Tag: trial

Five of the Worst – Undesirable Homes Currently For Sale

‘The Steeple Times’ selects five undesirable homes currently for sale that many would say would remain best avoided; they’ve all been in the news and they’re all connected to infamous names

Destined most certainly not to feature in Penny Churchill’s Downton Abbey-esque country house porn Country Life column or as an Evening Standard chi-chi ‘Homes & Property’ ‘House of the Week,’ we have selected five undesirable homes currently for sale.

In spite of the fact that one has a link to a recently deceased paedophile, two have been the scene of murders, one is supposedly haunted and the final was the setting for a bizarre nine year sleep, their prices seem somewhat crazy – but maybe some people will just love the idea of living with notoriety. Whether any of these undesirable homes sell for their asking prices, however, seems as likely as the case of Jack the Ripper ever being solved.

Paedo Palace – 9 East 71^st Street, Lenox Hill, New York, NY 10021, USA

For sale for £69 million ($88 million, €74 million or درهم121 million) through Modlin Group.

Known as the ‘Herbert Straus House’ in polite circles, but now forever more likely to be remembered as ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Paedo Mansion,’ this 28,000 square foot, 7-floor, 40 room mansion was home to the deceased bestie of Prince Andrew from 1996 until his incarceration and suicide in 2019.

Few details are shared on the listing other than to declare it of “gargantuan size and opulence” and “the largest single-family home in New York City.” Though the late Alberto Pinto’s design work at the property is lauded, there’s no mention of what Ghislaine Maxwell got up to there or the bizarre birthday parties with Christopher Mason.

Murder Mansion – Devisdale House, Dunham Road, Bowdon, Cheshire, WA14 4QG, UK

For sale for £3.25 million ($4.16 million, €3.51 million or درهم15.28 million) through Jackson-Stops.

Originally called ‘Oakleigh,’ this “striking Gothic Victorian villa” subsequently became known as ‘The House of Horror’ but has now been renamed ‘Devisdale House’ in an attempt to relieve it of a position in the ranks of undesirable homes.

In March 2005, Christopher Lumsden, a partner in the international law firm Pinsent Masons, killed his former Sotheby’s auctioneer wife Alison in the house in a “frenzied domestic attack in the master bedroom” according to The Sun. He stabbed her 30 times after she announced she was leaving him for another man and was amazingly jailed for just five years “after he was found guilty of manslaughter on the ground of diminished responsibility, claiming he had a depressive illness.”

‘Oakleigh’ subsequently “fell into rack and ruin” in spite of reports suggesting Lumsden may have inherited his wife’s fortune, but more recently it was purchased by a property developer. They have added an especially ghastly underground swimming pool, sauna, cinema room and triple garage and now pompous selling agents Jackson-Stops pretentiously laud the property as “incredible,” “striking” and “meticulously remodelled.” Christopher Lumsden, meanwhile, was released from prison after serving just two years of his jail sentence.

A Killer Castle – Pencoed Castle, Pencoed Lane, Llanmartin, Newport, Gwent, Wales, NP18 2ED, UK

For sale with a guide price of £950,000 ($1.2 million, €1 million or درهم1.7 million) by auction on 17^th September 2020 through Allsop.

Pencoed Castle dates to the 13^th century and in the time since one can imagine all sorts has gone on there. Most recently, in 2016, a then 56-year-old businessman Peter Morgan strangled his girlfriend of three years, a 25-year-old personal escort named Georgina Symonds, in a bungalow in the castle grounds. The married multi-millionaire was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 25 years in prison and with that the estate found itself joining the ranks of undesirable homes.

Wales Online report that “it is not known if Mr Morgan still owns the property,” but for less than a million pounds, a buyer could get themselves not only the castle (which could be turned into 12 dwellings and offices also), but also a former farmhouse, two bungalows and 64.8 acres of land. Previous plans to turn the site into a Disneyland-style theme park called Legend Court came to nothing and of the property a local cryptically remarked: “This place’s recent history is very dark.”

Axing a Ghost – Maplecroft, 306 French Street, Fall River, Massachusetts, MA 02720, USA

For sale for £696,000 ($890,000, €751,000 or درهم1.2 million) through Century 21 The Seyboth Team.

Sold last for £469,000 in February 2018 and £386,000 in November 2014, Maplecroft is described by realtor Suzanne St. John as “a Queen Anne Victorian Mansion,” but many would consider it fitting instead of a listing on a roster of undesirable homes. It was built in 1887, extends to 3,935 square foot and includes 7 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms.

The allegedly haunted residence, which stands on a plot of 0.31 acres, is notable as the post-prison home of one Lizzie Borden (1860 – 1927) – a woman who was the main suspect in the 1892 axe murders of her father and step-mother. Accused, tried and acquitted, Miss Borden inherited a fortune, bought Maplecroft and when she died of pneumonia her wake was held in the parlour.

The current owner also owns the house where the murders were committed and runs it as a ‘murder house B&B.’ He had intended to convert Maplecroft into something similar, but COVID-19 (and perhaps the spirit of Lizzie Borden) got in the way.

A Nine Year Sleep – Sleepy Cottage, 1 School Lane, Turville, Henley-On-Thames, Buckinghamshire, RG9 6QX, UK

For sale for £750,000 ($960,000, €810,000 or درهم1.3 million) through Savills.

Strictly speaking, our final choice in our roster of undesirable homes, has had only a gruesome past in a fictional sense given that it sits in a village used in Midsomer Murders. Nobody in their right minds – if such a place did really exist – would want to reside in any of Midsomer’s locations given the risk of ending up brown bread would be so high, but the innocent sounding name of this cottage makes it worthy of mention.

Used also in the perfectly harmless series Goodnight Uncle Tom and the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom Sleepy Cottage is also noteworthy as it was most famously home to ‘The Sleeping Girl of Turville.’

Of this enigma, selling agents Savills remark:

“Ellen Sadler, who lived in the cottage with her family when in 1871, aged eleven she purportedly fell into a deep sleep from which she could not be roused for nine years. The case attracted international attention from newspapers, medical professionals and the public. She became a tourist attraction for the village, and her family made considerable money from visitors’ donations.”

“Rumours exist that among the elder Turville residents that Royalty even took an interest in her. The Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII, visited her and laid his hands on her which people in those days believed would cure the sick.”

“As the years went on and with no sign of Ellen waking, speculation grew that her illness was caused by her mother, an issue that was never resolved. In late 1880, soon after her mother’s death, Ellen awoke. She later married and had at least five children.”

Undesirable Homes Currently For Sale – Pictured top: Jeffrey Epstein’s initials were prominently displayed at the entrance to 9 East 71^st Street whilst the entrance hallway beyond aimed to impress with its classical grandeur. Goodness knows how many unfortunates passed through this space on their way on their way to be abused by the late Mr Epstein and his mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell.

September 12, 2020
Stoning the Mucky Madam

As filmmaker Sean Stone suggests Ghislaine Maxwell could expose unpleasant truths for Hollywood, Virginia Giuffre scores another blow against the mucky madam

Asked during an interview last week: “What is up with Hollywood? Can it come back? Can it survive COVID-19?” by Russia Today America’s Rick Sanchez, Oliver Stone’s son and fellow filmmaker, Sean, responded: “Can it survive Ghislaine Maxwell is the question, actually.”

He continued: “I still think there is a lot more that is going to come out here with this Ghislaine trial because remember who, all, has been on Jeffrey Epstein island. And there’s been more in terms of the private jets and there’s been more than Chris Tucker and Kevin Spacey and the Clintons. I think you are going to see other Hollywood icons involved… More than we imagine.”

“I don’t think it’s even about her spilling the beans. I think there is case and evidence that is being drawn up that is in conjunction with the investigation into her. A lot more will be exposed about Epstein and Epstein island. I am 100% positive on that. And the question is who will be involved, who will be implicated, who will talk.”

“Look, we haven’t seen the end of it. ‘Me Too’ was the beginning of this, we haven’t seen the end of it. So, COVID is a wonderful opportunity for everything to shut down and restructure, but I think there is a lot of concern in Hollywood across the board from the exposure on the Epstein thing.”

Elsewhere yesterday, Virginia Giuffre told the 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan that “Ghislaine Maxwell’s desire for privacy failed to justify the continued sealing of a deposition that the British socialite has fought to keep out of the public eye” according to Byline.

Giuffre’s lawyers, Sigrid McCawley and David Boies, remarked: “Maxwell’s vague argument about privacy interests cannot justify total closure of the deposition materials [and overcome] the public’s presumption of access.”

Going further, of moaning Maxwell’s attempts to suggest she was getting “unfair pretrial publicity” and her belief that she will be place before “a tainted jury pool, especially in large metropolitan areas such as New York,” the lawyers added:

“The size and heterogeneity of such communities make it unlikely that even the most sensational case will become ‘a cause célèbre’ where the whole community becomes interested in all the morbid details.”

Still very much in their early stages, the unravelling of Miss Maxwell’s grubby activities has barely begun and now, as Sean Stone has rightly observed, there will be a lot of well-known people who’ll be resorting to the Donald Trump school of “good wishes.” It’ll be fascinating to watch them fall like dominoes.

Pictured top: Mendacious mucky madam Ghislaine Maxwell with the catty catwalk calamity Naomi Campbell at a party in New York in 2002.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GotN-Bu8S-0

Stoning the Mucky Madam – Oliver Stone’s son Sean has suggested Ghislaine Maxwell could do a lot of damage to the Hollywood elite as further details about her activities with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein are revealed.

Stoning the Mucky Madam – Ghislaine Maxwell even sat on thrones in Buckingham Palace with the Hollywood horror Kevin Spacey. Yesterday in Manhattan, actor Anthony Rapp and another man filed a lawsuit seeking unspecified damages against Spacey, accusing him of sexual assaults in the 1980s when they were teenagers.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s Hollywood connections numbered the likes of the now jailed producer Harvey Weinstein. Here, she is pictured at a party for one of Prince Andrew’s daughters with that particular paedophile and her ex-lover and now deceased paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

No wonder she had an interest in the oceans – Miss Maxwell’s octopus-like tentacles have stretched far and wide and her address book included everyone from media moguls such as Rupert Murdoch (pictured) to aristocrats and actors.

Prince Andrew – accused of abuse by the at-the-time underage Virginia Giuffre – is another associate who has much to fear from his long-time friend. Will she do the right thing and finally tell the truth about what he got upto on 10th March 2001 in her house at 44 Kinnerton Street, Belgravia, London SW1X 8ES? Somehow, that seems unlikely, but stranger things have indeed happened.

September 10, 2020
Moron of the Moment – Natalie Elphicke MP

After using Twitter to dump her sex offender husband Natalie Elphicke MP has returned to the medium to abuse immigrants

Natalie Elphicke OBE MP only got rid of her “naughty Tory” sex offender husband after he was convicted. Until then she’d stood by this deranged deviant and thinking she was being clever, she dumped the disgraced ex-MP Charlie Elphicke via Twitter.

Whilst Mrs Elphicke cannot be blamed for her husband’s actions, she has admitted that she knew what he’d been upto and held hands with him as they left Southwark Crown Court during the trial. Here was an opportunistic woman who only ran for the hills when she knew the writing was on the wall and her, ridiculously, is a woman whom even managed to seize her now ex’s parliamentary seat also.

This morning at about 9am, 8 illegal entrants motored into Britain. This is the dinghy they arrived in. This is the reality of the small boats crossings.

Only when migrants and traffickers alike know that they will be stopped and returned will these journeys come to an end. pic.twitter.com/rQMHcTRRMV
— Natalie Elphicke Ross OBE (@NatalieElphicke) August 16, 2020

A shoeless Natalie Elphicke posed on a beach with what appeared to be a brand new boat on 16th August. No actual immigrants appeared in her video.

Now, Mrs Elphicke thinks she can put the past behind her and yesterday she returned to her favoured medium on Twitter to share a video of herself standing shoeless by a boat ranting about immigrants.

“It is unacceptable,” Elphicke raged, before adding: “Seven fit men and one woman. They came in this high-end dinghy and they’ve run away into the village.”

In response, Twitter users quite rightly condemned the Tory MP. One, @TerryRTull remarked: “You would hope with the exams crisis, #COVID19 and #BrexitReality coming you’d have more urgent things to occupy yourself. Concentrate on the traffickers.”

Another, @fullerk006, added: “Can’t see any immigrants just a boat you put there for some sensationalism” whilst with irony one @FieryGingerCake remarked: “Can’t even control the husband.”

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Twitter users condemned Natalie Elphicke’s “sensationalism” and told her to “concentrate on the traffickers.” One even remarked: “Can’t even control the husband.”

One amusingly remarked: “Seven fit men, is she after a date?”

Another commented: “How about standing in Knightsbridge pointing at the empty houses bought by the dodgy Russian money too! Keep playing to your base, Natalie!”

“Please stop showboating” others suggested, whilst others quite rightly told Mrs Elphicke to focus on coronavirus, Brexit and the exam results fiasco.

August 17, 2020
Could Mark Alexander be Innocent?

With humanitarian Terry Waite questioning the safety of the conviction of the law student Mark Alexander for murdering his conman father Samuel in Buckinghamshire in 2009, is it time that this curious case was reviewed?

“Locking people up should be our last resort when all else has failed, not a knee-jerk reaction” concludes prisoner Mark Alexander in his two-and-a-half page contribution to The Monument Fellowship’s Crime and Consequence: What should happen to people who commit criminal offences? in September 2019.

In another paper, published by the University of Ottawa in December 2018 and titled A Phenomenology of Freedom: finding transcendence in captivity, the University of London law graduate added: “Prisons, like Jurassic Park, are anachronistic institutions. When ‘the owl of Minerva takes flight,’ our descendants will look upon the use of imprisonment with the same horror and shame with which we view slavery, torture, and the death penalty today.” One would expect such virtue signalling from someone who believes they’ve been wrongly imprisoned, but now, with new evidence available, we join those asking: “Could Mark Alexander have actually been wrongly convicted of the murder of his father Samuel Alexander?”

Mark Alexander was found guilty of the murder of his “controlling” father on a date unknown between September 2009 and February 2010 “by a majority verdict and on the basis of circumstantial evidence only.” He was imprisoned for life at the age of 22 in September 2010 and after refusing to take a manslaughter plea at trial, thus lost the chance for release for at least sixteen years.

In spite of no forensic evidence being found that linked him to his 70-year-old father’s killing and burial underneath a 29-centimetre thick slab of concrete in the garden of their Drayton Parslow, Buckinghamshire home, Mark Alexander was convicted on the basis of the evidence of “suspicious neighbours” and his strange behaviour after his father “disappeared.”

Without doubt, amongst other actions, sending Christmas cards with his father’s name on when he did not know his actual whereabouts made investigating officers suspicious of Mark Alexander, but now, ten years after his jailing, new evidence has come to light that raises issues about the safety of his conviction.

On the homepage of the ‘Justice for Mark Alexander’ campaign website, the issues with the verdict are surmised as follows: “Mark has always maintained his innocence… Mark was found guilty on the basis of doubt created about his version of events rather than any evidence of his involvement in a murder. No such evidence exists. There is no known cause, or date, of death – and there were no traces of DNA, blood, or even fingerprints linking Mark to the crime.”

This month, however, the Mirror’s Tom Pettifor and Robin Eveleigh highlighted other issues that have been discovered since sentencing, amongst them that “secretive” Samuel Alexander was in fact a conman operating with “at least eleven aliases.” Aside from a caution for shoplifting in 1995, however, the Egypt born pensioner was not convicted of crimes that numbered mortgage fraud involving a number of properties. The “confidence trickster” and “fraudster” undoubtedly had enemies and as his son told the paper: “Dad always seemed to be running or hiding from something.”

Using human rights laws, Mark Alexander was, in March this year, able to finally obtain files documenting his father’s multiple identities from Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. He became supposedly the first person in Britain to achieve such access and now also, according to the Daily Mail’s Alice Cachia and Robin Eveleigh: “[The Justice for Mark Alexander’ campaign] are also developing new mobile phone cell site evidence which they hope will provide proof of Alexander’s movements around the time of his father’s death.” They hint that this will show he could not possibly have been present at the time of the murder and burial.

Further highlighting the plainly deviant lifestyle of Samuel Alexander – a man described by Judge Reddihough at sentencing as someone who operated by “control” and “fear” – it has been revealed the pensioner spent “long hours on the computer surfing teenage chat rooms and sex websites, sometimes posing as a man in his late teens or early 20.” Could it be that he upset someone in the process and could they be his true killer?

Samuel Alexander lied also to his son about what had happened to his mother also and told him she had died of cancer. The pair were only reunited after Mark Alexander’s arrest and it can now be revealed he cheated her as part of a property scam also and of the case, the greatly respected humanitarian Terry Waite CBE has examined it also. He turned specifically to the way in which Samuel Alexander had been buried and remarked:

“I am disturbed by the conviction of Mark as I find it difficult to believe that a complete forensic examination was conducted before the jury found him guilty by a majority verdict. It was pointed out by the judge in his summing-up that the evidence was circumstantial, but even so he was convicted and sentenced.”

“A forensic investigation of the site was conducted by a chartered engineer and chartered geologist in 2017. This examination ought to have been conducted before the trial, but for reasons unknown to me it was not. Given that the site had been excavated by the police when searching for the body and afterwards refilled it was not possible for the expert to be totally certain about the dates when the different levels of concrete were laid. However, his conclusions, which are fully recorded in his report, suggest that the top level of concrete could not have been laid by Mark Alexander as he was not in that location at that time and can prove this. The report raises in my mind a reasonable doubt as to the safety of this conviction.”

Pictured top: Mark Alexander at his graduation ceremony with Terry Waite CBE.

Images: © freeMarkAlexander.org (CC BY-ND 4.0).

Further information about this case can be found at the ‘Justice for Mark Alexander’ Facebook group and in threads on the UK Justice Forum pages about the matter.

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Mark Alexander and his late father Samuel Alexander.

The scene of the burial (but not necessarily the killing) of Samuel Alexander – 2 Prospect Close, Drayton Parslow, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, MK17 0JB.

An aerial shot of the property.

Documentary evidence of Samuel Alexander using aliases that show him to have been a man capable of perpetrating fraud and deception.

On Friday 28th September 2018, Mark Alexander played at a charity concert for The Howard League of Penal Reform at HM Prison Coldingley in Bisley, Surrey. Terry Waite CBE read from ‘Out of the Silence,’ his book about his 1,763 days in captivity from 1987 to 1991 in Lebanon.

May 25, 2020
A Major Cough-up

ITV’s ‘Quiz’ has definitely left the public questioning the conviction of the ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ £1 million cheat Major Charles Ingram in 2003, but what the programme did not reveal is actually more fascinating

“After all that, can we be sure the Ingrams were guilty?” asked The Telegraph’s Chris Bennion in his review of the final episode of the three-part hit, Quiz, and indeed the ending has achieved the inevitable and will likely reignite interest in a story that dates back to 2001.

For the few that may not remember what occurred, a Major Charles Ingram won the maximum prize of £1 million on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? on the 10^th September 2001, the day before the 9/11 attacks on America. Ingram’s wife and her brother, Adrian Pollock, had previously each won £32,000.

Immediately after the jackpot was scooped, the programme’s production company, Celador, suspecting Ingram had cheated suspended payment of the winnings. The police were called in and ultimately, after a four week trial in March and April 2003 at Southwark Crown Court, the Ingrams and another contestant, a lecturer and their alleged accomplice, Tecwen Whittock, were convicted of “procuring the execution of a valuable security by deception.” All three were given prison sentences suspended for two years, fined £15,000 each and ordered to pay £10,000 towards prosecution costs. These sums were later reduced on appeal.

Whilst many will know that Ingram was then forced to resign his commission as a major after 17 years and that he and his wife appeared on countless television shows including The Weakest Link, sadly Quiz did not delve into other bizarre twists in this “eccentric” pair’s life in the time since their “fifteen minutes of coughing fame/shame.”

Aside from being bankrupted four times in the intervening years (most recently in 2019), the former army officer chopped three of his toes off in a freak lawnmower accident in September 2010. Ironically, the “cheat” and then resident of Easterton, Wiltshire did the injury when he “slipped on a rotten apple.” Of the incident, Ingram recalled “lying on the grass” and thinking: “Oh dear… I certainly won’t be mowing any lawns again soon.”

Earlier, yet not long after his Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? conviction in November 2003, Ingram was convicted of an entirely unrelated insurance fraud. Found guilty of obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception and of deception by trying to claim on that policy after an alleged burglary, the already disgraced son of a retired RAF wing commander added a two-year conditional discharge to his burgeoning rap sheet.

The Ingrams, now, but not revealed in the show either, are based in Maiden Bradley, Warminster and run a non-registered for UK VAT company that trades as ‘Diana Ingram.’ It sells Murano glass jewellery for prices ranging from £15 to £75 and of her wares, Mrs Ingram states: “Most products listed can be altered for shape, colour, length, etc., though prices may vary. I ship worldwide and nothing is too much trouble – I regularly offer personalised wrapping and buy and write birthday cards too!” No mention is made as to whether any kind of cheat sheets can be enclosed if requested sadly.

Charles Ingram, meanwhile, has kept himself busy on Twitter since September 2013 using the handle @gallantfive. He describes himself as: “English, Irish, European, Family, Labour, LUFC and proud remainer wanting a fairer world” and has over 7,100 followers. Whilst describing Quiz as “simply brilliant” and “terrifyingly accurate,” his family have plainly had a few visits from the media as a result of the show. Now represented by one Skye Redman at 89up, a firm that somewhat immodestly has self-appointed itself as “Europe’s biggest communications agency for great causes,” the ex-major this week tweeted:

“Media: Please #StayHomeSaveLives. In any event I assure you that doorstepping is wasting your time. My solicitor, Rhona Friedman, is available for comment via phone or video conferencing. For interviews please contact Skye Redman at 89up.”

After the conclusion of Quiz, Friedman told the Guardian: “I just know that they did not do it… I just feel very sorry for them.” She intends to file paperwork associated with the case in the summer “with hopes for a hearing at the end of the year,” and given the reaction of the public after the ending of this week’s dramatisation, one thing’s for sure: We’ve not seen the last of ‘The Coughing Major’ and his ever-so-earnest wife just yet.

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April 15, 2020
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Sumption OBE, PC, FRHistS, FSA

Eton and Oxford educated former Supreme Court judge and historian Jonathan Sumption, as a barrister, successfully represented the billionaire Roman Abramovich against the late oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Formerly one of the highest paid legal eagles in Britain, this father of three termed his £1.6 million salary “puny” in 2001 in a letter to the Guardian and subsequently charged the extraordinary sum of £800,000 to successfully represent the UK government in what was then then the largest class actions against the state ever in 2005. The trial lasted just four weeks. Sumption speaks French and Italian fluently, owns a chateau in South West France and serves as a director of the English National Opera. He became an outspoken critic of the “hysteria” over the police reaction to coronavirus outbreak in the UK in March 2020. Of this “frightening opponent” with an “icy analytical instinct,” the Guardian’s Wendell Steavenson suggested: “Sumption is a man who cannot stop thinking” whilst the former Labour spinner Alastair Campbell more simply concluded: “Brain the size of a planet.”

March 31, 2020
Moron of the Moment – Larysa Switlyk

Sex toy up the bums of sheep shover Larysa Switlyk takes to social media to moan about what she’s had to quite deservedly endure

Larysa Switlyk likes to boast about shoving sex toys up the bums of sheep she’s shot. She doesn’t like criticism however and now, after she bragged about getting an award for her deviant conduct, this wicked wench has taken to deleting the missives of anyone who dares call out her disgusting antics.

In an Instagram post yesterday, Switlyk – an off-the-scale example of a dumb blonde plainly on crack – shared news that she’s “stopped Googling [herself] because [she] was tired of reading fake news” about her appalling behaviour and bizarrely announced: “God has a plan for us all… God knew I needed to cleanse the toxic people out and not allow anyone to hold me back from my true potential.”

Aside from bleating about the “trials” she feels she has had, in her deluded mind, to “endure,” this personification of evil then posted about how she was “honoured” to have Kimberly Guilfoyle, the batshit crazy lover of the elephant massacring moron Donald Trump Jr. following her and curiously announced: “You rock sista [sic]!” In October last year, we called out a PR named Norah Lawlor and a morally bankrupt animal charity named Rescue Dogs Rock NYC for holding an event involving these frankly vile individuals.

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February 19, 2020
Repugnant Robinson

Matthew Steeples suggests that continued interest in the case of Tommy Robinson illustrates a very dangerous extremist underbelly still exists in British politics

Whatever the complexities of the case against Tommy Robinson and Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC’s decision to refer the allegation of contempt of court against him to the Attorney General, one thing is clear: the appearance of him and his thug-like followers outside the Old Bailey today simply shows that British politics has still not managed to see off far-right extremism.

Former English Defence League (EDL) leader Robinson – whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – arrived at the court this morning supported by “hundreds of supporters” according to the BBC. As he left, shouts of “Oh, Tommy, Tommy” and “We want Tommy out, we want Tommy out” emanated from what was described as “an enthusiastic crowd.”

Supported also by the equally nasty nutcase Gerrard Batten, leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), who took to a stage to remark: “It looks very much like when Tommy was jailed, for the alleged contempt of court, this was about who he was, not what he was saying,” 35 year old Robinson himself then decided to speak. He announced he thought he’d “acted in good faith” when he violated reporting restrictions on grooming trials at Leeds Crown Court in May and announced: “My continued prosecution is because of who I am rather than what I did.”

Bizarrely next – as his supporters chanted the mainstream media were “scum” – Robinson then described himself as a “journalist.” He added:

“What’s changed is that last night they received my statement of evidence to go before the court. It would appear my treatment is exceptional. I would ask to be treated the same as every other journalist.”

“To the journalists: The British public do not trust you, they do not believe you. You are the enemies of the people.”

Whether the allegations against Robinson are ultimately proven true or false, right-minded individuals will surely accept the scene outside the court today to be illustrative of the continued presence of dangerous extremism in a country considered to be tolerant. Messrs Batten, Robinson and their far-right opinions represent a threat to us all and they deserve to be highlighted as such.

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October 23, 2018
Elvira Mullens Barney (1904 – 1936)

Though considered one of society’s “Bright Young Things,” the “morally dubious” daughter of Sir John and Lady Mullens was just a tempestuous coke addict who got away with murder.

Separated from her supposedly violent American singer husband, John Sterling Barney, and living with an “extravagant, bisexual waster” named Michael Scott Stephen in 1932, Elvira Mullens Barney gave a dinner party at her “prodigally furnished” Knightsbridge home – known as the ‘Love Hut’ – at 21 William Mews on the 30^th May that year. Early the next morning, shouts of: “Get out, get out! I will shoot you! I will shoot you!” were heard in the mews followed by: “Chicken, chicken, come back to me. I will do anything you want me to.”

Undoubtedly the inspiration for Eveleyn Waugh’s character Agatha Runcible in Vile Bodies and possibly also Elvira in Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit, Mullens Barney’s single shot at close range with a .32 Smith & Wesson revolver killed her lover in the doorway of their bedroom. On her arrest, she launched into an “uncontrollable violent outburst and paroxysm of rage” and “slapped a policeman in the face when he suggested she put on a warmer fur coat.” She is said to have then added: “I’ll teach you to say you will take me to a police station. Now you know who my mother is you’ll be a little more careful in what you say and do to me!”

Placed in a private cell at Holloway Prison with a “telephone, powder-puffs and a grand tea-gown” whilst awaiting trial at the Old Bailey, Mullens Barney was ultimately surprisingly cleared of both murder and manslaughter on 5^th July 1932. As he left court, the judge at the trial, Mr Justice Humphreys exclaimed: “Most extraordinary! Apparently we should have given her a pat on the back” whilst Mullens Barney was said to have headed to a celebration party and shouted: “I am the one who shot her lover – so take a good look at me” as she took to the dance floor.

To escape public and press outrage, “spoilt child of fortune” Mullens Barney moved to France. She was found dead on Christmas Day 1936 after “a typical long night of drinking and taking cocaine” in a hotel room in Paris with signs of haemorrhage around her mouth. Her sister, Avril, meanwhile made her third husband divorcé Ernest Simpson (whose ex-wife Wallis had become wife to Edward VIII in 1937) in 1948 and was killed in a car crash in Mexico in 1978.

August 24, 2018
Adam Marchment (AKA ‘Man on the Run’ and ‘The Marchment Man’)

Vile paedophile and rapist Adam Marchment is a scumbag with no remorse for the crimes he committed but one also of the belief that he is “getting ripped off” over the food he has to buy in jail. Sentenced to ten years in 2016 for attacks on a 14 and a 15 year old, this extra virgin olive loving jailbird wrote in prisoners’ magazine Inside Time in November 2017: “I’m really starting to get frustrated by Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service… Prisoners have access to the outside world and will question the utter rubbish they try to feed us.” Let this tattooed monster – who named himself ‘Man on the Run’ whilst breaching his license conditions for over 37 days in October 2014 – eat porridge!

November 12, 2017