0:02

This is a Global Player original

0:04

podcast. Filthy

0:06

Ritual is a global original podcast

0:09

produced by Global & Novel. This

0:13

episode contains strong language and

0:15

mentions of suicide, which may be

0:17

distressing to some listeners. Last

0:20

episode on Filthy Ritual. It's

0:25

a great story, isn't it? It's

0:27

a great story, but it may be a film.

0:30

Juliette De Souza and a group of

0:32

her most vocal victims find

0:34

themselves in court. It was posing

0:36

questions to me which were becoming increasingly

0:39

difficult to answer.

0:41

In the end, the jury sides with the

0:43

victims and convicts Juliette

0:45

De Souza on all 23 counts of

0:48

fraud and obtaining property

0:50

by deception. For

0:52

me, just a massive sense of relief.

0:55

I remember I had tears in my eyes. But

0:58

the story does not end

1:00

there.

1:01

While

1:03

she was under investigation, she started

1:06

another scam.

1:14

It is an absolutely icy

1:18

Friday in London. It's cold enough that

1:20

I can see my breath. Why are we here, Hannah? Well,

1:22

firstly, we're making a series about Hampstead. So

1:25

that's where we are. We have come to

1:27

Hampstead Ponds. It is beautiful. We're

1:30

looking at, I believe this is the mixed pond in the summer. It's

1:32

the toy boat pond. Oh, well, like where they have the

1:34

swans, the pedalo swans. No, like

1:36

I think where you can come drive a little. Oh,

1:39

and have a midlife crisis. Exactly. See

1:41

that? Remote control boat. No, Timmy, you

1:43

can't play with the boat.

1:44

Back in episode two, Hannah visited

1:46

a modern day shaman, Dalina

1:49

Dofo, from an organisation called

1:51

Ancestral Voices. We were trying

1:54

to get closer to the heart of shamanism,

1:56

not just to understand the facts of this story,

1:59

but to try to... to feel

2:01

them too. Everybody

2:03

has this thing we call the intuition panel.

2:06

In its simplest sense, shamanism

2:10

is an understanding and a focus

2:12

of working with nature itself.

2:15

I dream about tidal waves a lot. Okay.

2:18

What are the tidal waves doing? Are they destroying

2:21

things? Oh yeah. You perhaps might

2:23

be removing yourself

2:25

from the things that you need to keep

2:28

yourself connected to.

2:30

And so here I am, trying

2:32

to reconnect with the water. Ocean

2:35

is the mother energy, the ocean that gives

2:37

us food, sustenance. You

2:39

perhaps need a form of grounding in your life.

2:43

What does that mean? It's

2:46

an anxiety combative thing.

2:49

So Dallin gave you a specific ritual

2:52

to do for your grounding and that's

2:54

why we find ourselves hanging out.

2:57

At the Torii Boat Barn.

2:58

You need

3:00

to find the most beautiful path you

3:02

can find Hannah. If you can find

3:04

a kind of quiet idyllic river even

3:07

better, give yourself 10-15 minutes

3:09

of telling yourself positive

3:11

things. Of telling yourself

3:14

things that will uplift your spirit.

3:17

I'll see you on the other side. All right. When

3:20

I'm healed. Okay. Bye.

3:23

I'm going to

3:25

go to that one in the middle. Okay. I'm

3:28

walking far away

3:30

from all of these people. There's so many people here. Don't

3:32

these people have jobs? It's Friday afternoon. I'm

3:37

supposed to sit here and look at the water and reflect. I'm

3:39

not telling you not but I am telling the water

3:40

in my head what

3:43

I'm worried about. And

3:45

I always thought I had that dream

3:47

because when I was a kid I was

3:50

in one of those rubber dinghy things at

3:53

the beach. And my

3:55

dad was pulling me out to sea and then the

3:57

string broke.

3:57

shot

4:00

out and sort of propelled me and this other girl that

4:02

were in there, what felt really far out. And

4:05

then I was under the water and I couldn't touch the bottom

4:07

and I was somersaulting. I felt like it

4:10

was so deep. I

4:12

felt like I wasn't gonna come up.

4:13

I

4:16

always assumed that

4:20

I have that dream when I'm

4:22

stressed and anxious because

4:24

it's probably the first time I felt real

4:26

fear. But it turns out

4:28

that water's

4:32

a lot nicer than I think it is. I

4:35

think it helps to remember how small you are. These

4:38

ducks don't give a fuck.

4:42

I suppose the positives are that

4:46

everything is temporary. I

4:49

go all blows over in the end. Nothing

4:51

stays the same, like waves. See

4:54

what I did?

4:56

I have to say good things that are gonna

4:58

happen. Which is that everything's gonna be

5:00

fine. If it's the river,

5:02

I would give it some flowers. You

5:04

know, you can just bring some flowers with you after

5:06

your meditation. This becomes a symbol

5:09

of your appreciation.

5:12

The river has been there listening to

5:14

you all along as you've aired your

5:16

worries and your frustrations and

5:18

your positivity. It's been like your counselor.

5:21

So you in return, you give back.

5:25

All right, I'm gonna put, I don't think I'm gonna be able

5:27

to reach my hand in, but I'm gonna say thank you. Thank

5:29

you, Walter. That

5:36

splash that you just heard, or more like a plop

5:38

really, was the sound of me throwing one

5:41

singular rose from a Tesco's finest bunch

5:43

of flowers into the hamster

5:45

teeth toy boat pond. Maybe

5:48

I'm healed now. I do feel grounded. I

5:51

feel like water is grounding. Parks

5:53

are grounding, air is grounding.

5:54

So

5:57

nice.

6:07

I'm Saruti Bala. I'm Hannah McGuire.

6:11

From the teams at Novel and Global, you're

6:14

listening to Filthy

6:17

Ritual. This

6:33

is Episode 6, an

6:35

epiphany at the Hampstead Toy Boat Pond.

6:42

For all the shamanism, the second

6:44

sight, the air of supernatural

6:46

mystery that shrouds Juliet de

6:48

Souza,

6:49

if you scratch the surface,

6:51

there is something much more

6:54

mundanely criminal

6:56

going on. And in the aftermath

6:58

of Juliet's conviction, Fiona

7:00

Graham and the other members of the investigating

7:03

team released a statement. They

7:06

were seeking any other victims to come forward

7:08

to the police, anonymously

7:10

or otherwise. Because I felt

7:13

like there would be many more, I

7:16

could understand people not wanting

7:18

to necessarily open an investigation

7:20

and go through everything that the victims had gone

7:23

through, but I was surprised that we didn't get any

7:25

calls, because there clearly

7:27

were many, many other people,

7:30

because we were aware of other

7:32

types of frauds that she was involved

7:34

in. Frauds that had nothing to

7:36

do with healing or second

7:38

sight

7:39

at all.

7:42

In 2014, with exhaustion

7:44

and relief, Keith Bender,

7:47

Maria Feeney, Sylvia Eves and

7:49

all their friends and fellow victims, are

7:51

spilling out of the front door of Blackfriars

7:54

Court into the street outside.

7:57

Juliet de Souza has been convicted

7:59

of fraud.

8:00

But that's not all Juliet

8:02

had been up to.

8:12

Keith Bender, Maria Feeney, Sylvia

8:14

Eves. They're all milling

8:16

around outside Blackfriars Court that day.

8:19

It's like a circus out there. Thanking

8:21

each other, congratulating each other. But

8:24

among them was another group of people

8:26

that Keith doesn't recognise.

8:29

There are all these ladies outside, Filipino

8:32

ladies. I kind of thought, what's going

8:34

on here? Keith

8:35

was approached by one of these women, and

8:38

she asked him, are you Mr Keith

8:40

Bender? I said, yes. The

8:42

woman proceeds to tell him, she

8:45

is owed money by D'Souza 2.

8:49

£75,000 worth. £75,000? That's

8:52

about...what? And

8:57

I mean, it wasn't just one woman, I mean, there were like

8:59

dozens of them. Maria

9:02

and Eileen remember this too. They'd

9:05

noticed the group had been attending Blackfriars Court throughout

9:08

the entirety of Juliet D'Souza's

9:10

trial.

9:18

There were quite a few Filipino people bobbing

9:20

in and out. My assumption

9:22

was that these were people who'd been heard.

9:25

Suddenly, Maria remembered something

9:27

else. A clue. Did

9:30

something click to my mind with those little photographs

9:34

that I found in my package? That would be it, wouldn't it?

9:36

Yeah. And we could never get

9:38

to the bottom of it. Years earlier,

9:41

in her meticulous study of Juliet's paperwork,

9:44

Maria had found a lot of little photographs

9:46

of unidentified people. Most

9:49

had looked to her to be East or Southeast

9:51

Asian in appearance. There were little photographs,

9:54

passport photographs, of

9:57

Chinese, Filipino. We didn't.

10:00

No. Maria just couldn't make any

10:02

sense of it at the time. But

10:04

it seemed to all click into place the

10:06

day of the conviction, when she

10:08

too was approached by a woman.

10:12

And this woman explained that

10:14

Juliet had promised to help her sort

10:16

out her immigration paperwork, that

10:18

she charged her thousands of pounds,

10:22

and then never followed through. So

10:26

they started to tell me about the visas. I

10:28

was exhausted. But I said, right,

10:31

I said, no, have you got any paperwork on this thing? Oh,

10:34

yes, yes, we've got a file. And I said,

10:36

OK, well, she's going to be sentenced. And

10:38

so I said, bring a file along.

10:41

They brought the file, big, big, big file, you know. This

10:44

is what she's done. This is what she's done. This is what she's

10:46

done. Maria introduced the group

10:49

to one of the detectives working

10:51

with the Met police.

10:54

She says she was startled both by how elaborate

10:56

this other fraud was and

10:59

by the timing of it all. So

11:02

she was in court, being tried,

11:04

being convicted, being sentenced, and

11:07

was still continuing to commit crime. She's

11:10

a busy lady, wasn't she?

11:12

Reflecting years later,

11:14

Juliet's old neighbour, David, came

11:17

to a similar conclusion.

11:18

On the surface, there was a certain

11:21

amount of charm, and yet you were clearly

11:23

aware there was something else underneath her.

11:25

I believe that she was a person

11:27

who was like a knife

11:30

in a velvet glove.

11:32

And when we asked him if he'd heard anything

11:35

about a visa scam that might have been conducted

11:37

by Juliet, he immediately

11:39

had a memory to share.

11:43

There

11:43

was a day when four

11:46

guys came to the door. In the middle of the day,

11:49

hammering at the door, shouting, asking

11:51

if she was

11:53

inside. She wasn't inside as it happens. And

11:56

that was alarming. And

12:00

I went up to them and said, what's

12:03

the problem? And they explained

12:05

that they

12:08

had been promised that

12:10

the woman living there worked

12:13

in the home office and could arrange

12:15

for visas at a price.

12:23

So this one, actually I bought a

12:25

long time ago, back in the late

12:28

80s. The voice you're hearing here

12:31

is Jean Alcantara. He's standing

12:33

in a narrow office space. So that one, the

12:36

mother and child, is by an artist

12:39

called Aris Bagtas. This

12:41

one here is a

12:43

painting by an artist called

12:45

René Robles.

12:47

Jean's office is full of bright artwork

12:50

and he's giving us a bit of a tour. His claim

12:53

to fame is that he was

12:55

the only person who did a nude of

12:58

guess who, Nicole Kidman. Jean

13:01

is something of a leader for London's Filipino community.

13:04

Here in his office, there's filing

13:06

cabinets, stacks of paper, a whiteboard, a microwave,

13:09

two kettles, lots of folders full

13:11

of paperwork, all numbered. It's

13:13

full,

13:14

but the main thing you notice is the

13:16

art. This one is a price-winning

13:19

painting about the national hero,

13:21

Dr. Houseriz Al.

13:24

Almost none of the paintings are

13:26

hanging on the walls of this cramped space.

13:30

They're stacked on top of cabinets or leaning

13:32

against walls in vertical piles. This

13:35

used to be my garage, but

13:37

when the pandemic happened, we

13:39

converted it to an office.

13:42

So the artwork doesn't quite fit. He

13:44

picks up another painting. It's of a Filipino

13:47

woman washing clothes in a tub. In

13:49

the background, there's a waterfall,

13:51

a verdant forest. So this one is

13:53

the sort of thing that people love to see because

13:55

when we go home, that's the view. This

13:59

is about the flavor. But that one is birds.

14:02

They're lucky paintings. The birds bring

14:04

in luck to the office. Gina

14:07

Cantara is an immigration consultant.

14:10

He's been one since 2005. I

14:13

sort people's situations

14:16

out. I've helped probably

14:18

thousands already. People

14:21

with no visas, people wanting to become

14:24

British. So it's very satisfying.

14:27

When you get

14:29

a victory from the home office or when

14:32

they get victory in the tribunal,

14:34

you can see people's faces. They

14:37

cry here.

14:38

We're in Jean's office because he's got

14:40

a client he wants us to know about, someone

14:44

who apparently also knew Juliette De Souza.

14:46

We're going to call her Evangeline to protect her identity.

14:51

She attended this meeting with about

14:53

nine other people. Evangeline

14:55

had learned about Juliette De Souza via

14:58

word of mouth. She, along with

15:00

a few others, had been promised that

15:02

Juliette would be able to sort out their

15:04

immigration situation.

15:06

The fee was going to be between £7,000 and £10,000 to

15:10

produce an ID card.

15:12

That very first meeting, Evangeline

15:15

pays £500 in cash. No

15:18

receipt.

15:19

After that meeting, Juliette

15:22

apparently came to her flat

15:24

and collected £4,000 in cash. Again,

15:26

no receipt.

15:27

But not long after this, Juliette

15:31

disappeared.

15:33

That's it. In her situation, she couldn't

15:36

really do anything about it. She just

15:38

didn't hear anymore. Someone

15:44

in her situation would be scared to even

15:46

go to the police. And by in

15:48

her situation, Jean

15:50

means that Evangeline

15:52

was an undocumented migrant living

15:55

in the UK

15:56

without visa status. The

15:58

realities of living in the UK. without documentation

16:01

can be pretty bleak, especially

16:04

under a complicated web of policies collectively

16:07

known in the UK as a hostile

16:09

environment,

16:11

designed essentially to make the UK

16:13

so unlivable for undocumented migrants

16:16

that they're forced to leave. Evangeline

16:18

had first arrived in the UK back

16:20

in 2007 on

16:22

a valid student visa. She

16:25

had an enrolment in a home and social

16:27

care college.

16:28

It's the route to become a

16:30

caregiver in the UK. But

16:32

in reality, once she arrived,

16:35

she worked. She had three children

16:37

in the Philippines. She had a

16:39

partner. The partner was a driver,

16:43

so not earning enough, and he

16:46

eventually abandoned the

16:48

children anyway. That's not the

16:50

life that you want for yourself, for your children.

16:53

The reality is, whatever you earn here will

16:56

be many more times higher

16:58

than what you get back home. I've just

17:00

been to the Philippines.

17:02

Onions here are maybe,

17:04

let's say,

17:05

99p or 130 a kilo, depending

17:09

on if it's the purple or the brown

17:12

one. You know how much they are in

17:14

the Philippines at the moment. The

17:16

last time I was there, it was about 600 pesos,

17:20

which is about £8. I

17:25

mean, this is a third world country. Where

17:27

would people get the money from?

17:30

It's a difficult situation for ordinary

17:32

people. With

17:35

Filipinos, if somebody goes overseas,

17:38

that person helps other members of

17:40

the family.

17:41

By the time it came to renew her visa,

17:44

if Angeline was stuck,

17:46

she couldn't pretend she'd been studying.

17:48

But

17:48

she couldn't go home either. People

17:51

were relying on the money she was sending, so

17:54

she became undocumented.

17:56

You're definitely not allowed to

17:58

work. You cannot have a tendency. agreement.

18:00

You're not supposed to have a bank account. You

18:03

cannot register with a GP.

18:05

If you go to the hospital, maybe

18:07

they'll treat you, but you owe them money.

18:09

And then there's the fear of the authorities.

18:12

They could be stopped on the street. They

18:14

could get raided. It's not an

18:16

easy life for undocumented.

18:20

So when they get a chance to

18:23

regularize the situation, they go for

18:25

it.

18:26

And if someone named Juliette

18:28

de Souza would have come along promising

18:31

British citizenship, a passport, an ID,

18:34

for a price,

18:36

that offer can look pretty enticing.

18:39

Which is how the scammers

18:41

get them. They promise

18:44

heaven and earth, you know, like in

18:46

the Souza's case.

18:47

Evangeline remembers Juliette as

18:49

well-spoken, believable, but

18:52

when she found out the truth...

18:53

...she was

18:55

disappointed because she saved that

18:57

money and paid her

18:59

instead of sending to her children.

19:04

It's been over 15 years since Evangeline

19:06

first arrived in the UK,

19:08

and about a decade since her alleged experiences

19:11

with Juliette de Souza.

19:13

She's still in touch with Jean. And

19:15

Jean says Evangeline's

19:18

visa status is still

19:20

up in the air. She

19:23

has tried to legalize her situation,

19:26

but the home office refused. They're

19:28

waiting for news on a renewed application.

19:31

So hopefully we'll hear good news

19:33

in a few months' time. As we sit

19:36

in his office, Jean looks through

19:38

old emails for mentions of Juliette de Souza's

19:40

name. And it comes up a lot.

19:43

The stories Jean was hearing. They

19:45

weren't limited to undocumented migrants

19:47

either. In December 2013, Filipina

19:50

sent an email.

19:54

In it, she lists six alleged

19:56

victims of a woman they refer to as

19:58

Darcy. Juliette

20:00

de Souza, living in Hampstead.

20:03

This immigration fraudster took their

20:05

documents, like passports, birth

20:07

certificates and so on. They

20:10

encouraged vulnerable Filipino students

20:12

and professionals who at

20:15

the time still got valid visas,

20:18

and they were charged tens

20:21

of thousands of pounds to make them British

20:23

citizens.

20:25

But the promised citizenship never

20:28

materialised. They were trying

20:30

to recover the money, but

20:33

she stopped contacting them,

20:36

and she kept changing her number,

20:38

even her home address. The

20:41

email claims that de Souza victimised

20:43

more than 100 Filipino migrants

20:46

in the UK. Another man, we'll

20:48

call him Oscar, says he paid Juliette

20:51

de Souza nearly £20,000 back

20:55

in 2013. Enough

20:57

to supposedly cover his partner and children,

21:00

who were all also undocumented.

21:04

Oscar and his family never heard from Juliette

21:07

again. He told Jean he

21:09

was so distressed when he saw the news

21:11

of Juliette's conviction that he actually

21:14

contemplated suicide.

21:16

Another woman, we'll call her Velma,

21:18

came to see Jean in 2014.

21:21

Velma believes de Souza to be her friend at

21:23

first. Did errands for her, cleaned

21:26

her house, walked the dog for extra cash,

21:29

even took care of Juliette's elderly mother. Juliette

21:32

had offered to apply for a British passport

21:35

on Velma's behalf. She said

21:37

it would cost £5,000. But

21:41

after Velma paid her, Juliette

21:43

disappeared. Jean

21:47

heard the same kind of story again

21:49

and again. Desperate for

21:52

the right paperwork, these Filipino

21:54

migrants believe Juliette de Souza.

21:57

When she told them, she would use her connections

21:59

office to help them. So

22:02

they'd given her everything, only

22:05

to find out that

22:06

they'd been had.

22:09

The number of names I've come across

22:12

and people who came to me asking

22:16

how they could sort out their situation,

22:19

I mean that indicates

22:22

to me that she really scammed a

22:25

lot of people.

22:28

One victim we spoke to told us

22:30

about her experience meeting a woman

22:33

she knew as Miss D. Over

22:37

the weeks and months that follow this introduction,

22:40

Lily would meet Miss D in cafes

22:42

dotted around Hampstead.

22:46

Each time during one of these cafe

22:50

meetups Lily

22:52

would be told to bring an envelope

22:54

full of thousands of pounds in

22:57

cash. Money

22:59

she'd have to borrow from family members and

23:02

she did this, put herself through all of this

23:05

because she believed that she was paying

23:08

for a passport. Needless to

23:10

say Lily never received a passport

23:12

and she never got her money back either.

23:14

It's

23:17

just so infuriating.

23:20

And now Lily's shown us

23:22

evidence to suggest that in 2014 after

23:25

Juliette De Souza had been convicted for

23:27

her shamanic fraud,

23:29

the police were making inquiries

23:31

about these new allegations.

23:33

Lily had been corresponding with a Met police

23:35

detective.

23:36

She tells the detective via email that

23:39

she knows of at least 60 people,

23:41

sometimes entire families, who

23:44

have paid amounts ranging from 8,000 to

23:46

an unbelievable 56,000 pounds

23:52

each.

23:53

She sends one email with the following plea,

23:55

hoping and praying that

23:57

you can help us with this case sir. because

24:00

a lot of lives are affected here. We

24:03

really want justice to everything

24:05

she does to us. She's an evil

24:07

woman, praying on vulnerable ones

24:09

like me. Please, sir,

24:12

help us.

24:13

MUSIC

24:28

Lily claims that she's still working seven

24:30

days a week, 10-hour days,

24:33

to pay off some of the debt she incurred during

24:35

her involvement with the woman she believes

24:37

to be Juliette De Souza.

24:40

She says that other victims of

24:42

this particular scam

24:44

are too scared to talk about what happened to them.

24:47

Their

24:47

visa status

24:48

can make them vulnerable to deportation.

24:54

And it's a real barrier to justice,

24:56

that victims of Juliette's shamanic scam,

24:59

for all of their very real and painful struggles

25:02

did not have to navigate.

25:05

This paints a

25:06

picture of a woman who

25:08

perhaps wasn't driven by anything

25:10

other than a simple, brazen

25:14

opportunism,

25:16

paired with a total lack

25:18

of conscience and abject

25:20

greed.

25:24

The shroud of supernatural mystery that cloaks

25:27

Juliette has worn very thin.

25:29

Different types of scams for

25:31

different types of victims, but

25:34

they do all have one thing in common. A

25:37

desperation for a helping hand. Clearly,

25:43

so many people were scammed.

25:46

Here's Jean again. She's already

25:48

been in prison for other scam

25:51

activities. I think the police should investigate

25:54

this seriously, really.

25:58

Jean had interactions with the police. at

26:00

the time he was hearing these accounts. He

26:02

confirms that the police had begun

26:05

an investigation into the claims. I

26:07

told them about this,

26:09

and they were in touch at some point.

26:12

So, but

26:15

then it fizzled out. As

26:18

far as I know, the

26:19

police never pursued it in terms of the

26:21

immigration case. So maybe

26:24

you can find out what actually

26:27

happened.

26:28

When we met with Juliette De Souza's former

26:31

defence lawyer, Mr Stephen Fidler, we

26:33

asked him about whether he'd heard of these allegations.

26:37

And he had. I know it was under investigation.

26:39

I know that she was spoken to, but they decided

26:42

to take no further action in relation to that. He

26:44

says there are lots of reasons why

26:46

this particular investigation never

26:48

resulted in any charges. They

26:51

may not have

26:51

had enough evidence, the cost

26:53

of a further trial. We never know the answer.

26:56

We did approach the Met police

26:58

for clarification by requesting an

27:00

interview with the relevant detectives. But

27:03

they declined, saying that their media

27:05

priorities must lie with current

27:08

active cases. My view of it is

27:10

she already got

27:12

arrested and imprisoned

27:14

for the shamanic thing. So

27:19

I know maybe they thought there was no

27:21

need to pursue her on the immigration side,

27:24

which is obviously crazy.

27:28

It's crazy, Jean says,

27:31

because he suspects Juliette may have

27:33

netted up to a million pounds

27:36

just through these alleged immigration

27:38

scams.

27:39

But of course, it's not easy

27:42

to prove. And having seen

27:44

some of the figures mentioned by the

27:46

people who came to me, it's not impossible.

27:49

I think it would

27:51

take a very determined investigator

27:54

to

27:56

tie it all up.

28:13

We've tried a number of different ways

28:15

to get in touch with Juliet to Caesar,

28:18

to give her a right of reply, a chance

28:20

to explain or deny her involvement in any

28:22

of this, to hear her version

28:25

of events. But so far, she's

28:27

been difficult to find. We believe

28:30

she became eligible for parole in 2019.

28:33

We think she served half of her 10-year

28:36

sentence, as is custom, and

28:38

then an extra two years because

28:40

she didn't pay back the money she'd obtained.

28:43

And that amounts to around seven years in

28:45

prison. And that means that now

28:48

she must be out. And

28:51

we have reason to believe she's back in London,

28:54

haunting the very same streets she

28:56

did all those years ago.

29:01

I have seen her in Hampstead on

29:04

a number of occasions, walking

29:07

down the street, passing me. David,

29:10

her former neighbour, thinks

29:13

he's seen Juliet twice getting

29:15

into a vehicle.

29:17

What it looked like, the Range Rover,

29:19

and the last time I saw

29:21

her, she saw me at the end

29:24

of the road, walking towards her,

29:26

and she disappeared around the corner. I haven't

29:28

seen her since.

29:32

Other Hampstead residents claim they've seen Juliet

29:34

around occasionally too. They

29:37

say she still frequents hair salons in the

29:39

area. A woman who used to do

29:41

Juliet's hair in a Hampstead salon even

29:44

sent us a picture. One of her

29:46

friends told her that he'd taken it of

29:48

Juliet in Hampstead just

29:51

days earlier.

30:00

have Juliette de Souza's contact details.

30:03

Or no one's been willing to pass them on to us

30:05

anyway. We hoped that Stephen

30:07

Fiddler might still have her number, but

30:10

he didn't. I don't have it. No

30:12

one has it. I've not heard from Juliette de Souza

30:15

for many years. Does

30:17

Mr. Fiddler believe that Juliette

30:19

de Souza still poses a danger?

30:22

No. No. I don't think

30:24

so. I think she's gonna go out and do it again.

30:26

Hopefully not having learned a lesson in prison.

30:34

We've tried many different ways

30:37

to get in touch with Juliette de Souza. We've

30:39

contacted the Ministry of Justice. We've

30:41

tried contacting people we believe might

30:44

be Juliette's family members and

30:46

people we think might be former associates of

30:48

Juliette's. We've

30:50

even sent real actual touchable

30:53

paper letters to all of the Jay de Souza's

30:55

we could find living in North London. But

30:59

so far we haven't heard from her.

31:01

So if you are listening, Juliette, I'm

31:04

so scared of saying this, but please give us a call.

31:09

Of all the people involved in

31:11

this story, it's Keith

31:13

who probably knows Juliette de Souza the best.

31:16

He didn't get deeply involved with the full

31:18

story of why those Filipina ladies were

31:21

standing outside the courtroom that day, why

31:23

they were just as interested in seeing Juliette's

31:26

trial as he was. But he does often think about

31:28

those victims he personally

31:31

introduced

31:32

to Juliette de Souza.

31:34

You know, I guess sort of flashes sometimes,

31:37

you know, these people's sacrifices. I

31:39

mean, nobody got anything

31:41

back. Only one or two people actually

31:44

did. They were the lucky ones, I suppose. There

31:47

have been times when I think, gosh, you know,

31:52

I just sort of get this sort of terrible feeling, God,

31:55

that's awful. I just actually, you know, when something

31:57

flashes through my mind, I just say, oh God, that's awful.

32:00

For

32:00

those who I sort of at that

32:02

time recommended I'll just have

32:05

to live with it. No, you

32:07

never really get closure. You

32:09

just get sort of a kind of place

32:12

where you can live with

32:14

it. I think when

32:16

you listen to Keith talk about the

32:18

remorse he has, almost the intrusive thoughts

32:20

he has, I don't think you can fake

32:22

that kind of remorse and guilt that

32:25

he feels. He implicated himself

32:28

in order to bring this case to justice

32:30

and without him there would have been no justice.

32:32

I sincerely hope that

32:34

I never have to ever, ever

32:37

see her ever again. Not

32:41

only that, I sincerely hope

32:43

that somehow or rather that

32:46

she'll hopefully

32:48

not be sort of hoodwinking other poor

32:50

susceptible human kind

32:53

who find themselves in profound

32:55

trouble. I hope people will

32:57

see her coming but there'll be plenty of people who

32:59

won't.

33:01

And she's a danger, she's a danger to

33:03

people.

33:06

I think she's a danger to herself actually.

33:09

But...

33:15

Even after all these years, Keith

33:18

won't rule out the possibility that

33:20

Juliette De Souza has some

33:22

kind of, I don't know, sixth

33:25

sense? I

33:28

don't know if she

33:31

could genuinely actually in the end

33:34

heal. But

33:37

I don't discredit

33:39

the idea that she may well have

33:41

had second sight. Or

33:46

just a highly honed

33:48

intuitive capacity. Let's

33:51

put it like that. I

33:53

mean I feel to some extent that's how many

33:56

of these people do actually operate.

34:00

I think she does have some sort

34:02

of facility of some description because

34:04

otherwise I don't think she

34:06

could have got the kind of clientele base that she

34:09

had at one point. She'll

34:11

always turn heads that know no better.

34:14

Even now, all of these

34:16

years later, Keith still believes

34:18

in the potential of shamanism too.

34:20

But she just sort of kind of...ustodized

34:23

it all, you know, for her own means.

34:43

About a year ago, Keith received some

34:46

worrying news about his health.

34:48

Something life-threatening.

34:49

He needed urgent medical care.

34:52

Years had passed since he'd been in the grip of

34:54

Juliet de Souza.

34:56

So this time he was clear-headed enough to consult

34:58

a surgeon immediately.

35:00

But he also, in the

35:03

early days of that bad news, reached

35:05

out to a psychic. Asking

35:07

this particular gentleman, did

35:10

he think that in

35:13

any way there was still a sense

35:15

of malevolence going

35:17

on in terms of sort

35:19

of things being sent,

35:22

as it were, to destroy me?

35:29

The new diagnosis brought back old

35:31

worries. Keith wondered whether,

35:34

even after all these years, it

35:36

might be a vengeful Juliet who

35:38

was responsible for his new health problems.

35:41

What I wanted to know, actually,

35:43

I know, nah, sort of ridiculous, but

35:45

then, you know, who knows? And

35:49

he looked and said, no, he said, rest assured,

35:51

he said, that is not the case.

35:53

I can't see anything like

35:55

that around you.

36:03

Hearing Keith say this reminded

36:06

me of something Dalian Adofo told me.

36:08

He prescribed our trip to Hampstead

36:10

Toy Boat Pond, but we also

36:12

spoke to him about shamanism

36:14

and its history. I

36:16

asked him whether he

36:19

thought Juliet De Souza believed in

36:21

her own power. How

36:24

do you personally feel when you

36:26

hear stories

36:53

like this? Of all the people

36:56

in this story, the one who's maybe the most

36:59

clear-eyed observer of

37:14

people,

37:15

someone who is unsentimental but

37:17

also incredibly caring,

37:19

is of course none other than Maria

37:21

Feeney. And it's Maria

37:24

who offers what may be the most convincing

37:27

theory about how someone like Juliet

37:29

could have wound up accused of orchestrating

37:32

both a supernatural shamanic fraud and

37:36

something far less glossy and far

37:38

more bureaucratic, like

37:41

a visa scam. Now

37:43

she used her intelligence to

37:46

survive. She

37:49

learned to gain

37:51

from and to inflict pain

37:53

on people that she said

37:55

she loved and cared for. I don't

37:59

think that's a media thing. I don't think it's a psychological condition.

38:02

I think this is something that she

38:04

has grown into, because

38:07

what gives her power is

38:10

being able to move a person from point

38:13

A to point B to point C, and

38:15

take command of them, to

38:18

inflict pain, and

38:20

to take that which is theirs for herself, and

38:23

then go and buy Hermes bags and stuff

38:25

with it and throw them on the floor of that house.

38:29

Every time we've talked about this story to our

38:31

mates or colleagues, anyone who sits next

38:33

to us on the bus, the first reaction

38:36

is always disbelief.

38:38

I get quite defensive. I get really defensive.

38:41

And I'm like, I can't believe you would think that. Do you not

38:43

know what these people lost?

38:45

People do desperate things when they're feeling

38:47

desperate. Judge them if you will,

38:50

but probably like

38:52

don't. Probably like don't.

38:56

When Maria talks about Juliet's

38:59

callousness, it's personal.

39:02

No one saw the long-term damage

39:04

that Juliet did on Sylvia more

39:07

intimately than Maria did.

39:10

As the years passed, Sylvia Eaves'

39:12

health deteriorated

39:14

and her dementia worsened.

39:17

All the while, Maria stayed

39:19

by her friend's side. I

39:22

had to sit with her so that she would eat

39:24

because she'd already become like a little bird. I

39:27

used to get calls

39:29

and she'd be distressed and

39:33

I'd get there and she'd

39:35

say, I think she's coming, I think

39:37

she's coming, and I'd say, who's coming? Juliet

39:40

de Souza. And

39:43

it was one of the things that helped me to make

39:45

the decision with Gerry and Eileen

39:48

and the others that

39:50

she couldn't stay there alone anymore. It

39:53

was too painful. It

39:56

was far, far too painful for her.

40:00

for Sylvia to move into a retirement home,

40:02

where she could have access to round-the-clock care.

40:05

Sylvia's ginger cat, Bill Bradley,

40:07

moved with her.

40:08

They'd all visit regularly.

40:10

But every so often Maria would get calls

40:13

from the nurses. Oh, Maria,

40:15

I'm sorry to disturb you, but Sylvia

40:17

said that that woman's been in taking money off

40:19

her again. It was in

40:22

her mind. But

40:26

for Sylvia, that terror and

40:28

confusion felt as real as it ever

40:30

had. And I'd have to drop what I was doing

40:32

and go, take her round the garden.

40:35

It's a lovely place actually. Talk

40:37

about the fish and the pond, the trees,

40:40

the flowers, everything.

40:42

And the early days it could take about two hours to

40:44

get that out of her head.

40:47

Taking that responsibility for a person

40:50

was a big eye-opener for me. And I just thought, really,

40:54

to tell

40:57

somebody, you can depend on me. I will do

40:59

good for you. And

41:01

to do such evil doesn't

41:03

bear thinking about.

41:07

Sylvia was a very, very trusting person,

41:10

very loving and very

41:12

good and also very, very practical.

41:16

And that

41:18

woman took everything

41:21

from her. She lived

41:23

in the shadow of the pain

41:26

and the degradation put upon her

41:28

by Juliette De Souza. Only

41:32

when her memory wiped

41:35

that out did she

41:37

escape it. Eventually

41:40

Sylvia forgot the name of Juliette De Souza

41:43

too. Can you imagine

41:45

to say that there

41:48

was a benefit from her having dementia?

42:00

so many of her memories. There

42:03

was a part of Sylvia that always

42:05

remembered her friends. She

42:07

didn't know my name in the end, I think. But

42:11

she'd say, that's my friend, that's my

42:13

friend. She'd be happy

42:15

to see me.

42:17

I spent hours with her.

42:30

Back at the toy boat pond on a winter's

42:32

day in leafy green hamsted heath, Hannah

42:34

and I are sat on a park bench, discussing

42:38

how she was feeling post-ritual, and

42:40

we get talking about our own family rituals, the

42:42

superstitions we believe, despite

42:45

all the evidence to the contrary. I

42:48

know in my family, they're like, oh, if they've got a sports game,

42:50

they'll be like, I have to wear this set of socks because

42:52

they're always the socks I wear when the team

42:54

win.

42:55

We also, we do knock on wood though, because

42:58

pixies live in wood, and if you knock on them,

43:01

they can't hear what you've said. Is that what that's supposed

43:03

to mean? That's why like, oh, I hope

43:05

this thing doesn't happen, and then you knock on the wood

43:07

so the pixies can't hear you and they don't make it happen.

43:09

That's the rule. And that's

43:11

sort of what I felt like

43:14

over there, thanking the water. I was like, well,

43:17

either it's inanimate water or it's

43:19

the magic ocean lady, and it doesn't matter which

43:22

one. Do I feel better? Yeah, I feel better.

43:24

Well, that's all that comes.

43:28

The reason I tell Ceriti about this whole story

43:30

is because it's something I talked to Dalian about

43:33

too, back when we had our shamanic healing

43:35

consultation.

43:37

I'd had a bit of an epiphany about the whole

43:39

thing.

43:42

Myth and superstition have actually

43:44

always been a part of my life in

43:46

a lot of small ways that I didn't really notice,

43:50

including some habits that I picked up

43:52

from my grandmother.

43:54

Okay, all right, well,

43:56

you know, I'm no one

43:58

to judge granny at all. If

44:02

she spilled salt, for example, she'd throw it over her left

44:04

shoulder into the eyes of the devil. So

44:06

you've got the devil on your left and an angel on your

44:08

right. And if you spill salt, you have to blind

44:11

the devil. And that's why you throw it over

44:13

your left shoulder. So it blinds the devil so

44:15

he can't see what you're doing. Folk superstition,

44:18

I think.

44:19

Oh, fantastic. I

44:21

take it you don't do the same, Hannah. I

44:24

do. I do. It's so ingrained

44:26

in me. I do. Just in case. I've

44:29

got nothing to lose.

44:30

So you're winning, isn't it? Who

44:33

knows, you know? I was scared.

44:35

It's all right. You don't have to

44:37

be. Filthy

44:47

Ritual is a Global Original podcast.

44:50

Produced by Global and Novel. You

44:53

can listen to the whole series right now for

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how you feel. So other people can find

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us too. Filthy Ritual

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was hosted by me, Saruti Bala. And

45:20

me, Hannah Maguire. Our producer is

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Leona Hamid. Additional reporting

45:24

on this series from Wilfred Lewin. Our

45:26

researcher is Ayana Yusuf. Our

45:28

editor is Maithili Rao. Sound

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design, mixing and scoring by Daniel

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45:37

by Fendall Fulton. For Novel, Willard

45:39

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45:42

Sean Glynn is our executive producer

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is our executive producer for Global. Vicky

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of podcasts for Global. We offer

45:56

a special thanks to Muhammad Ahmed,

45:58

Nicholas Alexander, Sophie Argent,

46:01

Simon Barnes, Isaac Fisher

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and Gavin Haines. Tom Marshall, Austin

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Mitchell, Max O'Brien, Anna

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Sinfield and David Waters. As

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well as all of the team at UTA.

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And of course, last but

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certainly not least, a big

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thank you to everyone who shared

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their story with us.