The Mark Collett/Dave Hannam underage girls saga gets murkier as story unfolds

A poster to the BNP-dissident blog Enough is Enough has recounted the story of the alleged visit of the two underage girls to the New Kimberley Hotel in Blackpool at the BNP's 2006 'conference'.

This story, whose repercussions are only just beginning to develop, has taken its time emerging but now starts to take on more credibility as the animosity between the rebels and the Griffinite BNP membership forces the disclosure of information that was hitherto kept quiet 'for the sake of the party'.

The latest disclosure was a response to a post by Chris Hill, Lancaster's very own dissident BNP member (who you'll recall announced his support for the rebels, promptly backed down when told off then got his courage back and supported them again) who stated;

'I believe [Collett's] story that he chatted up a girl in a disco who looked 18, and then took her back to his hotel room. His offence was to bring a guest back to the conference hotel room, nothing else! He was quite rightly given a final warning for that, which meant the next incident should have been automatic expulsion. But that’s just one of many problems with this whole Collett thing, it seems the rules don’t apply to him, he’s untouchable. Mark Collett is a nasty megalomaniac, but he’s not a sex offender.'

The response, posted by someone calling themselves 'i was there', was clear.

'With all due respect Chris you were not in the hotel bar when Collett and Hannam came in with the 14 and 15 year old girls and I was and so was Kenny Smith and several others. We all could tell they were underage as soon as they walked through led by Collett and many of us said as much to each other including the barman.

When the girls came back down complaining about the demands for sex it was even more obvious they were children and it was Kenny Smith who persuaded them not to go to the press with the mobile phone footage and promised them that Collett and Hannam would be disciplined by the party.

One of the girls bluetoothed the footage to Kenny and I believe he gave it to security (pos. Martin Reynolds) the next morning.

If Kenny hadn't persuaded them and their mother - who arrived later with a security guy - out of going to the press Collett and Hannam would have had to be expelled, but such a media furore would also have been very damaging for the party.'

There are so many questions that arise from this brief statement that it might be better to tabulate them properly.

• Why didn't Kenny Smith and the other witnesses report this alleged crime when it happened?
• If Smith and co 'could tell they were underage as soon as they walked through led by Collett', why weren't they stopped immediately?
• If the barman at Blackpool's New Kimberley Hotel could tell that the two girls were underage, why didn't he report these activities to the police?
• Matt Single, formerly one of the BNP's security team, has admitted that he knew about this incident when it happened. Why didn't he report it?
  
• Why did Kenny Smith persuade the girls and a parent of one of them not to go to the police with the mobile phone footage of the alleged incident?
• If Kenny Smith sent the mobile phone footage to Martin Reynolds, the BNP's pervert Head of Security, who was it who then sent it both to us and the Blackpool Gazette?
• What kind of political party would rather hide alleged child abuse than cause any harm to itself?

There are a lot of questions still to be answered about this incident and there will probably never be a definitive answer that will satisfy everybody but there is just one more question that we feel should get a reasonable response, even if nothing else comes to light.

• Why has Mark Collett never even been questioned by the police about these allegations?

We are assured by our correspondents, who know the nazi-loving Mark Collett rather better than we do, that Collett has never been approached by the police; nor does he expect to be. If that's truly the case, we wonder why?

It's late but it's here at last - the Lancaster UAF 2006 Yearbook

There were a couple of different reasons for producing this yearbook. One was that we urgently needed to raise funds and it would be nice to have some kind of regular fundraiser that also provided some kind of service (which means we’ll be knocking one of these out each year).

The second reason was that we wanted to preserve the first year of the Lancaster UAF blog – or at least the articles that we had written. Apart from giving a snapshot of the year from an anti-fascist viewpoint, the articles show the way the British National Party and other fascist groups operate and how we respond to their activities. The old blog, being based on a separate blog from the one at the current location, will probably end up in the same graveyard as all the dead web pages that have ever existed. Paper doesn’t, we hope, do the same thing. See, there are still some advantages to using paper.

We’ve been told that the blog is a valuable resource enough times that we now believe it, and valuable resources should be kept to be appreciated in a spare moment or two, so take a stroll through the highs and lows of 2006, have a laugh or two at the BNP’s expense (and several more at the expense of the even more stupid smaller fascist groups) and make good use of the list of organizations and websites at the back of the yearbook.

We’ve greatly enjoyed producing the book and we hope you enjoy reading it and, if you’re not already involved in fighting fascism, it encourages you to get active. Whether your activity involves raising awareness in your community, waving placards at demonstrations, delivering leaflets or starting your own website, we don’t mind – it’s the activity that’s important.

Fascism is a dire threat to our communities. The BNP and other fascist groups will exploit and encourage division for their own ends, regardless of the damage it causes, and it’s up to all of us to fight division and intolerance wherever we find it. We can only win if we are united in, if you’ll excuse the expression, our intolerance of intolerance.

Okay, that’s enough introduction. Go read the book…

Lancaster UAF Yearbook 2006
by Lancaster UAF

Download £3.99 ($7.24)
Paperback book £8.99 ($16.32)

The Lancaster UAF blog complete original articles collection for 2006 - plus some extras!

Download: 1 document (PDF), 3211 KB
Printed: 180 pages, 6.14" x 9.21", perfect binding, white interior paper (55# weight), black and white interior ink, white exterior paper (90# weight), full-colour exterior ink
Copyright: © 2007 Lancaster UAF Standard Copyright License

Available from here.