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.

Comments

[yakaru]

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.

[The Perky Skeptic]

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???

[Big Al]

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

[TechSkeptic]

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.

[Mark]

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.

[nicky]

i thnk you are all full of shit if you dont believe then thats up to you some of us do and we are quite happy continuing to do so, you have no evidence that he is a fake and all you ever bang on about is police investigations you never talk about all the accurate readings he dose for members of the public, who contact him by the way he dosnt go knocking on their doors so just go and boil your heads you boring nut jobs

[Martin]

Say hello to The Period.

[Jimmy_Blue]

nicky:

I think you're full of shit. If you do believe then that is up to you, some of us don't and we are quite happy continuing to not do so. You have no evidence that he is not a fake, and all you ever bang on about is readings he did for members of the public who contacted him. You never talk about cold reading. You never talk about warm reading. You never talk about hot reading. You never talk about selective thinking, wishful thinking, cognitive bias, cognitive dissonance, coincidence, the drawbacks of anecdotal evidence, poor memory recall, confirmation bias, the Forer effect, hindsight bias, selection bias, self-deception, shoe-horning, shot-gunning, subjective validation. You never talk about the inaccurate or flat out wrong readings - do you think he never, ever makes mistakes? Then why don't you hear about them? Why might someone hide their mistakes? Go boil your head you boring nut job.

[Free Psychic]

A perfect psychic reading can help you to grow closer to your spiritual destiny. You can live and study step by step. You can gain more knowledge about yourself through another person’s psychic reading of your life.

[yakaru]

Free Psychic,

You forgot to add the music and the lyrics.

[Big Al]

A perfect psychic reading can help you to grow closer to your spiritual destiny. You can live and study step by step. You can gain more knowledge about yourself through another person’s psychic reading of your life.

1) What is a perfect reading as opposed to a flawed one? How is one to know the difference? What if there were some unscrupulous person who didn't really have super-psychic reading powers, but just pretended to? How am I to tell?

2) If a destiny is an inevitable fate, doesn't every single thing you do or don't do lead towards it? If I don't get a perfect psychic reading, am I thwarting my destiny? How can I thwart my destiny?

[TechSkeptic]

pretty sure that free psychic is a bot. Big al, do you also talk to your TV?

:)

[Big Al]

Sorry, TechSkeptic, but I've talked to a lot of apparently breathing, typing persons whose utterances were pretty indistinguishable from those of bots.

So I'm not convinced that's a fair assumption.

On the other hand, I've never known one of those breathing, typing persons actually answer serious questions any more than I would expect a bot to.

So it's a moot point anyway.

[yakaru]

A bot? Ah jeez, I thought I was getting somewhere with her.