February 13, 2009

Racist bounty offer earns slap on the wrist

The bounty offer posted by Pete Barker
Regular readers with good memories may recall the post we made about the lunatic Pete Barker and his highly illegal public offer, through the North West Nationalist site (which he then administered), of a £1000 bounty for the 'beating of a nigger'.

His target was one Calvin Robert Johnson, who Barker believed to have been responsible for the death of his brother, Chris Barker, a former National Front local election candidate and National Front steward prior to joining the Army. Back in October 2007 we wrote;
'Whichever way you read it, the story of Chris Barker's death is a tragedy. A former soldier suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, he succumbed to heroin and other drugs and eventually died in June 2001 after what an inquest described as a 'drugs and booze binge' at his then partner's home. Barker's arms were covered with up to ten injection marks and traces of heroin and cocaine were found in his body.

There are a number of peculiarities about the story, one being that Barker allegedly kept £10,000 in cash at his home, this sum having been saved from his occasional work as a cabinet maker. True or not, after his death his credit card showed a debt of £4000 and there was no cash found. In addition to this, Pete Barker claims that his brother had given up hard drugs twelve years before his death.

The case is both convoluted and disturbing, and while we can be sympathetic to Pete Barker's continued campaign to seek what he perceives as justice for his brother's death, which he regards as murder (more details here and here) our sympathy rapidly evaporates when we encounter Barker's appalling racism. Johnson, who Barker accuses of his brother's murder, is 6'4", black and Rastafarian, and is the half-brother of the dead man's partner, Melonie Ellis. Barker variously describes Johnson as looking like a gorilla, 'a nigger' and 'a savage negro beast'.

His racism is not aimed at Johnson alone. Referring to the Johnson family, he states 'There is no resident father...as is typical with negro families'. Barker has also approached organisations connected to the armed forces for support but has claimed that '...because Chris was murdered by blacks, the main official [in one of the organisations he approached] who has black grandchildren, did not want to know.'

This is not the first time he has offered a bounty in exchange for violence. Back at the end of June, Barker wrote:

'The family have a £10,000 reward for info on the negro scumbags leading to an arrest.But being as the Police in Sheffield are not worthy of the name, the family will pay to have 'street justice' donated to Johnson and Ellis. Please contact this site...'

Back in May of this year, Barker printed a picture of Melonie Ellis along with her full address and date of birth and with the headline 'Wanted for murder', with the claim that she and her half-brother '...and other blacks were also involved in the murder of the manager of the Niche nightclub in Sheffield around 1999'.'
Immediately following the publication of this article, I reported Barker to the police (log no: 134nq22102007 at Lancaster nick if you feel the need to check) and expected some swift action to be taken. After all, while racism is a criminal offence, incitement to violence is one that tends to be treated even more harshly and if the incitement has racist overtones, one expects the law to get a tad tetchy and speedily grab the person concerned.

Not so. Despite a number of enquiries from myself and others, nothing seems to have happened for seventeen long months. Today though, we read that Barker has finally been done for his crime. Before we tell you what he received though, there's a little background to be taken account of. Barker himself responded to our article thus;
'Many thanks for the fairly unbiased story. It wouldn't have made an hap'orth of difference if the killers of my late brother had been white or even martian. I have an hatred for them. What does one do when Police Officers fail in their duty ?'
While I have a lot of sympathy for someone who has lost a family member and can even make a lot of excuses for their moments of apparent madness as a result of such a loss, Barker's statement that 'it wouldn't have made an hap'orth of difference if the killers of my late brother had been white or even martian' simply doesn't ring true. Nor, frankly, that he made the post when he was drunk.

Simply put, Barker is a long-time nazi, formerly in the NF and BNP, and when the police raided his home, was in possession of 'nationalist' books and magazines, British National Party and National Front election manifestos, images and books of far right ideology and photographs showing men holding up Union Jacks with Rochdale National Front written along the front of them. Barker at one point ran Rochdale BNP (or at least said he did) and claimed to have been close to the BNP's nazi founder, the late John Tyndall.

He is said to have been involved in the far-right for well over thirty years, bragging about having been in the National Front during its heyday in the 70s, though he does little now. But here we see a long-time and active member of the far-right inciting violence against someone he describes variously as a 'nigger', a 'gorilla' and 'a savage negro beast. Like it or not, Barker is clearly a racist.

Given his history and given the pretty extreme nature of the incitement, one would have expected a term of imprisonment. But no. Barker admitted a charge of stirring up racial hatred and was given a 12-month jail sentence suspended for two years. He will also be electronically tagged for six months and was ordered to complete a two-year supervision requirement.

A suspension and two-month tagging? And that's it? Just for a change, I am lost for words...

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

"A suspension and two-month tagging? And that's it?"

Kinda makes you wonder if the rumours that he's a grass aren't true after all.

Anonymous said...

You've got a very odd mention on Stormfront about this, claiming you blamed Covert and deleted the October 2007 post to cover up what Barker had done. Something like that anyway. All very confusing. It's here if you want to take a look
http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=571455&page=2

They also mention "Ketlan , Disease and Sean". Disease is, I spose, their clever play on Denise (larf? I nearly started) but who the fuck is Sean?

Anonymous said...

Waddon Ward by-election(Croydon) Thursday 12th february

Con 1462 (46.0%)
Lab 1222 (38.5%)
BNP 157 (4.9%)
LD 150 (4.7%)
Green 115 (3.6%)
UKIP 48 (1.5%)
PC 13 (0.4%)
Loony 11 (0.4%)

4.9% LOL

Anonymous said...

They didn't like the Waddon result. After a lot of ranting, one of the nazis on SF said "AND WHAT DO THE BLOODY SHEEP OF THIS COUNTRY DO?VOTE MORE AND MORE FOR THE SCUM WHO ARE DAILY DESTROYING THIS ONCE GREAT NATION AND TAKING AWAY EVERY RIGHT WE HAVE ?

CON 1462
LAB1222
BNP157??????????????????????????????

I feel like the little boy with the emperor who was wearing no clothes,just what is it going to take to wake our people from their slumber??????????"

Anonymous said...

You've got a very odd mention on Stormfront about this, claiming you blamed Covert and deleted the October 2007 post to cover up what Barker had done.

Bizarre. Just proving that yer average nazi doesn't know his arse from his elbow!

Anonymous said...

I assume theyre referring to denises comment earlier of
"We would like to make it clear that despite the lies of the C.U.N.T.s, who we believe made the anonymous call that alerted the police to Barker's comments, the comment section on LU is not going to become a battleground of disinformation between Barker, Beverley Kerry, Tommy Williams or anybody else involved in their squalid dispute." which was later deleted but is still showing up on voidstar.com

Anonymous said...

"A suspension and two-month tagging? And that's it? Just for a change, I am lost for words..."

I'm not surprised. What a farce.

John P said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
John P said...

I thought this had all been swept under the carpet. I know a few people sent emails to the police about it along with screen grabs of the page. It's taken 16 months for them to sort this out and the sentence is pretty pathetic.

Anonymous said...

Err ! Anon complaints to Plod ?

Like Hell !

All complaints in order with full details, as evidenced by a crime number.

Old Sailor

Anonymous said...

"A suspension and two-month tagging?"

'Derisory' is the word you're looking for.

Anonymous said...

Interesting article but shocking that it's taken so long to get this guy into court and bloody amazing that he got so little.

Anonymous said...

Regarding the Waddon result - Bob Baileys stupid claim that the candidates criminal activities and death threats would win her votes didn't work out then LOL

Anonymous said...

Anonymous reports are largely ignored by the police as they're impossible to follow-up for witnesses. On the other hand, Antifascist obviously reported this formally (as no doubt others did too), and they're the reports that would have led to Mr Barker's arrest and subsequent trial. The great pity of all this is that the trial judge obviously saw this crime as no big deal - I suspect because it was carried out on the internet and hence doesn't really exist in the real world. The law really needs to catch up with technology and it really needs to speed up its processing too. Seventeen months to get an open and shut case to court is ludicrous.

Anonymous said...

just as we already new.
tossoffski is also a police grass!
tossofski blog coming along nicely.

Antifascist said...

'tossofski blog coming along nicely.'

No condemnation of this nazi for offering a bounty in return for a violent attack, then, Bennett? Just another childish, third-rate website to add to your ever-growing collection of childish, third-rate websites.

Let's hope that one day you grow up to be an adult, eh.

Anonymous said...

"just as we already new.
tossoffski is also a police grass!
tossofski blog coming along nicely."
This is a kid right?

Anonymous said...

"4.9% in Wadon".

Not too surprising as Sth London is pretty barren for them, save Bexley. Croydon has internal problems apparently. What has happened to Gertner the (ex) organiser? While Lewisham and Bromley are near non existant that Barnbrooke had to stand in Barking to even stand a chance.

Doesnt bode well for their Downham and Swanley candidates. Have heard very few activists are bothering to turn out to help ex NFer Culnane in Downham. Libdem win I reckon

Anonymous said...

Maybe the Barker sentence was in line with the number of people who read his blog.

Anonymous said...

Simon Bennett is himself an MI5 grass. By making shit websites that no-one can be arsed looking at, he thinks he can cover his state spy tracks.

You fool no-one, Bennett Boy!

Anonymous said...

Who leaks all the info about what's happening in the BNP to MI5 and 6?

His name is Bennett, Simon Bennett!

Anonymous said...

That's who the real grass is, bennett!!

Anonymous said...

unbelievable that peter didnt receive a holiday. it might have sorted his alcohol and drugs problems out for him

martin brierley

Anonymous said...

"Seventeen months to get an open and shut case to court is ludicrous."

It's staggering. How inefficient/underfunded IS the court service. for God's sake?

Anonymous said...

"tossoffski watch said..."

You sad bastard.

Anonymous said...

Maybe someone should report the covert team and sid williamson to the police also, they could get 5 years for all the deaths threats they post on the internet.

I also notice that several fash are saying barker is state as he never went to jail etc

Anonymous said...

Barkers a Copper Nark and scum he would have got 5 years but for being tied to the police.

Sid Williams
Brighton