Tony Lecomber dragged out of storage to persuade Bowden to return

Tony Lecomber, the former Group Development Officer in the BNP and Griffin loyalist, has a fine reputation. He has received two prison sentences of three years apiece, one for possession of explosives (caught en route to blowing up a left-wing group's offices) and the other for wounding a Jewish schoolteacher who he observed removing racist BNP stickers. These are just two of his twelve convictions (so far). He was finally booted out of the BNP after he was found to have approached Griffin's former bodyguard Joe Owens to attempt to persuade him to join a plot to assassinate leading government figures. Fortunately Owens realised that there was either an attempt at entrapment going on or Lecomber had gone insane and promptly blew the whistle on him.

Following an attack on the BNP's 'election guru' Eddie Butler earlier this year, Lecomber was finally half-heartedly proscribed by the party.

At the time there was all kinds of speculation about exactly why Lecomber attacked Butler but up until now not many people know the truth. It has now been revealed in a widely-circulated letter from former Griffin-ally (and more, if you believe the rumours) Martin Webster that Lecomber, after a period of job-hunting but being able to find one thanks to his appalling criminal background, had approached one of the BNP councillors at Dagenham for a reference. This was to be made out to a false name and written on Barking and Dagenham Council official notepaper. According to Webster, Butler got to hear about this and put his foot down, absolutely forbidding any such thing to be done in the knowledge that, if it ever got out, there would be outrage flying at the BNP from all directions.

Lecomber, furious at Butler's intervention, launched the attack on him as he left Loughton Underground station and during the struggle, had his balaclava pulled off, thus revealing his identity. Following this astonishing event, Lecomber was promptly proscribed and cast into the wilderness.

Or so the members of the party were led to believe...

Never one to take any notice of the rules of his own party, Nick Griffin ignored the proscription notice (something that would have earned any mere member immediate dismissal) and contacted Lecomber shortly after the resignation of Jonathan Bowden in an attempt to get him to persuade Bowden to come back to the party following his angry decision to leave after the appalling accusations made against him by the Griffin attack dogs over at the Covert site.

Bowden, who already believed that the smears against him were inspired and encouraged by Griffin in revenge for his signing Chris Jackson's nomination papers in the recent leadership challenge, ignored the plea to return, publishing a resignation letter showed his anger at his mistreatment in no uncertain terms:

'I am sick and tired of the human scum and vermin which proliferate in such shallows waters. To be accused of being a child abuser is amongst the lowest thing that can possibly be imagined. To even refute such allegations from criminal psychopaths like these is beneath one’s dignity...I will seek to have police action carried out against this vile Internet site [Covert], but I also intend to resign as cultural officer, advisory council member and member of the BNP. I do not wish to associate - even tangentially - with such low-grade lycanthropes and psychotic criminals. Williams [Griffin-ally Tommy Williams], I gather, is a convicted drug dealer and career criminal with a string of convictions.'

Indeed, and the guy Griffin sent to try to persuade Bowden to come back to the BNP was a convicted terrorist and violent criminal with a string of convictions who shouldn't be anywhere near the BNP or any of its members. Once again we see the double-standards that the BNP leader lives by - one rule for him, one rule for everyone else.

And we wonder again - what precisely has Lecomber got on Griffin? It must be something good because he's always been kept close. If anyone knows, do tell.