BNP activist cleared in court

A BNP activist from Lancashire who wrote and distributed leaflets which blamed Muslims collectively for the heroin trade has been cleared of intending to incite religious hatred.

Anthony Bamber, 54, told a jury his intention was to create a debate about the "crime against humanity" that was the flow of the drug on to Britain's streets. He was responsible for heading a campaign which sent up to 30,000 of the leaflets by hand or post to targeted areas and individuals throughout the north of England over a 12-month period.

Bamber, of Greenbank Street, Preston pleaded not guilty to seven counts of distributing threatening written material intended to stir up religious hatred between March and November 2008. He was cleared by a jury at Preston Crown Court of all seven counts.

Representing himself, Bamber said there had been "no unpleasant incidents or social unrest" following the sending of the leaflets. Giving evidence last week, he explained they were targeted at educated professionals such as teachers, doctors, lawyers and clerics who were unlikely to take physical retribution against Muslims upon reading the literature. His aim was to create curiosity and interest which would then lead to a debate, he said.

The former part-time lecturer of politics and economics at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston said: "It was a desire to protest at what I say is a monstrous abomination. I believe I have the right to protest about the heroin trade.

"There are 400,000 heroin users in this country which is the equivalent of the size of a city like Liverpool. Half of these people are going to die. I wanted to scream out, I wanted society to pay much more attention to the heroin trade. It is ignored."

He added: "I do not want religious war, I do not want people to hate. I intended to do something about the heroin trade. I was not a monster stirring up religious hatred. I think it should be discussed and debated, and it will come (round) to my opinion that it is a crime against humanity. I believe I was doing a good thing."

Opening the case, David Perry QC, prosecuting, said the leaflets were filled with "hate speech" in which the obvious intention was to provoke hatred of Muslims.

Following the verdict, Detective Supt Neil Hunter, of Lancashire Constabulary's Force Major Investigation Team, said: "While we are disappointed with today's decision, we accept the decision of the court. We have worked very closely with the Crown Prosecution Service throughout this inquiry and careful consideration was given before any decision to charge was made."

Lancashire Evening Post

British National Party activist tried to 'stir up racial hatred' in Barnoldswick

A BNP activist tried to stir up religious hatred of Muslims in Barnoldswick by handing out contoversial leaflets, a court heard.

Anthony Bamber, 54, printed and then distributed documents entitled ‘The Heroin Trade’ which allegedly claimed followers of Islam were responsible for the sale of the drug on Britain’s streets, Preston Crown Court heard. The leaflet said the trade was a 'crime against humanity' and demanded that Muslims 'apologise and pay compensation' for the flow of heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan, the court was told.

Bamber, from Preston, went with a friend to Barnoldswick in March 2008 and hand delivered the leaflets to a number of homes. One resident alerted police and officers arrived to speak to Bamber. He claimed he was trying to promote a group called Preston Pals, named after a First World War battalion who recruited from the city.

Bamber is also accused of delivering similar material across the north west and sending leaflets to a Cumbrian school and two Manchester barristers.

David Perry QC, prosecuting, said: “The defendant distributed leaflets and letters by hand or by post which were threatening and he did so with the intention of creating or stirring up religious hatred, and the religion he directed the hatred towards was Islam. This case is about hate speech. That is speech designed to arouse hatred against members of a social group identified by a particular characteristic. In this case the social group is Muslims and the characteristic they share is religion, namely Islam. The objective of the letters and leaflets, the prosecution say, was to provoke hatred of Islam. The hatred was not directed just at the concept but at the followers of Islam - Muslims.”

Bamber, who is representing himself in court, denies seven charges of distributing material designed to incite religious hatred.

Mr Perry said: “They (the Preston Pals) have got nothing whatsoever to do with the BNP and nothing whatsoever to do with the hatred of Islam. Why that name was being used is not really known."

Lancashire Telegraph

BNP activist 'delivered anti-Muslim leaflets'

A British National Party activist delivered leaflets of "hate speech" intended to stir up religious hatred of Muslims, a court heard today.

Anthony Bamber, 54, printed and then distributed documents entitled The Heroin Trade which allegedly claimed followers of Islam were responsible for the sale of the drug on Britain's streets. It said the trade was a "crime against humanity" and demanded that Muslims
"apologise and pay compensation" for the flow of heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Preston Crown Court was told Bamber, of Preston, Lancashire, targeted various people across the North West in his leaflet drops between March and November 2008, including a school in Sedbergh, Cumbria, two barristers in Manchester, and addresses in Harrogate.

David Perry QC, prosecuting, said: "The defendant distributed leaflets and letters by hand or by post which were threatening and he did so with the intention of creating or stirring up religious hatred, and the religion he directed the hatred towards was Islam. This case is about hate speech. That is speech designed to arouse hatred against members of a social group identified by a particular characteristic.

"In this case the social group is Muslims and the characteristic they share is religion, namely Islam. The objective of the letters and leaflets, the prosecution say, was to provoke hatred of Islam. The hatred was not directed just at the concept but at the followers of Islam - Muslims."

In March 2008, Bamber and another man visited Barnoldswick, Lancashire, where they delivered the leaflets by hand, the court heard. A householder in the area contacted the police, who arrived and spoke to the defendant, Mr Perry said.

"The defendant admitted he had been distributing the leaflets and he said his purpose was to promote an organisation known as the Preston Pals," the prosecutor said. The Preston Pals was a battalion which fought in the First World War which recruited its members from the city.

Mr Perry said: "They (the Preston Pals) have got nothing whatsoever to do with the BNP and nothing whatsoever to do with the hatred of Islam. Why that name was being used is not really known. The defendant also said that the leaflet was inspected by a lawyer who informed him that the material could not be interpreted as provoking religious or religious hatred."

The jury was told the leaflet said 95% of heroin traded in the UK came from the Pakistan and Afghanistan region and was a "crime against humanity". It continued: "Before the Islamic invasion it was impossible to find heroin in our land. Muslims are almost exclusively responsible for its production, transportation and sale. It is a crime against humanity because it has caused far more suffering than slavery ever did. It has led to millions of premature deaths."

Taxpayers were also victims due to the cost of policing and rehabilitation for which Muslims must compensate, the leaflet added. Muslims should be held to account with condemnation heaped upon them so that it would lead to the abolition of the trade, it concluded. The leaflet was labelled a Preston Pals publication which was "committed to non-violent democratic resistance" and was set up in honour of the soldiers in a "campaign on behalf of indigenous communities".

Mr Perry said the real intention of the leaflet was "obvious".

"It is no doubt intended to be dramatic. It is no doubt intended to capture the imagination and say 'look at what these people are doing, they are all criminals'," he said. "The crime of drug trafficking was the collective responsibility of all Muslims - according to the leaflet - and they were all being "tarred with the same brush".

He told the jury the tone of the leaflet could be seen as "militaristic and menacing" rather than promoting a non-violent and democratic cause.

"You may think it is intolerant, bigoted and intended to be divisive. It is blaming Islam with contestable and questionable assertions of facts and stoking resentment. The prosecution say that the overall message is that Muslims are killing British youths and they must themselves be made to pay and it is your duty to make them pay. They are 'the invader'."

In June 2008 the headteacher of Sedbergh School received a large brown envelope which contained a number of letters addressed to individual teachers. The letters were along similar lines to the leaflet and called for Muslims to be held to account for the heroin trade.

"We know we are asking a lot," it said. "There are many dangers with confronting the Muslim invader."

Mr Perry said: "The letter makes it clear that all Muslims are to be held to account and it makes it clear that all Muslims are culpable."

Similar material was also sent to two barristers in Manchester and addresses in Lytham and Eccleston, Lancashire, and Harrogate, North Yorkshire, the court was told. Bamber, of Greenbank Street, who is representing himself, denies seven counts of distributing threatening written material intended to stir up religious hatred.

The trial is expected to last up to two weeks.

Yorkshire Post

'Racist' leaflet suspect charged

The notoriously racist 'Preston Pals' leaflet

A Preston man has been charged with distributing leaflets in Lancashire which claim Muslims are responsible for the heroin trade.

Anthony Bamber, 53, of Greenbank Street, Preston, will appear at Preston Magistrates Court on Wednesday charged with incitement to commit religious hatred. Three other people arrested last year in connection with the investigation have been released from their police bail.

A 41-year-old man from Nelson, a 44 year-old man from Darwen, and a 57-year-old man from Nelson were all arrested on Wednesday, November 19 2008 on suspicion of the publication and distribution of written material intended to stir up racial hatred and the possession of racially inflammatory material. However they will not now face any charges.

Lancashire Evening Post

More info on the leaflet in question can be found here and here.

Drugs smear case shows weakness of UK laws

The Muslim News has criticised the weakness of recently passed British laws on religious incitement following the failure to prosecute the BNP over a leaflet which blames Muslims for the heroin trade.

“It just shows that incitement to religious hatred legislation is inadequate and the BNP members use the loophole to target Muslims.” said The Muslim News Editor, Ahmed J Versi.

“If the leaflets were targeted at other ethnic communities like the Jews and Black people then the perpetrators would have been charged for incitement. Muslims, in contrast, are free for all,” Versi said. “Such incitement language results in attacks against Muslims and mosques as the leaflets blame all Muslims for drug peddling.”

His criticism comes as Muslim police officers were demanding an explanation as to why the police had not provided adequate advice to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) which led to no action being taken over a leaflet, which was distributed by the BNP members since June to hundreds of addresses in parts of Lancashire, Cumbria and Yorkshire. It smears Muslims as being “almost exclusively responsible” for the heroin trade 95% of which it says comes from the Afghanistan and Pakistan region. It also suggested “naming and shaming” Muslims to tackle the problem. The National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) said the CPS had effectively allowed the people in question to continue distributing the material.

In a statement to The Muslim News, Deputy Chief Constable for Lancashire Constabulary Mike Cunningham said: “Whilst we understand that this advice is based on established case law, we roundly condemn the contents of these leaflets and those distributing them” Cunningham said it was “inflammatory in nature” and that the police were “obviously concerned that their distribution in Lancashire could damage community cohesion.”

The Muslim News

BNP's fraudulent 'Preston Pals' lie machine steps up production in North-West

The Bamber leaflet - a clear incitement to religious hatred

Parts of the North-West of England, primarily around Lancashire, are being treated to a BNP-produced leaflet that seems to have been penned by the ever-despicable Tony Bamber, the former fundholder for the now defunct Lancaster and Preston branch of the far-right party and a former candidate for the Tulketh ward in Preston in 2006. The leaflet campaign appears to be part of an attempt to get the branch up and running again in time for the Euro-elections.

Bamber, in keeping with the BNP's long-established tradition of jumping on any available bandwagon, formed a fictitious group a couple of years back, which he called the 'Preston Pals', a reference to the company of volunteers from Preston who were eventually formed into 'D' company, 7th Battalion, the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, to fight in World War I.

In the Battle of Bazentin-le-Petit on the Somme in 1916, 200 out of the 250 in the battalion were killed in action and the surviving Pals were then further reduced in number through redistribution to other battalions. A short and bloody history but one of which Preston is rightly proud.

Sadly, while appropriating the Preston Pals name and claiming on his latest leaflet that the current bunch (which is actually the remains of Preston BNP) have taken the name 'in honour' of the Pals, he then goes on to state inaccurately that they became the 5th Battalion, a mistake that shows precisely how much respect he actually has for the Pals.

The Royal British Legion (RBL) has roundly condemned this misappropriation of the name by the BNP, with its spokesman Patrick Leavey saying; '[The Preston Pals] sacrifice should not be besmirched by people engaged in political campaigning for such an ugly cause. We condemn this leaflet, its contents, and those who are disseminating it'.

This is not the only reason for condemning this filth. The leaflet is headed 'the heroin trade - a crime against humanity' and goes on at great length about how Muslims are responsible for the 'heroin trade' in Britain, stating;

'Before the Islamic invasion, it was almost impossible to find heroin in our land.'

Invasion? Isn't that a slightly loaded word and one that seems to encourage religious hatred?

So was it possible to find heroin in Britain before say, the 1960s? Yes, and a little bit of research would show Bamber and the BNP that they are misleading their readers. But before we go on to that, let's get things into perspective.

The very first chart I came across on the internet on doing a search, tells me that deaths from heroin and morphine in England and Wales for 2005 hit a shocking 842 - although that's possibly not quite so shocking when compared to the deaths caused by alcohol and tobacco for the same year, which added up to a staggering 93,127 - none of which, amazingly, the BNP has yet claimed as the responsibility of Muslims, though doubtless they will if we give them enough time.

That the BNP doesn't really care about these tragic deaths is clear from an appalling article written by the party's legal advisor and obvious lunatic Lee Barnes back in March of this year, following criticism from the parents of Rachel Whitear, an addict who died in her bedroom and whose image was used in an acclaimed campaign against drug use. Rachel's parents had objected to the use of her picture to bolster the BNP's warped racist ideas of who holds responsibility for the drug trade. Barnes' response was unequivocal;

'The idea we should treat with reverence the image of their dead junkie daughter is repulsive...the idea we should ask your permission to use the image of your dead junkie daughter is not something we need to do.'

A despicable statement and one that would have had him thrown out of any real political party on the same day that it was made.

However, back to the leaflet and its ridiculous assertion that 'before the Islamic invasion, it was almost impossible to find heroin in our land'.

Strange then, that, at the end of the nineteenth century, the underworld of London - Limehouse, Whitechapel and all the area around its docks which were then riddled with opium dens - was searched during the hunt for the murderer who became known as Jack the Ripper. In fact, around that time and long before, opium dens were found in the dock areas of all major cities, though heroin use around the world has been going on for centuries.

The art of the sweeping statement is not lost on Tony Bamber. His current leaflet states;

'For all intents and purposes, Muslims are exclusively responsible for the heroin trade.'

This will not sit well with those who have, through the course of their work, taken a quick look at the history of the heroin trade only to find that the most enthusuatic traders in opium in the late eighteenth century were the British, who were aggressively exporting it from India and importing it into China, creating, by the mid-1830s, some twelve million addicts.

The Opium Wars were sanctioned by the then British Government purely to achieve their economic and territorial ambitions, which included smuggling huge quantities of opium into China estimated to be 15 tons in 1730, 75 tons in 1773. By the 1820s, 900 tons of opium per year was then exported into China and 1,400 tons per year by March of 1839. The trade from China itself is decreasingly rapidly nowadays thanks largely to the Communist government and its violent suppression of opium growers, which should please the BNP but strangely, doesn't.

Moving nearer to now, there are many people who remember the opium/heroin trade being centered on the so-called Golden Triangle of Burma, Thailand and Laos, and also Vietnam, during the mid-nineties, when rumours abounded of immense slave farms which produced astonishing amounts of opium which was then refined into heroin and transported back to the US with the collusion, it was frequently alleged at the time, of the US military.

Even now, the Golden Crescent of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan is far from the sole producer of heroin. Mexico and Columbia contribute vast amounts as do a number of other South American countries, though the traffic from those tends to be primarily for the US market.

One of the things Bamber forgot to point out on his leaflet was that, up until 2004, Pakistan was considered one of the biggest opium-growing countries. However, the efforts of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force have since reduced the opium growing area by 59%.

Then of course, there is the cutting or dilution of the heroin that reaches these shores. Very little pure heroin gets as far as the consumer and what does, generally kills them - most is diluted with all kinds of crap in the never-ending fight for vaster profits. Ninety percent of that industry takes place here, by home-grown criminals or criminal organisations like the decidedly non-Muslim Mafia. Where heroin is concerned, crime is international and certainly cannot be laid at the feet of any one race or religion, no matter how much the BNP might try to distort reality.

In its desperation to have a go at Muslims, the BNP - as it always has - ignores the facts or only produces half-facts to support its racism, its hatred of Islam, its lies and its fraudulent claims to being a real political party. It is not. It is nothing more than a rabid band of racist buffoons led by a con-man. The likes of Tony Bamber fit right in.

Our advice to anyone who receives one of these leaflets is to report it to the police as incitement to religious hatred. I've already done so - if we all do it, we can eventually get the vermin who deliver this rubbish off our streets.

The BNP's Lee Barnes: just an arrogant idiot or seriously disturbed?

I used to work with ex-cons a few years back, a good percentage of them having been in jail for drug-related offences normally involving theft, sometimes with violence attached, to get money to buy heroin or some other highly-addictive and lethal hard drug. Everyone who came to my place of work had a story behind their addiction and after a while it became relatively simple to separate the truth from the lies and thus to begin dealing properly with the problems behind the crimes. The origin of the addiction could be due to a number of reasons but far and away the most common seemed to be simple peer-pressure, usually from a close friend or partner.

Addiction is difficult to understand for most of us who are addicted to nothing worse than the odd cup of coffee or occasional pack of cigarettes, but those living with or who are emotionally close to addicts know the all-pervading grip that, for example, heroin, has on its victim. Nothing - absolutely nothing at all - takes precedence over the habit, and the consequences of the addiction affect everyone around the addict themselves. Imagine then, that your daughter, thanks to an addict boyfriend, herself becomes an addict. Having met a lot of addicts, and having daughters of my own, just the thought of this makes me shudder.

Rachel Whitear, 21, died of a heroin overdose. She was discovered on the floor of her flat in May 2000 and photographs of her body were used as part of an anti-drugs campaign. Her mother, Pauline Holcroft, along with Rachel's stepfather, Mick Holcroft, took the brave and extraordinary decision to publish photographs of her daughter, slumped and lifeless, in the hope that it would discourage other youngsters from taking drugs.

At around the same time, and in conjunction with Herefordshire County Council they released a video called 'Rachel's Story'. The 22 minute video follows Rachel's decline from happy student to heroin addiction. In May 2002, then Education Secretary, Estelle Morris, announced that a copy of the video would be made available to every secondary school in the UK. It was Ms Holcroft's hope that publishing the photographs and making the video meant that the tragedy of their daughter's death stopped other people dying from the same cause.

The astonishing courage shown by Mr and Mrs Holcroft in allowing the image to be used in this way would be applauded by any decent person, and the terrible tragedy of a young life lost to heroin could be turned into something useful, something that might avert future, similar, tragedies. Nobody in their right mind could express anything but hope that good might come from bad. Except for the British National Party.

An organisation calling itself the Preston Pals (actually the Preston branch of the BNP) has issued a leaflet which has been delivered to a large area of Preston in Lancashire. The leaflet rants about the heroin trade, blames it entirely on Muslims and is headed; 'The heroin trade, a crime against humanity - time for Muslims to apologise.' It continues with the usual rant against a proposal to demolish an existing mosque which would be replaced by a new one. It also has a prominent picture on it - the image of Rachel Whitear, dead on her bedroom floor. Tony Bamber, who stood as the BNP candidate in last year's council elections, is given as the Pals' contact on the leaflet.

The 'Preston Pals' was the name given to the 7th Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment, which fought and was almost annihilated on the Somme in July 1916, during the First World War. The Royal British Legion (RBL) has condemned this misappropriation of the name by the BNP, with its spokesman Patrick Leavey saying; '[The Preston Pals] sacrifice should not be besmirched by people engaged in political campaigning for such an ugly cause. We condemn this leaflet, its contents, and those who are disseminating it'.

Lee Barnes, the BNP’s legal advisor, feels differently, and in an article entitled 'The Definition Of Pathetic' he makes his views, and given his position within the organisation we can safely consider his views to be those of the BNP, very clear indeed. Using the premise that 'the main funding of the Islamic Jihad comes from heroin', he rips into Rachel Whitear without mercy or compassion.

'She was not an angel, she was an accomplice to genocide, terrorism and a funder of the most vicious criminal gangs on the planet as she funded the terrorists and gangsters that cause such misery across the planet. The idea that she should be regarded as a victim is repulsive. Every junkie is a criminal, not a victim. The body of every dead junkie should be photographed and hung on a wall of shame in every community so that young kids can see the real price of heroin. Their lives should be regarded as a disgrace not as victims.'

He continues: 'I bet Rachels parents either funded her addiction directly through giving her money for smack 9to stop her becoming a prostitue or a dealer) or indirectly when she stole off them. If she didnt steal off of them then she was even worse than a junkie, she was a pathetic heroin tourist who used heroin as a bit of a laugh, a middle class drug culture tourist idiot scumbag. The sort of people who say to other people ' hey man you can dabble a bit with smack and you will be alright' - a facilitator of addicition, a seducer of others into becoming addicts.'

As I understand it, it was a former boyfriend of hers that got her on to heroin in the first place - making him the creature Barnes describes as 'a pathetic heroin tourist...a facilitator of addicition' and Rachel his victim.

Barnes' lack of sympathy to the mother and stepfather and their objection the the image being used by the BNP to attack Muslims is startling.

'The idea we should treat with reverence the image of their dead junkie daughter is repulsive...the idea we should ask your permission to use the image of your dead junkie daughter is not something we need to do.'

The idea that Barnes should use the phrase 'your dead junkie daughter' as though speaking directly to the parents of Rachel Whitear is both shocking and disturbing. I don't know anybody who would treat the death of someone's child with such contempt and loathing, no matter what the circumstances, and I'm surprised that even the BNP, notoriously full of hatred for anyone who doesn't conform to its own distorted idea of perfection, would allow its legal advisor to come out with this venomous garbage.

What makes Barnes' article even more offensively bizarre, is that quite a number of fairly prominent BNP members have been drug dealers, encouraging the vulnerable like Rachel Whitear to become addicted and thus to line their own pockets. One of our readers kindly supplied a list just a couple of days ago:

'It’s a bit rich for the nazi BNP to accuse others of drug dealing. The BNP has been involved in drug-dealing for years. Here's a small selection...

• The BNP councillor in Blackburn, Robin Evans, resigned after he wrote a letter stating that the BNP in Blackburn was largely made up of drug dealers and football hooligans.
• The neo-terrorist group Combat 18 (founded by the BNP) undertakes large-scale illegal drug imports and deals to raise money for neo-nazi activities in the UK and abroad. Many BNP members are Combat 18 members. A number of Combat 18/BNP members are cocaine dealers.
• Charlie Sargent, a convicted murderer, BNP member (he used to guard BNP founder and former leader John Tyndall) and senior Combat 18 leader, has convictions for drug dealing and trafficking.
• The BNP candidate for Huddersfield, Karl Hanson, was fined in Crown Court for dealing in crack cocaine and heroin (in face he face five class A drugs offence charges)
• Richard Brown, a BNP candidate in Kirklees, admitted he was jailed as part of a £100,000 drug ring! He pleaded guilty to intent to supply drugs.
• John Shearer, leading member of Oldham BNP, is a convicted drug dealer.
• Colin Smith, BNP South East London organiser, has a conviction for possession of drugs (in addition to 16 other criminal convictions for burglary, theft, stealing cars and assaulting a police officer)

And so on. Barnes, being deeply involved with the BNP, will know all this - indeed, he probably knows and works with a few of the people on the list - yet he chooses to ignore the damage that people in his own party have caused just so he can take a swipe at whoever is his target of the day.

As is usual with the British National Party, the hypocrisy is profound, though in Lee Barnes case I'm more concerned with the state of his mental health.