大象传媒

Walter Mitty

Mike Kenny - latter day Walter Mitty

Inside Out meets the man who became famous for being a Walter Mitty figure - Mike Kenny.

It's an extraordinary story of a man who claimed to have a mission - to fight domestic violence.

In reality he turned out to be a liar, a modern day Walter Mitty figure.

Man with a mission?

Mike Kenny was a man who liked to be in control.

He claimed that he had been the victim of abuse at the hands of his former girl friend.

Mike was so passionate about domestic violence that he set up a charity called 'It Does Happen'.

Mike Kenny had ambitious plans for refuges

The charity's website offered round the clock support for victims.

According to Mike, more than 1 million people made contact with him in two months.

And he had much bigger plans - his most ambitious scheme was to build a nationwide network of refuges.

The first was about to open in Newcastle but there was just one stumbling block.

Despite the publicity and hype, some of Mike's ideas were beginning to look a little far-fetched.

"We're just days away from opening our first refuge and it's already four fifths full," said Mike in an interview.

He also told a newspaper he'd been given 拢21 million sponsorship, although no one seemed to be able to produce any concrete evidence of any deal.

Alarm bells

He also said Richard Branson had sent an e-mail saying he was impressed with the website, and wanted to be involved.

No-one but Mike knows if that was true - but even so, domestic violence workers were starting to have concerns.

Maggie Thompson had arranged a domestic violence conference, and she needed a male victim to give a speech - up stepped Mike Kenny:

"...the first time he spoke to me, alarm bells started to ring... I was nervous, I didn't know whether we would have someone turning up in a batman suit.

"If you're a recent victim of domestic violence, you're not a game show host, you don't have a game show host attitude to public speaking."

Some news reporters were also beginning to cotton on, and the story was unravelled by a newspaper investigation.

The bottom line was that there was no refuge and no charity - Mike Kenny's fantasies had finally caught up with him.

Deception

Mike was arrested for attempted deception.

After nine interviews and a seven month investigation, Mike owned up.

Bizarrely Mike doesn't seem to have done it to make money - instead he was convicted of two very minor deception charges - and fined just 拢55.

All he'd done was tell a big lie, on the TV screens of an entire nation, but more doubts over Mike's story were about to emerge.

Mike had claimed to have suffered horrific domestic violence at the hands of his ex-girlfriend.

But police couldn't find any evidence against his former partner, and it appears that Mike might not have been the victim of domestic violence after all.

So was Mike lying about his own experiences of domestic violence just to get attention? Inside Out investigates.

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Ali's story

Courageous story - Ali Johnson

Sixteen months ago, Ali Johnson broke his neck playing rugby for Tynedale when the scrum collapsed.

Ali spent seven months in hospital and is now paralysed from the shoulders down.

Inside Out follows his progress as he comes to terms with his injuries and continues on the slow road to recovery.

Tough journey

Ali Johnson is a born optimist.

Despite sustaining a broken neck, he is determined to defy the doctors.

His brother Keith is amazed by Ali's determination.

He was there when Ali broke his neck and he has seen the extent of his brother's injuries:

"Ali never ceases to amaze us - he is so positive - he still talks about when he can walk again, when he can drive again.

But despite Ali's optimism, his consultant is not optimistic about his chances of recovery.

"It is unlikely he will get any better. It is very likely that he will require a wheelchair for life," says Mr Munawar Mecci, Consultant from the Regional Spinal Injuries Unit.

Despite this Ali believes he can prove the doctors wrong - with the help of a self-styled "mind instructor" called Hratch Ogali.

"I haven't any doubts. I have always believed in myself. The more I do the sooner I will get better, says Ali.

"You've got to believe you can get better because if you didn't believe, you might as well lie in bed all day.

"And at 25-years-old I'm not prepared to do that, and I'm going to try everything possible to walk again."

Journey of hope

Inside Out follows Ali on a train journey to Hratch Ogali's clinic in London.

It's takes Ali and his carer nine hours to make it down to the clinic.

Ali receiving treatment in London

Hratch Ogali is not a doctor. In fact, he has no medical training at all, and there are no studies that substantiate his approach.

But he does have an unshakeable conviction that the mind can achieve things far beyond the imagination.

Two years ago, Hratch Ogali made headline news around the world when one of his patients - a teenage girl who'd been told she'd never walk again - defied all medical expectations and took her first steps.

Ali believes one day he'll do the same:

"It's like intensive therapy and mind work. He relaxes you by introducing different techniques聟 it's helping me a lot聟
As long as I put the work in, he thinks it's down to me聟

"He makes you believe you can actually do things聟 which may not seem much but it doesn't half help me as a person."

But is Hratch Ogali a miracle worker or a charlatan?

Slow improvement

Ogali gets some reaction to his treatment from Ali what does it tell him?

Hratch says, "It tells me there is a connection now - we activate the unconscious memory - now when I touch his feet, he will start to react. And now he will get stronger and stronger".

But some people think that Hratch is giving people false hope. Hratch disagrees:

"There is no such thing as false hope - it is either there or it isn't - they feel it. I tell them it is possible. I don't force them I don't mislead them聟 everything I tell them will happen, it happens.

"He will get up and walk again聟. Now he is managing to push and pull. There is nothing to stop him completely recovering.

"I consider myself different. It is too long that we have been dependent on the medical profession. When you utilise the power of the mind they always find a way because it's fact not fiction." Hratch.

It may not seem much but Ali appears to be getting stronger - but there's no proof that Hratch Ogali can claim the credit.

After all, it could've happened anyway, and at 拢200 for each session that's a lot of money.

Back home

Inside Out finds out more about Ali's life in Northumberland and speaks to those who know him best.

Father Ken thinks that the trips to London are beneficial:

"Well I think they're doing him good聟 his breathing is definitely better and he is off his pills. His arms and legs are built up. He's put on three stone in weight."

Ali has had a cow shed on his parent's farm converted into a gym. He spends around four hours a day in there following a strict exercise regime set him by Hratch.

Motivated - Ali Johnson is positive about the future

Ali is highly motivated, "I think if anyone had to spend a week not being able to do anything for yourself then that would be motivation enough聟 There is so much I want to do with my life and that is motivation enough."

Ali says his care at the Regional Spinal Injuries Unit in Middlesborough was excellent - but now he's home, he feels abandoned by the NHS:

"I feel quite badly done to. I came out of hospital. They offered an hour's physio. Well, that's not good enough... That's why I've gone to Hratch.

But his consultant says that more physiotherapy at this stage will not help Ali get better:

"We never abandon our patients. The care we establish with them is from cradle to grave.

"When we plan discharge we don't send them home until we are happy that they have established their plateau. Intensive physiotherapy is unlikely to lead to improvements.

"We do not operate on hope. We do not function in the NHS on miracles. We have to be pragmatic. We have to be sure about what will recover and what will not." Mr Mecci.

Ali now sees his consultant once every six months. We showed Mr Mecci shots of Hratch Ogali treating Ali but he isn't convinced:

"What I have seen on tape is what I would have expected anyway. I don't see any evidence that Hratch Ogali has made any difference".

Mr Mecci says it would be wrong to waste public money on Hratch Ogali's treatment without proper proof that it works.

But his consultant's scepticism has done nothing to dampen Ali's hope that he will one day be able to walk back into the ground at Tynedale to watch his former team-mates play.

Fund raising

Inside Out takes Ali back to the rugby club for only the second time since the accident.

The response from the club and the wider community to Ali's accident has been truly remarkable - more than 拢200,000 raised for his Trust Fund - and the money making still goes on.

"I would like to see the day when he walks in here and buys us a pint. That would be quite nice," says one of his club colleagues.

The uncomfortable question is whether Ali is right to spend tens of thousands of pounds that these people have worked so hard to raise on Hratch Ogali's treatment?

There's no doubt that Hratch Ogali has really helped Ali become more focused and determined to get back on his feet - and Ali is getting stronger.

But the NHS won't pay for that treatment because he simply can't provide the proof that what he does really works.

But if anyone has the strength of character to prove the doubters wrong - then it's Ali.

Donations: Payment by cheque, made payable to 'Ali Johnson Trust' to:

Supporting Ali, Catraw, Stannington, Morpeth, Northumberland,
NE61 6AZ.

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Daisy Hill

Inside Out visits Daisy Hill, a council estate at Walkergate in Newcastle's East End.

Most working class areas have little record of their own communities but Daisy Hill is different, thanks to a new exhibition of photographs.

Rough and ready

Daisy Hill had a reputation for being rough and ready.

Inside Out's Dave Morrison, who lived here as a boy in the 1960s, remembers one of his teachers telling him it would be better if he didn't mention where he came from.

Daisy Hill was regarded as beyond the pale

But this place had more to it than that - there was a character and a closeness and sense of community that outsiders rarely saw.

Now an exhibition of photographs is unlocking the memories - and it's all the idea of one man - actor Jim Simpson.

Recorded in time

Jim Simpson was shocked that he could barely find any photographic history of Daisy Hill in the archives:

"I just went to the local library to look at the archive and there was nothing at all... It was as if the place didn't exist and didn't have any history at all."

So Jim decided to compile a people's archive of photographs.

The photographs are snaps taken by the people of Daisy Hill between the 1930s and the 1960s, which have been collected together by Jim Simpson.

They are clues to lives led on a little known estate.

Exhibited at the Community Centre, people have been invited to name the characters and detail their lives.

It's turned into a giant jigsaw puzzle.

The exhibition covers the 30 years up to the 1960s- a time of great poverty.

The generation that posed for many of these have gone, like Mrs Cooper and Tony the horse.

Those remaining feel Daisy Hill has lost its sense of community.
But it's also gained something - a sense of its own history.

Memories recovered

Gradually memories have been unlocked - of washer women, tin baths, outdoor and indoor toilets, and the strong people who lived in the East End.

People began arriving on Daisy Hill in the 1930s, while the estate was being built.

The estate was even regarded as fertile ground for missionary work.

Mary's Dawson's father was in charge of the Good Hope Mission which took over a hut donated by the builder of Daisy Hill.

For many the Mission trips to the seaside were the only holidays they had.

In search of times past

The exhibition is a unique record of times past.

There aren't many working class areas of Britain that have their own photographic record seen through the eyes of its people.

It's more usual that the shots are taken by one photographer like Jimmy Forsyth's Scotswood photographs of Newcastle's West End.

But here is a history that shows the true nature of a council estate - and it's all down to the camera work of the Daisy Hillers.

Information - the exhibition runs until January 28, 2006 at Newcastle Discovery Museum.

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