Readers of the previous entry on Hanwell here on Retrochick are no doubt still wondering just what is going on. Today, I can report that a new chapter has been opened, as it seems that the Institute itself has become aware of the videos being leaked by "Leonard Huntings" and have now issued a statement. I received the following e-mail, which originated from a real person at Hanwell (I check all my sources before reporting), and have their permission to reproduce it in full here.

Dear Sirs,

I am writing this public letter on behalf of the Hanwell Mental Institute, in the hope that it will clarify a distressing and misleading situation that came to light at the beginning of June. A person by the name of "Leonard Huntings" has been offering a series of video recordings and attempting to pass them as actual archive material from the institute. The Internet website in question that I am referring to is located at http://www.youtube.com/user/lhuntings

We claim absolutely no connection to these outrageous videos. More so, we suspect this "Leonard Huntings" is a nickname used by the perpetrator, who has not the courage to use his real name. We never admitted patients by the names of Leonard Huntings or Bertrand Laroche, who seems to be subject of the videos. Thus, we are dismissing this stunt as nothing else than juvenile efforts to tarnish the good image of our institute. Authorities have been alerted and I trust the aforementioned Internet website will be disabled shortly.

I sincerely thank you for your time and I'm truly sorry to see you being bothered by this childish event.

Yours Truly,

Dr. Andrew H. Miller

Head Director

http://www.Hanwell.org

andrew.miller@hanwell.org

You can check the website for yourself if you like; it's a real location, not made-up. Right now, I've no idea what to think. It's either the truth (in which case, Mr. Huntings is making out like a bandit with all of redirected hits to his videos that are partially my responsiblity), or else it's spin of the highest calibre (in which case, the more word of this gets out, the better). I'll reserve judgement to my readers. Either way, it's fascinating, and not a little disturbing.