BNP candidate denies having a conviction

The BNP by-election candidate yesterday insisted he had not been in trouble with the law claiming he was a victim of a smear campaign.
Danny Cooke, 29, hopes to be elected as ward councillor for St Helen's in next weeks poll.
On Monday, a Daniel Paul Cooke, 29, appeared before Barnsley magistrates and admitted criminal damage. The address given was Commercial Road, Skelmanthorpe.
He was bailed until November 7th for a pre-sentence report.
When The Chronicle contacted Danny on Wednesday to ask if it was him he said "no" and said he had been out in Huddersfield all day.
Yesterday The Chronicle was shown documents linked to the case which included the Skelmanthorpe address and another on Highstone Road, Wosbrough Common.
Highstone Road is listed as Danny's address on his nomination form for the election. The electoral register shows a Daniel P Cooke lives there.
Yesterday Danny said he lived on Highstone Road but insisted he had not been in court "I've no idea. it's certainly not me"
He said he was employed in security and could not work if he had a conviction.
When told The Chronicle like to report on the mystery he said there was another Danial Cooke who lived in Wosbrough.
He said various stories about him were being put around the St Helen's Ward, Athersley. "It's probably and English Democrats smear campaign." he said.
A woman called Rachel Firth lives at the address in Skelmanthorpe. Newspaper reports on the internet claim Danny Cooke has a girlfriend called Rachel Firth but Danny denied knowing her.
The pair are friends on Facebook. When told this Danny said he had about 1000 friends and he did not know them all.
I know of her. She's not my girlfriend

Barnsley Chronicle


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Pub landlord is jailed for forging signature

A pub landlord and parliamentary candidate for the British National Party has been jailed for forging a signature to assist the sale of a Northumberland hotel.

Peter Mailer, 54, had used his former manager’s signature to push through the £245,000 sale of the Hen and Chickens Hotel, in Berwick.

Mailer, who stood as a BNP candidate in Berwick in this year’s General Election, was jailed for 18 months yesterday after jurors found him guilty of forgery offences last month. Newcastle Crown Court heard how Mailer had been ordered to pay Trudy Waugh £5,600 compensation after she won a tribunal case against him for unfair dismissal after he took over ownership of the pub in 1999.

A county court charge was later put on the hotel when Mailer failed to pay up in the years that followed, Newcastle Crown Court heard. That meant the business in Berwick could not be sold while the charge was still in place. But Mailer passed the hotel to his brother in August 2006 for £245,000, the court heard.

Mailer, from Bricksheds, Belford, had used his former manager’s signature to push through the sale of the Hen and Chickens Hotel. And when an accountant began to investigate the outstanding compensation, it was discovered that two key documents had been forged with Ms Waugh’s signature.

Jailing him, Judge Roger Thorn QC told Mailer: “One of the most serious aspects of this case is your continuous scheming to subvert the course of justice. To this day Ms Waugh has not received a penny from you. You forged the document to the Land Registry and entered in bogus agreements. This demonstrates a nasty side of your character and your meanness.”

Mailer, who was convicted of forgery and using a false instrument by a majority verdict last month, bowed his head as the judge jailed him before looking at his equally devastated family.

The first offence involves an allegation he produced a bogus written agreement between himself and Ms Waugh. The second relates to an official Land Registry form saying the county court “charge” had been removed, the court heard. Mailer was arrested last November after the documents were passed to police.

Tony Davis, defending, said: “There is no one more humiliated than him. He has been incarcerated for 39 days now on remand and it has been awful. It has been a shock to his system.”

Mailer will now face a proceeds-of-crime hearing in an effort to claw back some of his ill-gotten gains. He was also stripped of his other pub licences.

Journal Live

Bomb seizures spark far-right terror plot fear

A network of suspected far-right extremists with access to 300 weapons and 80 bombs has been uncovered by counter-terrorism detectives.

Thirty-two people have been questioned in a police operation that raises the prospect of a right-wing bombing campaign against mosques. Police are said to have recovered a British National party membership card and other right-wing literature during a raid on the home of one suspect charged under the Terrorism Act.

In England’s largest seizure of a suspected terrorist arsenal since the IRA mainland bombings of the early 1990s, rocket launchers, grenades, pipe bombs and dozens of firearms have been recovered in the past six weeks during raids on more than 20 properties. Several people have been charged and more arrests are imminent. Current police activity is linked to arrests in Europe, New Zealand and Australia.

Police are examining allegations that many of the guns were manufactured or reactivated, then sold over the internet to viewers of a right-wing website. Details of the previously secret operation were disclosed by Sir Norman Bettison, the chief constable of West Yorkshire, to security officials.

Police sources say that in a recent case not linked to the current arrests, detectives seized maps and plans of mosques from the homes of suspected far-right supporters. A senior Whitehall official said MI5 was monitoring the police investigation. While the security agency did not have a brief to probe right-wing terrorism, that position was constantly under review, said the official.

Fears have been heightened by the discovery of an alleged plot involving ricin, a lethal poison; two men have been been charged with offences under the Terrorism Act.

Concerns that this might be part of a global trend have been reinforced by the case of James Von Brunn, the 88-year-old white supremacist charged with shooting dead a security guard at the Holocaust museum in America last month.

Bettison said 32 people had been arrested in the investigation, although the counter-terrorism unit in Leeds said this figure was in fact the number of people questioned. At least 22 properties have been searched.

The operation had thrown up evidence that suspects were communicating online.

“The internet gives it reach and scope,” said Bettison. “The big bad wolf is still the Al- Qaeda threat. But my people are knocking over right-wing extremists quite regularly. We are interdicting it so that it doesn’t first emerge into the public eye out of a critical incident like an explosion.”

Several alleged right-wing extremists have been charged with terrorism offences in the UK in the past year. In one case, a jury convicted Martyn Gilleard, 31, a neo-Nazi forklift truck driver, who wanted to “secure a future for white children” and kept explosives at his flat in Goole, East Yorkshire. He built small hand-held bombs, and among the material seized were membership cards for the National Front, the British People’s party and the White Nationalist party. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

In 1999, David Copeland, the so-called London nail bomber, carried out a campaign against black, Asian and gay communities. His home-made devices each included up to 1,500 4in nails. In his final attack Copeland killed three people, including a pregnant woman, after nail bombing a Soho pub. He got a life sentence for murder.

Far-right parties across Europe are growing in popularity. In last month’s European elections, the BNP won two seats for the first time in Yorkshire and the northwest and took 6.2% of the national vote.

Sunday Times

BNP candidate on driving charges

A leading candidate for the British National Party in the forthcoming European elections has been charged with failing to provide a specimen and using a vehicle with no insurance or MoT test certificate, Scotland Yard said.

Robert Bailey, 43, of Romford, east London, has been bailed to appear before Havering magistrates on Friday after being charged with failing to provide a specimen and using a vehicle with no insurance and no test certificate, Scotland Yard said.

A spokeswoman said Bailey, who is leader of the BNP group on Barking and Dagenham Council and is top of the BNP list for London in the Euro elections, was stopped by police at 11.20pm last Thursday in London Road, Romford. A spokesman for the BNP indicated that Bailey would plead not guilty to both charges.

Press Association

Suffolk BNP candidate arrested

The Suffolk farmer who built gallows for export has been arrested just weeks after the British National Party chose him as a candidate for the European elections.

The BNP has confirmed that David Lucas (left), of Mildenhall, was arrested on Thursday and questioned by Suffolk Police and that he had been released on bail.

A spokesman for Suffolk police said: “A 48-year-old man from Lakenheath has been arrested on suspicion of handling stolen goods. He has been released on police bail to return to Bury St Edmunds police station on June.11.”

The BNP has said that the alleged incident will not prevent Mr Lucas, who lives at Eldon Farm in Holywell Row, from standing in the European election. He is in fifth place out of seven candidates from the East of England chosen by the party to fight for a seat in Brussels.

A spokesman said: “David woke up to find the police around the house. He was interviewed and then released. It follows a big fund raising party held on his property to raise funds for the campaign. We are not worried about the incident and he will remain on the party's election list of candidates.”

Nominations for the June 4 election close on May 7.

Ipswich Evening Star

BNP candidate quizzed by police

A candidate for the British National Party (BNP) has been arrested by armed police in Suffolk.

David Lucas, who is standing in the European elections, was questioned on suspicion of handling stolen goods. The arrest of Mr Lucas on Thursday is in connection with an incident at Halesworth, in Suffolk, last year.

The BNP confirmed that Mr Lucas had been arrested at his farm near Mildenhall and questioned before being released on bail.

BBC

One Flew Over The Pig Farm: the BNP and us in 2008 - April

Something that has often struck us as odd is the way in which people with good ideas for getting the BNP elected always seem to end up marginalised or finding themselves accused of being in the pay of Searchlight, while those with the worst ideas invariably enjoy the party's highest confidence.

One such was Nick Eriksen (above), the BNP's London organiser and second-choice candidate for the Greater London Assembly election, who for some time had been laying down mines in the path of his own BNP troops by making some injudicious - but all too telling - comments on his Sir John Bull blog, viz this example:

"I've never understood why so many men have allowed themselves to be brainwashed by the feminazi myth machine into believing that rape is such a serious crime ... Rape is simply sex. Women enjoy sex, so rape cannot be such a terrible physical ordeal.

"To suggest that rape, when conducted without violence, is a serious crime is like suggesting that force-feeding a woman chocolate cake is a heinous offence. A woman would be more inconvenienced by having her handbag snatched. The demonisation of rape is all part of the feminazi desire to obtain power and mastery over men. Men who go along with the rape myth are either morons or traitors."

All rather odd from a man who belongs to a party which obsessively scours newspapers for reports of black on white rape and calls for the return of the rope for the guilty parties.

The London Evening Standard, linked Eriksen to the notorious Sir John Bull blog - which frequently advocated hatred and abuse against women ("Give her a slap" being title of one of Eriksen's articles) - after making an enquiry that was answered by Eriksen, who foolishly included Richard Barnbrook's contact number in his reply.

As BNP members whined to the effect, "Please tell me he didn't say that," unimaginative BNP deputy leader and spokesman Simon Darby fell back on the BNP's stock "it's a smear" excuse, while Eriksen, not enjoying having his own words thrown back at him, complained: "It's typical of the media to distort what the BNP say."

The BNP, on the horns of a dilemma as its local elections campaign got underway, moved quickly to sack Eriksen, but the bad publicity continued in the House of Commons, where Tory MP Charles Walker asked Labour deputy Harriet Harman: "Will you not agree with me that this man, this creature is not fit to run for public office?" Harman did agree, making the very sensible suggestion that "The best way to avoid a BNP member being elected to the London Assembly is to make sure that as many people as possible vote for all the other parties."

The BNP expected great things of Richard Barnbrook in the London Mayoral contest, and believed that one way to help him along was to get the Tory vote up and the Labour vote down. To that end the BNP urged its supporters to give their second preference votes to Conservative candidate Boris Johnson, who failed to appreciate the BNP's largesse:

"I utterly and unreservedly condemn the BNP and have no desire whatsoever to receive a single second-preference vote from a BNP supporter. I hope as many Londoners as possible turn out on May 1 to prevent the election of a BNP candidate."

The BNP's catalogue of pre-election cock-ups continued when the party stole an image of Welsh mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins (pictured) to use in a racist video aimed at stopping the opening of a Mosque in Cardiff. "These are nasty people and Katherine wants to have absolutely nothing to do with them," a spokesman for the singer said.

Hollow man Simon Darby floundered: "It's ironic, though, that somebody is getting flak for using a picture of a Welsh superstar and they are the bad guys, yet under our noses we are witnessing the Islamification of Wales."

BNP attempts to profit off the back of respectable publisher Usborne Books were scotched when Lancaster Unity reported that the BNP's merchandising arm, Excalibur, was selling the company's wares via its website - grabbing for itself the 25% commission available to bona fide "Usborne organisers".

Whoever the BNP's pretend Usborne organiser was clearly breached the company's stipulations that business should be conducted in an "ethical and honest manner" and that its products should not be sold "through or to any retail outlet, including on-line outlets".

The Lancaster Unity community of readers were quick to inform Usborne of the BNP's scam, and the horrified company moved immediately to end it. Marketing assistant Graeme Williams told our people:

Thank you for your email regarding this serious issue. As I'm sure you are aware Usborne is an extremely well trusted and ethical publisher and would never knowingly sell books via an organisation such as the BNP.

This situation was only yesterday brought to our attention and we are taking every available step including legal action, to remove our books from their site. I can reassure you that Usborne have not knowingly supplied the BNP
with books and that we will be taking serious steps to prevent anyone else from supplying them.

The sound of clinking champagne glasses could be heard from BNP Towers with the "election" of two unopposed BNP candidates to the Bay of Colwyn Town Council in North Wales. The bubbly soon turned flat when another BNP candidate, 19 year-old Neil Hughes, said that he had been tricked into standing for the racist party. He said: “I’m shocked. A BNP man came to our house three weeks ago and asked me to sign papers. I thought I was supporting someone else to stand. I don’t want to stand. I’m annoyed about this.”

There were more BNP dirty tricks at the University of York when party member Tony Bamber gained access to the post room and used the mail system to deliver anti-Muslim literature to university staff. Disgusted university authorities reported the matter to the police. The BNP's unapologetic Simon Darby, falling back on the fact that party member Bamber had not used the BNP's name on his leaflets, said: "It's not something we would put out directly but what does he say that's not true? It's the blunt truth. If he had told lies I would have disassociated ourselves and the party from it."

Darby's statement that the BNP would not "directly" put out the hate-mongering trash contained in Bamber's leaflets is worth noting. The leaflets were the work of the "Preston Pals", which is a group of energetic Lancashire BNP racists - ripping off the memory of the World War One Preston Pals army company, as it happens - and their only purpose was to raise support for the BNP. These were BNP leaflets, whether official or not, and their distribution is of continuing interest to the police.

Griffin's strange and costly case against the Decembrist rebels again came before the High Court in Manchester, and was instructive in how ill-versed the former law student and his BNP legal team are in what is supposed to be their area of expertise.

Griffin and the BNP team seriously believed that an English court could, should and would have jurisdiction over goods held in Scotland by a person residing in Scotland, and that it should have jurisdiction over bank accounts held and operated in Scotland with banks incorporated in Scotland. Even legal ignoramuses would suspect this not to be the case.

The point was being argued so that Griffin could nail Nicholla and Kenny Smith, resident in Scotland.

In an interview with resident yes-man Simon Darby, an overconfident and completely wrong Griffin said: "[What the rebels] may not realise, is that every hour he [Adrian Davies, the rebels' barrister] takes up arguing on that point, if it's knocked out the costs of that will go directly against them, basically no questions asked. So, it's a very reckless game I think."

In the event Judge Pelling QC ordered all parties in the action, claimants and defendants, to pay their own costs for the day. The costs to the BNP to date were put at £30,000. The rebel defendants, including the Smiths, agreed to return all BNP property held by them, and the BNP agreed to return property stolen from Sadie Graham in a BNP Security raid on her home.

The hearing achieved nothing that could not have been achieved out of court, and achieved it at enormous cost. The matter of alleged breach of confidence on the part of the rebels remained outstanding pending a further hearing, but events later in the year would put a new and interesting slant on this.

Plans to cut services to pensioners and children, and to throw public employees out of work without redundancy payments aren't usually things you'll see advertised on BNP election addresses, yet these were the ideas put forward when BNP group leader Richard Barnbrook made the party's opposition budget proposals public at Barking and Dagenham borough council.

This was a chance for Barnbrook and the BNP to shine, but - Barnbrook being Barnbrook and the BNP being the BNP - even the impartial help and advice of the council's Chief Financial Officer could not stop either from making fools of themselves, as the ever-dependable Searchlight reported:

Barnbrook managed to struggle though his speech, prompted by Councillor Robert Bailey whenever he stumbled over his lines, though even Bailey seemed not to notice that the figures in Barnbrook’s speech bore little resemblance to those in his document. Questions proved somewhat harder as Barnbrook does not excel at thinking on his feet.

First up was Val Rush, the Executive Member for community safety and parks, who challenged Barnbrook’s claim that he could cut the parks’ police budget by £150,000 by running it in-house. “It already is run in-house”, she informed him and asked him what the precise cuts were that would save £150,000. He was unable to say, the first of many occasions on which he could not explain how he had arrived at his figures.

Barnbrook was also unaware that rubbish collection was already run in-house in the borough and that the law would not allow the council to use money saved by the BNP’s cuts to build council houses, as he had proposed.

As for the 10,000 new council houses that a BNP leaflet was demanding, Barnbrook said they would be built on brownfield sites, but was unable to name a single such site in the borough.

The BNP budget was, not unnaturally, rejected on a vote, but unheeding of the old but good advice that if you should find yourself in a hole then it's a smart idea to stop digging, Barnbrook offered to respond to Labour questions on the BNP budget by email.

One Labour councillor queried Barnbrook on the proposed restructuring of the council's Human Resources department, which according to Barnbrook would save £3 million of its current £6.5 million budget. “The detail of the new structure will come from the relevant Chief Officers once the Labour Administration has been removed,” Barnbrook replied, meaninglessly, adding, when asked about the costs of redundancies, that the BNP "is not going to burden taxpayers with redundancy payments".

Apparently it would rather burden them with an expensive rash of unwinnable employment cases.

One concern that Barnbrook seemed to believe to be of paramount importance to the citizens of Barking and Dagenham was TB and the importation of bushmeat. The BNP wanted to spend £400,000 to deal with these supposed problems but had no idea exactly how the money would be spent. Perhaps £400,000 was a pretty figure that Barnbrook liked the look of, since all he could offer up to his questioner was: “I suggest you ask the Chief Executive to help you if you want to compile figures so that you can copy the BNP’s good ideas and claim them as yours”. Searchlight added:

Barnbrook was equally unilluminating on how he would achieve his projected cuts in services for pensioners, refusing to provide any explanation or breakdown of any of his figures. Asked for more details of the research the BNP had carried out to demonstrate the need for its proposals, he said, “Obviously you cannot expect the BNP to prove the point by handing over it’s [sic] own confidential records to an extremist organisation like the labour party”.

As polling day drew closer, Simon Darby thought he'd give the BNP troops a boost. Writing that he had been in top-level negotiations with another party, the BNP deputy-leader announced "a breakthrough", as if the BNP was on the verge of something momentous. Apparently Darby had reached a deal with "representatives" of the Pensioners Party in which that party would endorse BNP candidates in certain areas of the country.

The names of the endorsed BNP candidates duly appeared on the Pensioners Party website, but without mentioning their BNP affiliations. The BNP's keyboard army was ecstatic, Darby and the Pensioners Party the heroes of the hour. But all was not as it seemed.

In his rush to overstate the importance of his "deal" not only did Darby neglect to mention that the Pensioners Party had only six members and no influence whatsoever beyond a moribund and rarely visited website, he was hardly up-front about those "representatives" he negotiated with, since when members of the public contacted the party over the BNP's claims they appeared to know nothing about it.

The Pensioners Party quickly took down the offending BNP names and announced an inquiry - presumably into which of its six members talked to Darby and put the names up in the first place. Darby quietly let the matter drop.

With the local election campaign hotting up with the mid-point of April BNP confidence in its prospects reached unrealistic heights, much as it had the year before. The BNP stood unopposed in a number of obscure town and parish council elections, each unopposed "election" being lauded by the party, which liked to defraud its own members by equating parish councillors with borough and district councillors and adding them to its tally of "real" councillors. And as the campaign went on, so more and more politicians, community leaders and churchmen came out to oppose the BNP. Even Everton and Liverpool football clubs hit out at the BNP for using images of their grounds on one of its websites. A spokesman for Everton FC said: "If they are attempting to draw a link between this football club and its supporters then they are a disgrace and should be condemned for even attempting it.” Meanwhile, Hope Not Hate's tour bus set off to take the anti-fascist message around the country, supported by the Daily Mirror, showbiz personalities, sporting heroes and a host of other celebrities.

Richard Barnbrook again made a fool of himself on St. George's Day. The BNP's London mayoral candidate, got up in armour and mounted on a pony, led a St. George's Day parade in Barking that, according to Searchlight, failed to reach double figures and was witnessed only by eight accompanying policemen mounted on bicycles.

The same Searchlight article exposed lies contained in London Assembly candidate Bob Bailey's profile on a BNP website, in which it was claimed that the BNP had secured 5,000 new council homes in Barking and Dagenham. Searchlight said:

We asked an Executive member of the council where these houses were and how the BNP had secured them. She told us: “They have been pushed and pushed at a number of Assembly meetings to identify this, finally at the meeting before last, Rustem and Bailey both admitted that they had lied”.

Searchlight Cymru was also on the case of Penygroes BNP candidate Kevin Edwards, who falsely claimed on his election leaflets that soldiers in Birmingham hospitals were told to remove their uniforms so as not to upset Muslim staff, and that homosexuality was being "taught" to children as young as four. Searchlight Cymru demanded an explanation from Edwards, which was not forthcoming. Previously Edwards had been in hot water when Penygroes councillor Sian Thomas told the South Wales Guardian that many of the residents who had signed Edwards's nomination papers had been unaware that he intended to stand for the BNP.

Also in hot water were BNP district councillors in Epping Forest, who condemned the setting up of a multi-faith forum in the district. Independent councillor Steve Murray, speaking at the council meeting where the BNP's remarks were made, said: "In 26 years (as a councillor) that was one of the most disgraceful contributions I've heard in this chamber. Because of a contribution like that there's even more reason why we need a multi-faith forum like this. We want to work together, we want community cohesion and we recognise that there is more that links faiths together than divides them", while deputy council leader Chris Whitbread told the BNP:

"It's about the wider good, and you as a party are not about the wider good. We've sat through meeting after meeting where you've sat silently and do nothing for your community. When we discuss the needs of your community you disappear and tonight you come here and you talk about dividing our community, and you don't even turn up when we discuss The Broadway or anything else. You are a disgrace to this council and you are a disgrace to our community. I am so cross that you could say that tonight, and for a start get your facts straight. This council is not paying for this body, this body is for the good of our community, you should retract your remarks."

With polling just days away, idiotic deputy BNP group leader on Barking and Dagenham council Bob Bailey thought it a great idea to ape leader Richard Barnbrook and make a public fool of himself. London Assembly candidate Bailey was involved in a spat with the Barking and Dagenham Recorder newspaper, not being pleased with their coverage of the BNP's election campaign. Bailey telephoned the paper's news editor Sally Lowe and released a torrent of foul-mouthed abuse at her. Later, with other BNP members, he arrived at the offices of the paper in a BNP campaign car and gave a highly public repeat performance over a megaphone before being moved on by the police.

Recorder editor Chris Carter said afterwards: "I am shocked that someone who claims to be a member of a legitimate political party behaves in this way. It is not acceptable that a member of my staff should be subjected to abuse like this and I will be considering making an official complaint to the Standards Board for England."

Strange behaviour on the part of BNP candidates continued when journalists from the Barnsley Chronicle went to question busted corrupt copper Simon Goodricke, standing as a BNP candidate in Barnsley's Hoyland Milton ward. News had reached the Chronicle that Goodricke had a "past", a past the BNP was keen to keep from Barnsley's voters.

The Yorkshire Star, reporting on Goodricke, said:

Goodricke is a former West Midlands detective who was kicked out of the force and jailed for 18 months for perverting the course of justice and conning a pensioner out of £1,000. Described in court as a 'gambling addict', he borrowed £200,000 from a crooked businessman to try to deal with his massive debts. He was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court after being found guilty of tipping off two corrupt businessmen, including the one who had loaned him money, that they were the centre of an international police inquiry into a money laundering plot and scam to swindle £100million from Colombian drugs barons.

Goodricke, aged 46, who now lives in Pennine View, Darton, used his position as a CID officer in Solihull to get information from the National Criminal Intelligence Service which he then passed on to a fraudster Graham Alexander.

Barnsley Chronicle journalists believed they saw an uncooperative Goodricke with a handgun and called the police, unaware that Goodricke had also called the police with the claim that the Chronicle journalists were taking pictures of young children. Goodricke's house was searched by the police but nothing was found at the time. Local BNP organiser Ian Sutton said: "We are happy with him as our candidate and have given him all our support."

Dickie Barnbrook's unlikely ménage

With just four days left to polling day the ever obliging Barking and Dagenham BNP group leader and London mayoral and Assembly candidate Richard Barnbrook suffered himself to be made a fool of on the pages of the News of the World, which announced that Barnbrook had been cheating on supposed ballerina fiance Simone Clarke with a Finnish nurse. As only the News of the World could put it:

The racist ranter —bidding to be London mayor—was secretly bedding Finn Annika Tavilampi when he proposed to English National Ballet star Simone Clarke. Barnbrook—who studies Hitler—ADVANCED on Annika, 28, after spotting her on an online dating site, BLITZED her with filthy texts and pictures— and asked her to MARRY him too.

"Richard sent me photos of his private parts before I'd even met him," says the redhead. "I thought this was very odd for a politician."

She only discovered the full depths of the London councillor's extremism when she found a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf under his bed.

"If I'd known before that he was a sleazebag I probably wouldn't have gone anywhere near him," says Annika. "He was average in bed. And then there was his drinking — I've only ever seen him properly sober a couple of times. But I still fell for him."

A day later the Daily Mail revealed that Barnbrook still had a wife, an American lady serving in the Metropolitan police who split with Barnbrook due to his "rotten politics". Un-named due to her police position, she told the Mail: "In the end [Barnbrook] said: 'If you don't like my politics you can get out.'"

The BNP had a torrid time that week, as a growing number of organisations and celebrities called on the public to oppose them, and the party leadership became ever more cautious about its prospects. We at Lancaster Unity were optimistic that the BNP would not add much to its tally of existing councillors on polling day, largely due to its own internal divisions, its incompetence, its propensity for gathering negative headlines - and one of the best anti-fascist campaigns ever mounted.

To be continued...

BNP man arrested in 'gun' drama

A Barnsley BNP candidate was thrown out of the police force in disgrace and conned an 80-year-old woman out of £1,000 as he awaited trial for perverting the course of justice.

This week, after the Chronicle tried to ask Simon Goodricke, 45, of Darton, about his past, he was arrested on suspicion of possessing a fire arm after our photographer saw him brandishing what appeared to be a handgun from his front door.

The former Solihull Detective Constable, who is standing in the Hoyland Milton Ward at Thursday's council elections, was sentenced to 18 months at Birmingham Crown Court in January 1998. He was found guilty of perverting the course of justice after he tipped off fraudsters attempting to swindle £100m from Columbian drug barons.

An international police investigation was underway but collapsed after the fraudsters were tipped off. Mr Goodricke was a gambling addict who had borrowed £200,000 from one of the fraudsters, to whom he later gave insider information. The judge at the time said evidence against him was overwhelming.

While on bail he tricked a pensioner into loaning him £1,000. He had first met her some years before while investigating a broken window at her house. When Mr Goodricke tried to beg more money from the woman she became distressed and wrote a letter asking him to leave her alone. He admitted a charge of dishonestly obtaining money.

Last week when the Chronicle first approached Mr Goodricke about his convictions he said he would not confirm or deny anything and that he was not prepared to discuss anything other than his political views and election nomination.

On Wednesday night this week the Chronicle went to his Pennine View home to question him further. At first he shouted that he had nothing to say from an upstairs window. Then he came downstairs to his front door and in a raised voice told the reporter: "It was more than ten years ago" before refusing to make any more comments and slamming the door shut.

As the reporter walked to the photographer, who was inside his car, the photographer saw Mr Goodricke come back to the front door brandishing what appeared to be a handgun. The photographer was not close enough to determine whether the gun was real.

As the Chronicle reported the incident to the police Mr Goodricke was also ringing 999. Police said he had claimed there were people in his street taking pictures of children.

A police car arrived within minutes but officers were given proof of the Chronicle staff's identity and told the real reason for their presence. Armed police were also on their way to the scene following the allegation Mr Goodricke was in possession of a gun.

Chief Superintendent Andy Brooke said: "A man was detained and his house was searched, he is presently on bail."

Mr Goodricke's house was searched about an hour and a half after the incident, the Chronicle understands nothing was found on the night. Yesterday Barnsley BNP leader Ian Sutton, who is also Mr Goodricke's election agent, was asked how he felt about his candidate's convictions.

Mr Sutton, who is standing in Darton West, said: "It is a spent conviction and that is all I can say."

Mr Goodricke's wife Lisa is the BNP candidate for Wombwell.

Barnsley Chronicle

Criminal past of BNP man

The BNP today defended a candidate with a criminal record who is standing in Barnsley in the local council elections.

Simon Goodricke, the BNP candidate for the Hoyland Milton ward, was jailed for 18 months for perverting the course of justice 10 years ago.

But Barnsley BNP organiser Ian Sutton today insisted the offences were all in the past and that Goodricke had paid his debt to society. He said: "That is a spent conviction, Simon has moved on since then and we believe he is a good candidate who has a great deal to offer the local community. We are happy with him as our candidate and have given him all our support."

Goodricke declined to comment.

He is standing for election in Thursday's Barnsley Council ballot. The party contested a number of seats at the last election, but failed to gain any places on the local authority. This years they have a record 21 candidates for seats on the council - almost a representative in every ward.

A spokesman said they were confident that they would win at least one seat.

Goodricke is a former West Midlands detective who was kicked out of the force and jailed for 18 months for perverting the course of justice and conning a pensioner out of £1,000. Described in court as a 'gambling addict', he borrowed £200,000 from a crooked businessman to try to deal with his massive debts. He was jailed at Birmingham Crown Court after being found guilty of tipping off two corrupt businessmen, including the one who had loaned him money, that they were the centre of an international police inquiry into a money laundering plot and scam to swindle £100million from Colombian drugs barons.

Goodricke, aged 46, who now lives in Pennine View, Darton, used his position as a CID officer in Solihull to get information from the National Criminal Intelligence Service which he then passed on to a fraudster Graham Alexander.

Charges of plotting to obtain the £100million against Alexander and his accomplice John Butler, both from Solihull, were subsequently dropped. But they were later each jailed for six years after being found guilty of conspiracy to obtain money by deception.

At court Goodricke was found guilty of perverting the course of justice and he admitted dishonestly obtaining £1,000 from an 80-year-old pensioner he had first met when as a police officer he was investigating a broken window at her home. He was said to have duped her with a sob story telling her he owed £3,500 on his mortgage and his house was going to be repossessed.

The court was told he was not in arrears and there had been no threat of repossession. He had used half of the £1,000 to pay of loans and gave his then wife, from whom he subsequently was divorced, the other £500 to pay bills and feed them and their three children.

Goodricke, described as 'an unremarkable detective', was thrown out of West Midlands Police in 1996, two years after being suspended on disciplinary charges.

He is standing for the BNP in the Hoyland Milton ward of Barnsley Council.

The Star