The day we got our house was supposed to be a special day, for instance. 'We had worked our whole lives to get this house. We were standing outside and this white car drove up and down the road all day. That same day, a photograph of the house was posted on Tattle.' There were other instances that have damaged Neil and Donna's trust in people. The couple, who live in County Antrim, were visiting Neil's hometown of Termonfeckin, drinking in a bar when a woman approached them. The group chatted for a while and the woman left. Donna immediately had a bad feeling. 'Neil is so open and trusting, whereas I've become more guarded with people now because of it,' she said. 'Forty minutes after the conversation, everything I had said to this person was posted onto Tattle.' Donna confronted the woman, a lawyer, who admitted she had written it. The harassment online was constant and the couple had repeatedly contacted Tattle in order to have it removed. 'We had sent five emails to get stuff taken down,' Neil says of correspondence fired off as early as 21 February 2021. 'I begged. I used the words, 'I'm begging you', it was humiliating.' The thread remained live. They heard from Tattle Life once – on 24 September 2021 – but the admin didn't remove the content; instead they made threats against the couple in order to protect the anonymity of posters. 'Then, no matter what we did – happy days, like getting engaged, getting married, everything was in the shadow of this bubble of hatred,' Donna adds. 'On my wedding day, on the morning getting ready, I was thinking; 'if I post this I'll be criticised', everything, no matter what it is, you're second guessing. I've no issue with people not liking my dress or whatever, but some of the things said were ridiculous. So untrue and damaging.' Donna and Neil Sands Instagram Instagram Neil said the mental toll began affecting how he carried out his work too. 'You know how 'a lie gets round the world, before the truth gets its shoes on'. I didn't even know where to start,' he said. 'I do some lecturing as part of my work, and I was paranoid that every time I stood up there, someone would google my name, and this is the first thing that would come up.' In one affidavit to court, the Sands' legal team outlined how messages such as 'we are watching you' led to hyper-vigilance and a feeling of being persistently scrutinised, even at home. Donna promised Neil and her family she would stop looking at the page. It was dragging her down and making it hard to live. 'I said I would stop, but I couldn't,' she said. It's so hard knowing it's all out there and there's nothing you can do.' The couple were already aware of the dozens of people who had previously tried and failed to take on Tattle Life. The owner was in the wind, masquerading as a woman named 'Helen McDougal'. Petitions to have the website removed failed. Police requests went unanswered. Dozens of articles and investigations in the press brought up nothing. However, Neil felt his background and contacts in the tech sector might help. He decided to try to do something about it. 'We were aware of people much richer than us who tried to tackle this,' he said. 'This man's inbox is full of solicitors' letters… and he got away with it for the best part of 10 years. We knew so many people had tried, and who are we? I'm a lowly tech nerd. Donna's in fashion. But we decided to dig into it and talk to lawyers. 'We knew it would be expensive but every morning it was the first thing I thought about and last thing at night, something had to change.' The couple approached Gateley Legal, a high-flying firm with an impressive record, but even with means and motivation they knew finding the operator would not be easy. 'He was a ghost,' Neil explains. 'He's multiple ghosts, he commands the platform on an admin level, but he's a moving target.' On 12 May 2023, Gateley Legal sent pre-action correspondence to TattleLife via its one and only publicised email – tattlelife@ It was the first step of an arduous and difficult search for accountability that would last for years, call in forensic tech, accountancy and legal professionals and span multiple continents. Statement of claim Six weeks later, nobody from or on behalf of Tattle Life had replied to Gateley Legal. So on 28 June 2023, over two years after they had first became aware of the thread about them on the website, the Sands' served a statement of claim to 'person or persons unknown operating under the pseudonym Tattle Life'. The document, filed by Peter Girvan for Gateley Legal, pointed not only to the anonymous nature of Tattle Life but also to the fact that the site was not registered with the Information Commissioner's Office nor Revenue & Customs in the UK while it was making about £320,000 per year through online advertising. In their claim, the Sands' put forward the argument that Tattle Life is widely recognised as a 'hate-filled forum where abuse, harassment, vapid tittle-tattle and invasive content targeting individuals posted by anonymous users is widespread and permitted'. Of the 45-page thread on the couple themselves, Neil and Donna's legal team described a 'mocking and cruel tone' that is 'wallowed-in by its anonymous participants'. The claim detailed the alleged instances of harassment, libel and invasion of privacy of and against the Sands'. In detailing the particulars of aggravated and exemplary damage, the statement of claim sets out how the content was directed at 'core features' of the Sands' personalities and attacked the 'sanctity of their marriage'. It also outlined how individual posters mocked Neil and Donna for taking steps to stop or limit the abuse. Through the court document, the Sands' said Tattle Life knowingly profits from inflicting misery. Importantly, they also asked for injunctive relief (that the thread about them should be removed and the details therein not repeated) and reporting restrictions (so they would not be named in relation to the action). Another vital request, for special damages for financial loss and damage arising from their search for the owner and assets of Tattle Life, was also made. Reporting restrictions were granted by Mr Justice Friedman on 23 June 2023. Ostensibly to protect the Sands' because of the ongoing publication of the thread, the restrictions also meant that open proceedings would not alert the (at that point) unknown defendants, potentially allowing them to conceal assets. Less than three months later, Mr Justice McAlinden confirmed an injunction to stop the continued publication of the thread and ordered the defendants (again, still unknown at this point) to disclose all data and information about 12 users who had posted to it. The judgement was entered by reason of the failure of the defendants to ever respond or appear. As a result, the judge said he would hold an assessment of damages hearing on 1 December of the same year. On that date, in the High Court of Mr Justice McAlinden, again nobody related to Tattle Life turned up. The judge's ruling statement was brief but powerful. 'The papers in this case make very upsetting reading,' he began. 'Before the Court is a young couple who are trying to do their best in life which includes running their separate businesses. '… the way in which the plaintiffs have been vilified by anonymous posters to this Tattle Life website is quite appalling. This should not happen and there should be a speedy way to get to the bottom of these incidents with a view to closing these sites down… 'Unfortunately, the impenetrable nature of the web and the ability of these individuals to post anonymously are worrying matters which conspire to prevent speedy justice being achieved in cases of this nature.' Advertisement According to Mr Justice McAlinden, the posts in question 'utterly trash the reputations' of the Sands' who have been 'grossly defamed and severely harassed'. The judge himself said he did an experiment to see how easily the thread could be accessed. His conclusion – it was simple. Screenshot of Tattle Life, still in operation 'This is clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit,' Mr Justice McAlinden determined. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism, the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism which in reality constitutes behaviour which is solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery under the pretext of exposing or calling out so called 'influencers'.' He predicted a day of reckoning would come for those behind Tattle Life – and those who post on it. 'In order to hasten that day of reckoning, it is appropriate that the court makes an award of damages to each plaintiff in in this case,' he said, making an order in respect of £150,000 in damages each to Donna and Neil Sands. In also awarding costs on an indemnity basis because of the defendant's continuous 'contemptuous' behaviour, the Northern Ireland court allowed the Sands' search for accountability to continue apace as their costs should eventually be covered. *** Just under a year later, Gateley Legal was back in court with a number of requests – each one highlighting the scale of the challenge they had to officially hook their now chief suspect. In the interim, Nardello & Co. – a London and New York based investigator – had been hired by Gateley Legal to track the 'ghost' of Tattle Life. Alan Kennedy and Finn Duggan were put on the case by the firm recently named 'Investigations Consultancy of the Year' by Global Investigations Review (GIR), 'the hub for global coverage of corporate investigations and their aftermath'. Their task was to unmask – and track down – the imaginary 'Helen McDougal'. Led by lawyers, former journalists and tech investigators, Nardello sells itself on these types of missions. Their employees' day jobs are finding things or people that others do not want found. The reasons can be anything from messy divorces to corporate smear campaigns. Kennedy says that everyone, no matter how hard they try, will leave a trace online. Those who spend an inordinate amount of time on the World Wide Web leave a distinct print. They can be profiled. What kind of person are they? What are his interests? 'The investigation included the piecing together of countless, disparate fragments of the operator's multiple online identities, aliases and personas, amassed over the course of two decades,' Kennedy said on Sunday. The clues were in domain names, company filings, social media profiles, past businesses and former websites that 'lay the foundation for Tattle Life'. Kennedy and Duggan studied the technical and structural features of Tattle Life and found other websites which were similar and used the same mix of programmes. Patterns emerged. The technical side of things married up with the public record. Language was also studied. Style of writing, errors or preferred turns of phrase, unusual or incorrect punctuation habits can be revealing. The investigators found evidence, including subtle grammatical errors and recurring themes in a vegan website called Nest and Glow run by someone purporting to be one Bastian Durward. The operator of Tattle Life was sophisticated but not infallible. The Nardello report established that they consistently used the same or similar passwords across various online accounts. The codes were obtained through a confidentiality agreement and submitted to the High Court under seal. They also left marks when studying in Brighton – long before Tattle existed or before they realised they might like, some day, to hide everything. Old photographs and videos that had been posted by the operator were found. The details in the background of those photos and videos led to geo-location being possible. The tracing method can sometimes pinpoint more than one online identity but a discounting exercise was undertaken to strike off any other possibilities that emerged with the same name or similar online tag. Believing they had pieced the puzzle together, Kennedy and Duggan spent another month going through all of the evidence from the beginning to end. They feared the operator may be framing someone else and, out of abundance of caution, they had to entertain the possibility they had the wrong person entirely. During an assessment of damages hearing earlier in proceedings, Mr Justice McAlinden asked Paul Girvan if any individual had been identified yet. Girvan's reply was illuminating: '[The plaintiffs] are fortunate in the sense that they have access to resources that others would not and then to date they have spent obviously the money in these proceedings but they have instructed a company which is a world leading investigation firm…. essentially for the last year they have been working with the material they have been provided, including the material that was garnered from the Norwich Pharmacal Order and at the minute we have a draft report from them but it is not one at the minute they are not willing for it to be used in court but we are getting there if that makes sense.' Norwich Pharmacal Orders are legal instruments which compel a third party – like a social media company, bank or payments firm – to disclose information that could help identify a wrongdoer in a legal dispute. They, along with Bankers Trust Third Party Orders and Freezing Orders, were used extensively in the case. Freezing orders meant Bond was effectively locked out of accounts and couldn't spend more than a personal weekly limit set by the court. It also precluded him from dissipating any assets. The Sands' nor their legal team wanted to rely on any single piece of information or communication before asking any court to remove reporting restrictions. Taken together, forensic tracing, analysis of financial disclosures following court orders and the Nardello report, a compelling picture of the true operator of Tattle Life emerged. Any potentially lingering hesitancy to publicly name Sebastian Henry Bond as the man behind the site was dispelled when Neil Sands received a legal letter from a solicitor retained by Bond. In that letter, dated 10 June, the solicitor described Bond as 'a founder' of Tattle Life. University-educated with technical expertise in software development, Bond was without doubt Helen McDougal. And Bastian Durward. He had set up Tattle Life. He had profited from its operations for the past eight years. He was the 'person unknown'. The next step for Gateley Legal was to return to court to ask for the lifting of reporting restrictions and the substitution on all orders and claims of 'person unknown' to 'Sebastian Bond'. On Friday, 13 June they were successful on both counts. *** But where is Sebastian Bond? And where is his money? Without knowing where Bond is and making sure he couldn't dissipate his assets, the judgement that the Sands' had won in September and December 2023 would be on paper only. The Nardello report, dated November 2024, revealed Tattle Life's financial structure, banking arrangements, revenue streams, digital assets and operational infrastructure. It also identified which third parties could hold important information which would be used to further untangle Bond's corporate web. The investigators ascertained that Bond was the sole director of a company called Yuzu Zest Limited, incorporated in the UK in December 2019. From June 2023 to March 2025, there were regular recurring credits as well as one-off exceptional payments between Yuzu and Bond's accounts. The court heard the patterns of the payments supported the inference of an 'embedded and complex financial relationship'. Yuzu Zest Limited went into voluntary liquidation on 21 October 2024, a process which seems to be ongoing. However, it has also filed a declaration of solvency with an estimated surplus of almost £900,000. The Sands' worried that Bond was using – and continues to use – a 'corporate veil' to escape liability. Kennedy and Duggan, through a cyber investigation tool, were also able to link Bond to cryptocurrency exchanges. In an affidavit in late 2024, Peter Barr of Gateley Legal, said there were real concerns that Bond may dispose of assets related to Tattle Life and Yuzu. He argued that Bond is a man with technical expertise in software development who has displayed an 'acute awareness of digital security and finance'. The court heard that he has no fixed residence or tangible assets and has provided varying birth dates. 'The use of digital banking services and cryptocurrency exchanges, which often elude conventional regulatory scrutiny, suggests a strategy aimed at preserving anonymity and enabling asset protection,' Barr argued in his affidavit. The Freezing Orders on Bond's and Yuzu's assets were applied for to try to safeguard the High Court's damages ruling. They were granted on 9 December 2024 to the tune of £1.8 million in order to cover growing costs, as well as damages. To life the freezing orders, Bond must pay at least £1,077,173.00. Orders for Norwich Pharmacal and Bankers Trust Disclosures were also made against third parties and led to the identification of another company, Kumquat Tree Limited, related to Tattle Life's finances. Incorporated in Hong Kong on 22 February 2024, the company received money that was generated by Tattle Life's revenue-raising activities. As with Yuzu, Bond was the sole director and shareholder of Kumquat. The revelations also meant another return to court on 20 March 2025 to further ask for a freezing order in relation to Kumquat and more third-party orders to compel financial institutions to provide disclosures of all relevant records about Bond, Yuzu and Kumquat. The information furnished from this round identified multiple bank and financial accounts to which monies made by Tattle Life was deposited. The accounts span several asset management firms and investment banks. Spending habits revealed in statements included regular transactions in supermarkets, pharmacies, petrol stations and hospitality venues across the UK point to physical presence in the country through 2023 and into much of 2024. These ended on 24 March 2025. *** After this flurry of court activity, the thread about Donna and Neil was finally deleted from Tattle Life on 11 May this year, 20 months after the initial injunction. 'We were so elated and it shows it can be done,' Donna said in the aftermath of Friday's hearing. Since then, the story has exploded. The news spread across titles all over the world – every outlet from The Guardian to the Daily Mail has covered the story in the UK, while it's also reached the pages of Cosmopolitan and television screens through Good Morning Britain. Where to next? The couple is attempting to take legal action against everyone who posted the thread and is encouraging others to make sure they have gathered any evidence of the threads that named them specifically. For Bond, there will be attempts to freeze even more of his assets. He is believed to currently be in Thailand but he also has significant links to Bali, Indonesia. 'I'm so happy to have his name on his docket, a man hiding behind a woman's identity, encouraging people to the darkest corner of the internet to tear each other down,' says Donna. 'It's so nice to see the support we have, we're overwhelmed, we knew there was a lot of people damaged by it. We've had messages from across the world, I hope we can use this good news now to lift each other up.' Neil believes this is a turning point. 'There hasn't been many turning points in the history of online bullying and harassment, but this is one. 'It's not a threat to free speech but consequence-free speech – speech that crosses the bridge into criminality. It's not really over. It's not over until he's in front of a court to answer questions. 'He's had one weekend of what everyone bullied on Tattle has had for years.' Tattle Life was basically uncontactable. Uncontrollable. It had one tick-the-box email address or contact form address on its ugly interface. In limiting the ability to reach out, Tattle Life was deliberately frustrating, deliberately unknowable. But, in the most devastating evidence captured during the case, a third-party disclosure confirmed this decision was another mistake, another weak point in the shield of anonymity. But now it is known. Mr Sebastian Henry Bond is the individual who operates the email address tattlelife@ Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone... A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation. Learn More Support The Journal
The Irish Sun
29-04-2025
- The Irish Sun
Royal Marine guarding nuclear weapons grilled by terror cops over alleged neo-Nazi links
A ROYAL Marine guarding nuclear weapons has been grilled by counter-terror police over alleged neo-Nazi links. Commando John Carr was interviewed last week when he flew to Scotland. Advertisement 3 John Carr serves with 43 Commando, guarding the UK's Trident 2 missiles and nuclear submarines 3 Carr was interviewed last week over alleged neo-Nazi links Credit: YouTube He said it was 'political bullying' as he had campaigned against women joining the Marines, which he claimed lowered physical standards. But security sources said he was grilled over his extremist views and links to far-right groups. Carr serves with 43 Commando, guarding the The Sun understands he is a member of the far-right Homeland Party — which splintered from a neo-Nazi party in 2023. Advertisement READ MORE UK NEWS Speaking on YouTube Carr said: 'I am a member of a political party. 'I don't think it's their business or anyone's business to know what that is, but know that it isn't the main political party. 'It isn't Labour.' Carr lost his security clearance and will work from home pending an investigation . Advertisement Most read in The Sun Police Scotland declined to comment. 3 Carr serves at HMNB Clyde, Faslane, in Argyll and Bute Credit: Alamy Trident nuke missile misfires and lands the sea just yards away from submarine
