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January 24, 2009
Psychic Joe Power Wrong
Yesterday, English woman Karen Matthews was jailed for eight years for faking the abduction of her nine year old daughter Shannon. Matthews had arranged for a relative to kidnap and hold the little girl prisoner, drugged and bound, so that later the relative could “find” the little girl and claim the £50,000 ($68,000) reward money they would both share. What a scumbag. And well deserved jail sentences for both of them.

But she wasn’t the only scumbag involved in this case. Enter so called psychic Joe Power (pictured right, with the mother), who gave a psychic reading to the mother and who now is claiming accuracy in his psychic predictions. The Paranormal Review is typical of the credulous reporting:

When psychic Joe Power gave a reading to the mother and stepfather of English schoolgirl Shannon Matthews, he made three statements that have since proved to be accurate.

Before I start to deconstruct in detail these so-called predictions, I should point out that the “psychic” missed what was without doubt the most important factor in this case, namely that the child’s abductor was sitting right in front of him! How anyone can report that this psychic was accurate or that he helped the police in any way, when he apparently couldn’t tell that the criminal responsible was sitting right opposite him, just beggars belief. In my view that should be enough for any rational person to ignore anything else this bozo has to say, ever, but apparently it’s not. In fact, Power is actually using this case as evidence that his psychic readings are genuine and that the police should consult him in future cases. Seriously. Here’s what he is now saying he got right:

Reporting the safe return of Shannon, The People (16 March) said he came up with vital clues “which could have led to her discovery”. It confirmed he had told the newspaper:

Shannon knew her abductor, who was a relative possibly named Michael or Paul.

She had sat on this man’s knee at a family funeral.

These are mostly generic playing the odds guesses. She “knew her abductor” is a reasonable statistical possibility. Even the names Michael or Paul are not that impressive – fairly common names. But from this report, we know that Power didn’t just give these names, he got them using a standard cold reading technique – ie he asked questions:

“I said to Karen, ‘Do you know a Mick or Michael?’

Paging John Edward to the house courtesy phone - an “M” name wants to talk to you. Of course, we don’t know how many other names Power guessed that were wrong. Or even if he really said “Mick or Michael”, or if he just guessed a series of letters and the mother or the stepfather jumped in to supply the missing name. Without this information the “Mick or Michael” would be useless even if these weren’t common names. In any case, we know this is just standard cold reading.

The next bit is my favorite. Or alternatively the sleaziest bit of rewriting history. You decide. It’s this:

An area named Batley is involved in her disappearance.

The child was eventually found in a flat in the town of Batley, and so this would look like a hit. The Batley connection was reported in numerous places, for example read this, dated March 16, 2008 - after the child was found. However, if you check reports such as this one dated March 9, 2008 – ie before the child was found, the story is less impressive:

[Joe Power] later identified the region as the Ossett and Batley area in West Yorks. "Shannon was taken there," he added. [My bold.]

See the map below (from Google maps) of the area. The family is reported to be from Dewsbury. I have marked Dewsbury on the map as well as both Ossett and Batley.




Clearly “the Ossett and Batley area” would include most of this section of map – approximately 3 to 4 miles square. So guessing this area is not especially impressive, and certainly of no use to the police (as Power claimed it would have been) who were already searching this area anyway. But apart from the obvious guessing the nearest towns gambit, notice how the “Ossett and Batley area” guess before the child was found, became “Batley” after the child was found in Batley. Nice. And if she had been found in Ossett, it would presumably have become "Ossett." Anywhere else on the map, and it would still have been a hit. But I'm sure Power didn't have access to Google so he must have obtained this information psychically. How else could he have done it?

There were numerous other guesses that Power wants you to forget about too. For example, this lot:

Joe Power claimed the spirit world told him that the girl got into a car near her school.

And he told Karen, 32: "The car had a baby seat and a brown cushion in the back, and a religious card hanging from the rear-view mirror."

He said it stopped near a church Shannon knew - and the driver used a Texaco garage.

Power, who has appeared on Living TV's Psychic Investigators and worked with police on the Sally Anne Bowman murder case, told Karen: "I can see a lay-by near farmland."

None of which was true, as far as I can tell. (Or is completely unverifiable anyway – eg “the driver used a Texaco garage.”) The abductor’s car is described as a “silver Peugeot” – no mention of a baby seat, which would have been unlikely for this man who lived alone with no children.

The Actuality
What we have here is a so called psychic sleazing his way into this unfortunate situation, applying his well honed cold reading techniques to an unsophisticated family, and making the usual vague guesses that can later be finessed and honed to agree with the actual circumstances. Vague “Ossett and Batley area” guesses become “Batley.” Wrong guesses are discarded, and are forgotten by the credulous media. Apparently no one cares the psychic missed the mother as the perp. The psychic uses the free publicity provided by a gullible press to further his own dishonest career. And we know this isn’t the first time that Joe Power has used free publicity in this way. He claimed to have contacted John Lennon's dead spirit. He claimed to have helped solve the Lynsey Quy Murder case, although clearly he did no such thing, as the police Detective Superintendent involved in the case made clear:

I wish to state, categorically, that as the Senior Investigating Officer on the Lyndsey Quy murder, I made a policy decision not to use psychics on the investigation. Joe Power has allegedly made claims that he assisted the enquiry but this is not the case."

It should go without saying that the little girl was found not from psychic impressions or profiles, but as a result of routine police work – a neighbor told police that a child’s footsteps had been heard in the flat of Shannon's captor, a man who lived alone with no children.

I'll say again, Joe Power had no idea the child's mother, to whom he gave a reading, was also the child's abductor. He had no idea. Joe Power is not psychic.

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Comments
What better chance could a psychic have to prove his power? The mother fooled police who would have been initially concerned with consoling her, but her "energy field" (were she equipped such an item)would have been scrambled to the max and putting out disturbance waves like a nuclear power station's alarm signal.

If he was half way sensitive even to normal phenomena he would have had a good chance of noticing something weird about her behaviour, given his personal access and freedom to say what ever he thought.

Posted by: yakaru | January 25, 2009 at 06:48 AM

There could be no more clear-cut case that this guy is a fraud if it had been designed experimentally! How is it even legal for these phonies to practice and take up valuable police time???

Posted by: The Perky Skeptic | January 25, 2009 at 07:48 AM

No doubt Mr Power (real name?) will trot out the old psychic chestnut that the subject has to be willing to be identified.

Posted by: Big Al | January 26, 2009 at 01:08 AM

that the subject has to be willing to be identified

LOL, then isnt it useless even if it did work?

BTW, skeptico, I see two links for Sense about Science over in the science section of your blog roll.

Posted by: TechSkeptic | January 26, 2009 at 07:20 AM

Wrong guesses are discarded, and are forgotten by the credulous media.

I really think this is the key, those who want to believe simply ignore anything else. Even random chance gets things right sometimes and if you ignore all but the right ones you can convince yourself of a lot of things. The real crime is when it hurts others.

Posted by: Mark | January 26, 2009 at 09:14 AM

http://badpsychics.blogspot.com/2009/06/psychic-joe-power.html
The inane ramblings of Jon Donnis the owner of BadPsychics.com

6/25/2009
Psychic Joe Power


In recent times a 'psychic' by the name of Joe Power has come into the media eye, in fact we have covered the last few years of his professional career in some detail on my site www.badpsychics.co.uk, but how has a psychic such as this manipulated his position in life to that of a 'wannabe celebrity' psychic. Well for that we must go back to the beginning, well not the beginning, but lets say 2006 instead.

In April of 2006, Joe Power caused controversy when he made it public that he was going to contact the spirit of John Lennon, as you can imagine this caused a lot of discussion, even Yoko Ono had her representatives release a statement calling the stunt “Exploitative”, but of course this is exactly what Joe Power wanted, media attention. A US TV station had apparently found someone who would be willing to partake in this stunt and for what? A pay-per view TV special. Oh how very spiritual, and only $9.95, that's a good $5 cheaper than the Princess Diana séance from a few years earlier.

So what did John Lennon have to say for himself, well the ground breaking message from the dead Lennon was “peace....the message is peace”, now if that isn't worth $9.95 then I don't know what is.

Despite appearing on this American special, things were still not going great for Joe, despite his own claims, he was having to cancel shows on a regular basis due to poor ticket sales, when you cant sell out small hotel function rooms then you know that a new stunt is in order, especially since the Lennon séance did nothing for his career.

One of the claims Joe has made over the years is one that many psychics use, that being that they have helped the police solve crimes, you hear this all the time, but with Joe Power we decided to dig deeper. He claimed to have helped Southport Police in the Lyndsey Quy murder case, yet when we asked Detective Superintendent Geoff Sloan, he made the following statement: “I wish to state, categorically, that as Senior Investigating Officer on the Lyndsey Quy murder, I made a policy decision not to use psychics on the investigation. Joe Power has allegedly made claims that he assisted the enquiry but this is not the case.”

So like most if not all psychics Joe Power was simply making claims that were not true, but this would not stop him from using such claims in the future, claims we would show were untrue time after time after time.

Joe also claimed “through one of his astonishing spirit links” to have known the killer of model Sally Anne Bowman and that he informed the police that the killer was a “Stephen” or “Stephan White”, aged between 24 and 26 and was a delivery driver. Yet following DNA evidence the police arrested and charged 36 year old chef Mark Dixie who is now serving a life sentence in prison. So yet again Joe is wrong. Yet he keeps telling people how he helps the police.

So despite cancelling 44% of his publicised shows in 2005, 2006 and 2007, Joe Power was still hungry for 'power' and fame. In 2008 he made an astounding public statement when he said “‘TV mediums are ripping people off. The place is saturated with fake mediums getting away with playing on people’s emotions ....” Yes the same man who did a tacky pay-per view TV special in America contacting John Lennon, despite the objections of the Lennon estate and Yoko Ono.

Throughout 2008 things just got worse for Joe, of 65 advertised shows at least 51 were cancelled due to poor sales.

But in 2009 Joe saw an opportunity, an opportunity to get himself on the front page of every newspaper in the country, and he took it. This was at the time when the Madeleine McCann story had become worldwide news, another child by the name of Shannon Matthews had gone missing in similar circumstances, knowing full well that the interest of this story would be front page news Joe visited the Shannons mother Karen Matthews and her partner Craig Meehan, he gave them a reading which would even be quoted in the Sunday People newspaper. Suddenly he found himself in the papers, In a photograph standing next to Karen Matthews, this was exactly what Joe wanted, media attention.

Unfortunately despite claiming to be clairvoyant, clairaudient, and clairessient, and despite spending a lot of time with the family of Shannon Matthews, Joe seemed to have missed one tiny detail, that being that Karen Matthews had actually been behind the fake kidnap of her 9 year old daughter. Karen Matthews is now serving time in prison, and has shown no remorse for her crimes. This is the woman who Joe Power happily had his photo taken with, and who he gave readings too.

As you would expect this was not the kind of thing that Joe had hoped that would happen, he now found himself in the position of failed psychic once again.

Joe Power claims he has helped the police solve crimes, we know this is not true, in fact from the very mouths of the police, he has not helped them at all. The one case where he truly put himself on the line, he failed miserably.

So now we find ourselves bang up to date, many tacky stunts, failed tours, cancelled shows, yet still Joe Power manages to find himself a book publisher, although when a member of Bad Psychics went along to one of his signings, all that could be found was a lonely figure of Joe sat at a table on his own, no line of people, no crowds scrambling for his photo, nothing, maybe this is all that is left for this man, or maybe he has already planned his next stunt, only time will tell.

But Joe would have one last dig at those who dare to doubt him.

I will quote from my good friend, Bad Psychics member and Merseyside skeptic Marsh who recently met Joe Power, and handed him an application form for the JREF Million Dollar challenge, Joe would reply:

“The thing about you sceptics, is that you sit there, festering in front of your computers at 3am, thinking up ways to get at people. What if I were to sit in front of your house and tell people you’re a paedophile?”

“because you’re there festering, at 3am, plotting to get at me, in the same way that paedophiles fester and plot to interfere with children – you both have to be sick in the head to do what you do.”

”I think most sceptics probably are paedophiles. I mean you’re sat around at 3am, plotting, aren’t you? Do you deny that?”

And people wonder why Joe is disliked by so many people, why he has to cancel show after show, and why no one turns up to his book signings.

Joe Powers career should be a warning to any wannabe celebrity psychic out there. Don'tt make claims you cant back up, because the one annoying thing about skeptics is that we simplydon'tt take things on faith, we investigate, we search, and we find out the truth.

By Jon Donnis – BadPsychics.co.uk

justagrannynow wrote:I spend most of my time on the Madeleine threads, so have to confess to knowing very little about Amy.

However, it is the comments in the OP by nanon which have caught my attention.

re Antoinette, nanon says " whoever controls her". Is nanon suggesting that Antoinette is being controlled by someone, or is he/she referring to whoever is responsible for the forums Antoinette posts on?

Nanon states " "I for one am taking notes/dates/ times of pictures". This seems pretty threatening to me and if I was Antoinette I would be considering my options.

I cannot stand bullies and people who try to scare others into submission and it is for this reason that I have decided to chuck my hat into the ring and offer any help I can to Antoinette.

Thank you Justagran. Basically from what I can see on all of these threads that I get followed around on they are saying Dave and Audrey tell me what to say and do. I cannot stand wanna be bullies as people like this do not scare me. They might scare other people but I have dealt with people like this before that throw tantrums when they dont get their own way.
As I have said before and I will say it again. If they have a problem with me tell me instead of hiding behind false names on the internet. But you see I know they wont as they dont have the bottle to stand up and say these things. It was the same when I worked for forever searching. Christine rang my boss instead of saying she had a problem with me. COWARDS!!! that cant stand up for themselves.

What does he mean by mean tricks with websites? That person needs to get a life

Antoinette wrote:

justagrannynow wrote:I spend most of my time on the Madeleine threads, so have to confess to knowing very little about Amy.

However, it is the comments in the OP by nanon which have caught my attention.

re Antoinette, nanon says " whoever controls her". Is nanon suggesting that Antoinette is being controlled by someone, or is he/she referring to whoever is responsible for the forums Antoinette posts on?

Nanon states " "I for one am taking notes/dates/ times of pictures". This seems pretty threatening to me and if I was Antoinette I would be considering my options.

I cannot stand bullies and people who try to scare others into submission and it is for this reason that I have decided to chuck my hat into the ring and offer any help I can to Antoinette.

Thank you Justagran. Basically from what I can see on all of these threads that I get followed around on they are saying Dave and Audrey tell me what to say and do. I cannot stand wanna be bullies as people like this do not scare me. They might scare other people but I have dealt with people like this before that throw tantrums when they dont get their own way.
As I have said before and I will say it again. If they have a problem with me tell me instead of hiding behind false names on the internet. But you see I know they wont as they dont have the bottle to stand up and say these things. It was the same when I worked for forever searching. Christine rang my boss instead of saying she had a problem with me. COWARDS!!! that cant stand up for themselves.

These people are cowards, bullies and liars!

If the man is so good why doesnt he go to the Missing children Uk website, go through one child at a time and say where they all are. People like this dont do anything for free. They target parents who are in the news and they wont pick any child who isnt known by anyone. They are leeches who go straight to the press to feed their ego and if they pay him then all the better.

I have always held my head high where Audrey and Dave are concerned. I am not ashamed to say I am helping them out. If I was i would be like the others and hide behind a false name. BUT I DONT.

I agree and give you another rep point

Keep up the good work Antoinette. Thanks to Amber and Eddie and all the other mods for making this section of the forum a home for Amys' voice and for keeping the bullies out.

Thats what I love about this place. we have never had troublemakers here and we do not have to support them or put up with them. That is what makes this forum a nice place to be a member of and I will stay a member as long as the bullies are out there and not in here.

SharonS wrote:Keep up the good work Antoinette. Thanks to Amber and Eddie and all the other mods for making this section of the forum a home for Amys' voice and for keeping the bullies out.

Thats what I love about this place. we have never had troublemakers here and we do not have to support them or put up with them. That is what makes this forum a nice place to be a member of and I will stay a member as long as the bullies are out there and not in here.

Well said Sharon x

Antoinette wrote:I have always held my head high where Audrey and Dave are concerned. I am not ashamed to say I am helping them out. If I was i would be like the others and hide behind a false name. BUT I DONT.

Thats why you are a special person with bags of courage. Dont ever change

SharonS wrote:

Antoinette wrote:I have always held my head high where Audrey and Dave are concerned. I am not ashamed to say I am helping them out. If I was i would be like the others and hide behind a false name. BUT I DONT.

Thats why you are a special person with bags of courage. Dont ever change

Really I am secretly trembling with fear.

Antoinette wrote:

SharonS wrote:

Antoinette wrote:I have always held my head high where Audrey and Dave are concerned. I am not ashamed to say I am helping them out. If I was i would be like the others and hide behind a false name. BUT I DONT.

Thats why you are a special person with bags of courage. Dont ever change

Really I am secretly trembling with fear.

Well we are all here for you x

And I am well tall and very muscly and eat iron and scrap metal

eddie wrote:

Antoinette wrote:

SharonS wrote:

Antoinette wrote:I have always held my head high where Audrey and Dave are concerned. I am not ashamed to say I am helping them out. If I was i would be like the others and hide behind a false name. BUT I DONT.

Thats why you are a special person with bags of courage. Dont ever change

Really I am secretly trembling with fear.

Well we are all here for you x

And I am well tall and very muscly and eat iron and scrap metal

On a serious note everyone. Thank you all so much for your continued support for Audrey and Dave Dean and Amy. What i do for them is irrelevent really considering the pain and anguish they are going through every single day since Amy disappeared. If keeping Amy's name in the public eye will help them bring her home to them then I will continue until my dying day to help them out. I may not have known Amy but through her friends and family I have got to know a lot about her.
I just hope someday soon I get to meet her in person.

"I just hope someday soon I get to meet her in person"

So do I, Antoinette. I want to hear you tell us all what she said about the fuss we have all made about her and how fabulous "Somebody's Lost Princess" is.

Mystycal wrote:If the man is so good why doesnt he go to the Missing children Uk website, go through one child at a time and say where they all are. People like this dont do anything for free. They target parents who are in the news and they wont pick any child who isnt known by anyone. They are leeches who go straight to the press to feed their ego and if they pay him then all the better.

Rep point for you Mysti

“I believe I have seen the face of the person who abducted Madeleine and it is not dissimilar to the sketch which the detectives released after help from Jane Tanner”



do you think he has now heard that Jane Tanner got it totally wrong???

Joe...........sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the abductor was a pimply, eggy, pig faced, George Harrison lookalike who looked nothing like the swarthy European that Jane Tanner said she saw!

Antoinette wrote:
On a serious note everyone. Thank you all so much for your continued support for Audrey and Dave Dean and Amy. What i do for them is irrelevent really considering the pain and anguish they are going through every single day since Amy disappeared. If keeping Amy's name in the public eye will help them bring her home to them then I will continue until my dying day to help them out. I may not have known Amy but through her friends and family I have got to know a lot about her.
I just hope someday soon I get to meet her in person.

Antoinette it makes no difference if you knew Amy or not....you care about missing children even if they are unbeknown to you and that speaks volumes!

And anyone who says you shouldnt be doing this for a child whom you have never met, then those idiots should also go to the police and tell them not to bother looking for the missing children in their files unless they know them and they should also go to all the missing children websites and tell all the people who work for them not to bother either.....

OH and people who are running around getting signatures for Amber Alert.....well why bother? Its not like they know any of the children that those signatures will help later on will it? They should tell them to stop too!

SharonS wrote:Keep up the good work Antoinette. Thanks to Amber and Eddie and all the other mods for making this section of the forum a home for Amys' voice and for keeping the bullies out.

Thats what I love about this place. we have never had troublemakers here and we do not have to support them or put up with them. That is what makes this forum a nice place to be a member of and I will stay a member as long as the bullies are out there and not in here.

Dont you worry Sharon....bullies can stay in their playground...I dont want them in here ever :Hug1:

I think in the absence of solid information and news there will be recriminations and doubts cast. Look at the whole Madeleine farce where we have all created our own 'histories' to make sense of the impossible. (people vanishing)
In those scenarios blames will be cast, maybe the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent.

In my own situation with the disappearance of Alyona (Elena) I've doubted my own actions and others actions in my darkest hours.

Was I somehow responsible for her going? Its a very hard question to answer - could I blame others?
In the end I know I was a positive element in her life as were her friends.
I was guilty in encouraging her to return to work ; an absolute error on my part but I don't want to be blamed for it particularly as she thought she could do it as well.

I'm sure Amy's folks were there for her and loved her - its the absolute mystery of her vanishing that causes this angst and analysis in hindsight.

We're all seraching for black and white in all these mysteries - with age and reason come s the realisataion that nothing is ever as easy as it appears.
I hope we can find Amy - and I hope we can find Alyona.
The rest is endless speculation.

charlie wrote:I think in the absence of solid information and news there will be recriminations and doubts cast. Look at the whole Madeleine farce where we have all created our own 'histories' to make sense of the impossible. (people vanishing)
In those scenarios blames will be cast, maybe the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent.

In my own situation with the disappearance of Alyona (Elena) I've doubted my own actions and others actions in my darkest hours.

Was I somehow responsible for her going? Its a very hard question to answer - could I blame others?
In the end I know I was a positive element in her life as were her friends.
I was guilty in encouraging her to return to work ; an absolute error on my part but I don't want to be blamed for it particularly as she thought she could do it as well.

I'm sure Amy's folks were there for her and loved her - its the absolute mystery of her vanishing that causes this angst and analysis in hindsight.

We're all seraching for black and white in all these mysteries - with age and reason come s the realisataion that nothing is ever as easy as it appears.
I hope we can find Amy - and I hope we can find Alyona.
The rest is endless speculation.

Charlie - you said everything! at the end we only wish that all cases have an happy end!

pm wrote:

charlie wrote:I think in the absence of solid information and news there will be recriminations and doubts cast. Look at the whole Madeleine farce where we have all created our own 'histories' to make sense of the impossible. (people vanishing)
In those scenarios blames will be cast, maybe the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent.

In my own situation with the disappearance of Alyona (Elena) I've doubted my own actions and others actions in my darkest hours.

Was I somehow responsible for her going? Its a very hard question to answer - could I blame others?
In the end I know I was a positive element in her life as were her friends.
I was guilty in encouraging her to return to work ; an absolute error on my part but I don't want to be blamed for it particularly as she thought she could do it as well.

I'm sure Amy's folks were there for her and loved her - its the absolute mystery of her vanishing that causes this angst and analysis in hindsight.

We're all seraching for black and white in all these mysteries - with age and reason come s the realisataion that nothing is ever as easy as it appears.
I hope we can find Amy - and I hope we can find Alyona.
The rest is endless speculation.

Charlie - you said everything! at the end we only wish that all cases have an happy end!

Well put Charlie and Paula

All those days of heartache for Audrey and I dont even want to think of what Amy might be going through

I'm meeting Audrey on Saturday for lunch!

It is 600 Days today since Amy Disappeared. can everyone here please light a candle for Amy at 10pm tonight and pray for her safe return.
http://www.gratefulness.org/candles/candles.cfm?l=eng&gi=AMY

Alternatively you can visit Amy's official website and leave a message there to show Audrey and Dave you are thinking of them today. Even if you have signed it before. Thanks to everyone for your support for Amy since she disappeared.

As you can read by the topic Amy is 600 Days missing today. I am trying to get as many people as possible to either visit her website and leave a message for Amy or light a candle for her. Can anyone help me to get people to do this.