Man and the Mask

Paul Dadge

Description

On 7 July 2005, Paul Dadge boarded an underground train heading towards the offices of AOL in Hammersmith, London. Like many that day, he did not complete his journey. Forced to abandon his route, he continued on foot towards Edgware Road where the horror of 7/7 began to unfold in front of him. As survivors emerged from the station, Paul Dadge set up a makeshift triage area to care for the injured. That morning he was photographed crossing the street and escorting one victim whose face was covered with a surgical mask. That image went right round the world within hours. And for Paul, an incredible set of consequences followed that included almost standing for parliament and being a key figure in the Hacked Off campaign against press intrusion and phone hacking. This is his story.

Sujets

• Droit et juridique
• List of terrorist incidents

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 06 juillet 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781784626181
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Man and the Mask
Paul Dadge

Copyright © 2015 Paul Dadge and Tony Horne
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
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ISBN 978 1784626 181
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Matador ® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

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To my wife Alex and children Beatrice and Thomas.
I'll be around more now.
Contents

Cover


Acknowledgements


Foreword


Wednesday 6 July 2005


Thursday 7 July 2005


Walking Into The Headlights


21 July 2005


Stranger Things Have Happened


Almost A Year Later


The First Anniversary


To Hull and Back


A Polite Inquiry


Hacked Off


Not A Fair Cop


In Memoriam:
Acknowledgements
Firstly, I would, of course, like to thank the many kind people whose lives have entered my own because of 7 July 2005. My thoughts are always with you and always will be.
That day brought consequences. As a result, due gratitude extends to my former colleagues at AOL and my current team at PC Paramedics who have regularly found our professional lives on hold because of 7/7.
Equally, I would like specifically to recognise volunteer colleagues in the emergency services whom I now work with: their dedication to helping others is highly commendable and rarely rewarded.
Thank you also to the team at Hacked Off who continue to fight press intrusion.
On a purely practical level, I could have not completed this book without the help of Jeremy, Rachel and the team at Matador.
My thanks also go to our proofreader Matt Rance, the ProofProfessor, at www.proofprofessor.com . Finally, my thanks go to ghostwriter Tony Horne who shaped this project from start to finish. There is more on Tony at www.tonyhornebooks.com .
The last word goes to you for reading – thank you for taking the time to do so.
Paul Dadge
July 2015
Foreword
Ten years have passed since that day. I’ve had a lot of time to think, as has everyone. Nobody will forget that morning and its aftermath, whether you were a victim, in or around London, or just watching on the news.
It was Britain’s 9/11.
In the time since, I have obviously acquired information and knowledge that I wasn’t aware of on that morning. In particular, I have lent heavily on two reports that have been in the public domain for some time in a bid to show how my feelings on the day mirrored or jarred with the reality at the time. I have also borrowed much of this evidence to place into layman’s terms long pages of data that the general public rarely have time to read, but I hope you might through the eyes of a passer-by.
In the following pages, I hope it is clear where my thoughts are of the moment and those formed since, as we all put the pieces together. Either way, I am sure it serves as a telling reminder of our own mortality. You don’t have to have been there to appreciate the story. I know you will reflect on your own existence through my account.
I am neither a victim nor a hero, despite being called both on many occasions. I just happened to be there on that July morning, though, as you will see, my life also had a history of being drawn to danger whether I knew it or not.
What I couldn’t know is that what happened in London would take me on a route through life that I could never have foreseen, from finding myself front-page news the morning after to campaigning with Hugh Grant.
Both these and the numerous other places that day took me to are a direct consequence of being in the wrong place at the right time.
Wednesday 6 July 2005
‘The International Olympic Committee has the honour of announcing that the Games of the 30th Olympiad of 2012 are awarded to the City of London.’
The eyes of the world were watching the UK. All roads led to the capital.
As we watched the live feed coming into the multiple TV screens in my offices at AOL in Hammersmith, I reflected on what a mad few days it had been in the city. There was a carnival, warm, friendly atmosphere. It was a privilege to be there, and I barely knew the place. Had London known a July like it?
The previous Saturday, Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure had reunited for Live 8 – not quite a Live Aid 2 some twenty years on, but of a similar sentiment. With concerts from Berlin to South Africa, the world had watched as Will Smith clicked his fingers to billions watching. Every click represented the death of a child. Some twenty years since the famine in Ethiopia, it seemed that in many ways we were back where we had been.
Revellers in London did have a conscience and knew that this was more political than 1985. But essentially they were still going to a gig on a warm July Saturday where many of the world’s favourite artists would perform.
It would be easy in time to forget the cause. And that motivation was the very driving force behind Sir Bob and Midge doing it all over again.
And now the G8 summit was beginning on this very day at Gleneagles in Scotland. Geldof had urged the UK to march on the venue as world leaders from the across the planet, including George W Bush, chewed the fat around a table, making grandiose statements that might never happen.
There were two key issues: climate change and Make Poverty History – the latter the wristband of the day. Debt reduction for African nations struck at the core of Live 8. That was what the concert was about, deliberately timed for maximum impact with what was happening in Scotland.
At a time of relative austerity in the UK, a few years before the recession that would follow around 2008 and onwards, the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer, and the latter could not break the cycle because of its inability to repay.
Some criticism was levelled at artists at Live 8 – many of whom between them could have wiped out some countries’ negative equities.
These weren’t really the issues. Geldof wanted governments to act, and whether a rockstar’s wealth could wipe out significant sums of money was not the argument. It was an infrastructure debate, and a chance for the next generation to move on without the burden of their forefathers.
I suspect there is little recollection now of both that global concert and the G8 summit. What I could see straightaway, though, like many others, was the huge irony of the timing. In the moment when Britain led a world in raising funds and awareness through music, whilst hosting the key decision-makers on the planet, a delayed satellite feed from Singapore had broken the news to the assembled crowd at Trafalgar Square. We, too, were about to get a huge bill.
The Olympics were coming to London.

*
It was a surreal moment, not just for the background of Live 8 and G8. Because of the delay on the feed from Asia, a cheer was heard before the IOC had finished its sentence declaring London the winner of the bidding process.
On a makeshift stage, I am not entirely sure Steve Cram and Kelly Holmes could believe it either. The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone and many others had flown out for the announcement but the smart money had been on France. Somehow London had pulled it off. What an incredible few days to be in the city, and what a decade of prosperity would surely follow.
Cram and Holmes had thrived in their own disciplines at Olympic Games in different eras. Who could ever forget that golden era of middle-distance running? Indeed, another of that generation’s great names, Lord Sebastian Coe, had been the Bid Ambassador and then Chairman, and had worked tirelessly to bring the Games home.
These people knew what it was like to taste victory. It would be every athlete’s dream to win gold in your own country. For the rest of us, it meant construction, better transport, more media and internet opportunities, better catering, more tourism, greater facilities including a new stadium and, befitting the Olympic criteria, the need for legacy.
2012 was seven years away even now, but anyone applying to host has to show a plan for after. Greece, the hosts of 2004, were already heading towards troubled territory. Whether anyone held nations to account retrospectively on the issue of legacy is a moot point. There is little you can do once the Games are over. But in the seven years before, you will hear anything, from getting Britain moving and lowering obesity levels to huge new investments in abandoned parts of London, whilst enriching other parts of the country like Weymouth, who would ultimately get the sailing.
Winning the Olympic bid, just like pop at the weekend, was of huge political significance, regardless of how the everyday man in the street might simply see it as sport and pop.
That didn’t matter today. On 6 July 2005, nobody could quite believe it.
As I hit the sack in the Holiday Inn, King’s Cross, I knew London was the place to be. It was clear the world’s media had descended on us. The land of opportunity had come calling. We would worry about the £6 billion or £9 billion bill later. Nobody seemed sure of the exact cost today, but it didn’t matter if Lord Coe had forgotten to include the VAT!
There can be few that went to bed that night doubting that the nation had a conscience in urging the G8 to a