X Factor flop confesses to sex offences
Phillip Blackwell
A FAILED X Factor contestant has admitted raping and assaulting nine women over 22 years.
Phillip Blackwell, 55, targeted young women walking alone at night.
The offences, including 13 rapes, were committed both before and after Blackwell left X Factor judges unimpressed in 2008 with his version of Spandau Ballet’s hit Gold.
He pleaded guilty to 31 offences from 1997 to 2019.
Judge Andrew Lockhart QC reprimanded him at Warwick crown court yesterday for bursting into tears, saying the time for crying was a long time ago.
Blackwell, of Launceston, Cornwall, was then told to expect a “very, very long” prison term when he is sentenced at the same court on July 27.
DONALD Trump’s former national security adviser has described the US President as “stunningly uninformed” in a book exposing the chaos in the White House.
Trump yesterday dubbed John Bolton “a sick puppy” over his claims that the US President had no idea Britain had nuclear weapons, thought Finland was in Russia, quite fancied invading Venezuela, and begged China to increase trade to boost his re-election chances.
The clearly rattled Mr Trump hit out at Mr Bolton as the American government battled to have his memoir, The Room Where It Happened, due for release on Tuesday, stopped.
Mr Bolton, who worked for Mr Trump for 17 months, writes “obstruction of justice was a way of life” in the White House, claiming the President gave “personal favours to dictators he liked”.
The President is alleged to have made the comments about the UK’S military capability at a summit with the thenprime Minister Theresa May in 2018.
When a British official referred to the UK as a “nuclear power”, Trump allegedly asked, “Oh, are you a nuclear power?” in a way which made Mr Bolton believe it “was not intended as a joke”.
Mr Bolton, who served four Republican presidents, claims Trump’s decisions put his re-election and his family above the interests of American people.
He claims the President said invading Venezuela would be “cool”, requesting military options after saying he felt it was “really part of the United States”.
Mr Bolton also tells how Mr Trump thought Finland was in Russia, and describes him as childlike and absurd, claiming he is easily manipulated by aides, foreign leaders and dictators.
He writes that Russian President Vladimir Putin showed “a brilliant
FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR TO DONALD TRUMP
display of Soviet-style propaganda” in May 2019 in a call with the US leader that “largely persuaded Trump” to go easy on additional Venezuela sanctions.
The President defended Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman over the gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, allegedly to divert attention from the revelation that his daughter Ivanka, a White House adviser, was using a private email account.
“This will divert from Ivanka,” Mr Bolton quotes the President as saying.
Mr Bolton claims Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, supposedly a Trump ally, slipped him a note saying “he [Trump] is so full of s***” in the famous meeting
SHAKY with North Korean despot Kim Jong-un. The book also alleges that Trump called former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley a “c***”, but Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner still wanted her to replace Mike Pence as his Vice President pick for November’s election.
The book also supports a report that Attorney General Bill Barr personally tried to block a US prosecution of a Turkish bank after Turkey’s President Recep Erdogan asked Trump about it.
Bolton claims Trump begged Chinese President Xi Jinping to help his re-election, writing Trump was “pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win. He stressed the importance of farmers, and increased Chinese purchases of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome”.
Responding to the claims yesterday, Trump tweeted: “Bolton’s book, which is getting terrible reviews, is a compilation of lies and made-up stories.” Earlier, he said of Bolton; “He is a liar, everybody in the White House hated John Bolton.”
In a trailer for an ABC interview, Mr Bolton said of Mr Trump: “I don’t think he’s fit for office. I don’t think he has the competence to carry out the job.”
At Kim talks Mike Pompeo passed note to Bolton saying Trump was ‘so full of s***’
JOHN BOLTON