BNP candidate who "petrified" woman is banned from contact

A British National Party member has been banned from contacting a woman he terrified. Daniel Paul Cooke, 29, kicked in the door of the home of Sarah Kendrick who said she had never been as petrified in her life.

Cooke was banned for a year from seeing her and going to Lancaster Street and Waterloo Road Barnsley, when he appeared at Barnsley Magistrates' Court.
Julie Grant prosecuting, said Cooke had been in an on off relationship with Miss Kendrick for about a year. She said Miss Kendrick was at home with her son when Cooke turned up shouting and threatening to kick the door in.

Mrs Grant: "She was terrified, She heard him kicking the door. The police arrived and a door panel had been kicked in. "Miss Kendrick said she had never been as petrified in her life. " She has asked the court to do all it can to protect her and her son. Hopefully, once time has elapsed there will be no further problems"

Cooke who gave his address as Commercial Road, Skelmanthorpe, admitted criminal damage. He had changed hid plea on the day of the trial.

Brian Bushell, defending said he did not object to the ban on Cooke seeing Miss Kendrick. He said Cooke was a security officer and had not worked since the start of the court case. He said: Mr Cooke hopes to resume his job later this week once all this is out of the way."

Cooke was ordered to do 80 hours of unpaid work and pay £150 in costs.
Cooke was the BNP candidate in the St Helen's by-election. He made a court appearance in connection with the criminal damage case last month in the week before the poll. But he told The Chronicle he had never been in trouble with the law and certainly hadn't been in court. He blamed a rival party for leading a smear campaign against him

Barnsley Chronicle

You can read the previous article that the Barnsley Chronicle did about Cooke mentioned in the last paragraph here

Incompetence or design?

Does the British National Party’s leader have a death wish? Nick Griffin has widely been accused of being incompetent or distracted by his role as an MEP, but increasingly members are wondering whether he is destroying the party deliberately.

The party has suffered a run of very poor by-election results since last May, but it is Griffin’s damaging appointments to senior party positions that are causing hitherto loyal supporters finally to desert him and the party’s regional bases to disintegrate.

Just when the BNP’s Yorkshire region should have been throwing everything into the Barnsley Central by-election campaign on 3 March, members were left confused and disillusioned by Griffin’s imposition of Ian Kitchen as the Yorkshire regional organiser and Simon Goodricke, who served an 18-month prison sentence for perverting the course of justice by tipping off fraudsters while a West Midlands Police detective constable, as his deputy.

Inevitably, it did not take long for Kitchen’s wife Linda, who has stood as a BNP candidate and addresses party meetings, to attract the interest of the media – specifically the Sunday Sport – for her starring role in a hard-core porn film.

Nobody doubted that Griffin had been fully aware of her “outside interests” when he replaced the popular Chris Beverley with Mr Kitchen, who brings little organisational ability to the job. Even more embarrassing was that he appointed the couple to organise this summer’s Red, White and Blue so-called family festival this summer.

Even when the Sunday Sport turned the party into a laughing stock, Griffin stuck by the Kitchens and instead suspended the respected Yorkshire activist Nick Cass for committing the sin of inviting party members to a “special private meeting” to discuss Kitchen’s appointment and the party’s dire financial state. It took a full five days for the BNP to announce that the Kitchens had “laid down all their roles in the party with immediate effect”, leaving Adam Walker, the BNP’s national organiser, to assume charge of the Barnsley campaign.

According to Cass, party members in Yorkshire are “leaving in their droves” and “fed up of being treated like skivvies whilst the leadership offers no explanation for the party’s current financial mess and lack of meaningful leadership”.

Barnsley Central contains several wards in which the BNP has polled 20-31% in recent years and in Enis Dalton the party has a local candidate without any known skeletons in her cupboard. After the BNP’s disastrous showing in the Oldham by-election in January, Griffin tried desperately to concoct excuses and blame others. He now seems to be going all out to achieve a similar failure in Barnsley.

Another region where Griffin appears to be scuppering the BNP’s chances is Wales, which faces Welsh Assembly elections in May. In 2007 the BNP took almost 5% of the vote and nearly got a candidate elected in the regional list section of the election, which is fought under proportional representation.

The ‘liar’ and the thug

Differences between BNP members in Wales came to a head at the BNP’s annual organisers’ meeting in Stoke-on-Trent on 12 February. Kevin Edwards, a Llandybie community councillor and Pembrokeshire party organiser, had tendered his resignation from the party the previous Monday after being inundated with calls from “distraught ex and current members” angry at the conviction of a BNP member for a vicious assault at a working men’s club before Christmas.

The assault was not the first time that Roger Phillips had shown his thuggish nature. Last year he posted death threats against Baroness Uddin on Facebook and in December 2009 he made an expletive-filled telephone call threatening to kill a man who posted an anti-BNP video on YouTube. His Patriot Products business sold racist merchandise including golliwog badges with the names and colours of Premier League football clubs and his Facebook photos included one of a cornflakes box with an open-mouthed black minstrel and the doctored logo “Coon flakes”.

Edwards drew all this to Griffin’s attention, describing Phillips as “unstable” and “a ticking bomb”, who has set the BNP back years in Wales. Griffin replied: “He’s got to go. I’m shocked that this was not dealt with in South Wales ages ago”. Relieved, Edwards withdrew his resignation.

Yet when Edwards turned up at the organisers’ meeting Brian Mahoney, the Wales regional organiser and Griffin loyalist, informed him that the party’s Advisory Council had met the previous night and decided that nothing was to be done about Phillips. If the press broke the story a few days before polling day, “then let them do it”, said Mahoney.

This “shattered” Edwards’s belief in Griffin’s “integrity and honesty”. Resigning again, Edwards explained: “Nick is either a blatant liar, politically naïve or just listens to some very bad advise [sic]”.

Edwards is not the only key activist to leave recently. In the North West region, where Griffin sits as an MEP, James Clayton, one of the party’s new younger activists, resigned as Blackpool organiser and West Lancashire coordinator, saying he no longer wished “to hold a position of responsibility in the charade and financial Bermuda Triangle that is the BNP”.

Paul Morris, the Eastern regional organiser, also resigned apparently unable to cope with the job. According to Eddy Butler, who was expelled from the BNP last year after challenging Griffin for the leadership, no BNP meetings or activities have taken place since the general election in Epping Forest, Morris’s own area, where the BNP once had six councillors now down to one. In the entire region there are “only a couple of functioning units now”, says Butler, compared to about 25 before the general election.

Admittedly Morris suffered under the handicap of sharing the same name as a prolific Welsh blogger who posts under the name “Green Arrow”. That Paul Morris has also become disillusioned with the BNP after a long period of sycophantic belief that the party could do no wrong. His hero-worship of Griffin was mostly not reciprocated – Griffin regarded him with contempt – though on one occasion, desperate for all the support he could get, Griffin invited him to speak at a Red, White and Blue festival and was filmed shaking his hand.

Edwards’s resignation and the Kitchen porn scandal resulted in Morris withdrawing his website’s unconditional support for the BNP, though not his belief that there is no better person than Griffin to lead the party, it is only Griffin’s incompetent advisers who are the problem.

Chronic waste and chaos

But Griffin has gone out of his way to appoint unsuitable people to senior party positions. The moronic Clive Jefferson was in quick succession given the jobs of north west regional organiser, national elections officer, national organiser, national nominating officer and party treasurer, as well as retaining his job on Griffin’s constituency staff paid for by the European Parliament. Even the most capable person could not have done all those jobs properly.

Jefferson in effect controls the BNP together with Patrick Harrington, who is not a BNP member but a leader of a rival party. He appears to have performed little better than Jefferson. According to Paul Golding, who resigned as the BNP’s communications officer last autumn but remains a BNP councillor, six months after Harrington’s appointment as party manager, “we still have chronic wastage, staff chaos, inefficiency, no contracts (a legal requirement), no staff training and wages not paid and several NEW employment-related court cases looming. Several staff are even complaining that they are employed but haven’t got any work to do.”

Golding also castigated the party’s failure to make any effort at fighting by-elections. Instead, explains Golding, Griffin has been “completely taken in by the promises and fantasies” of Jefferson, who promoted the “grand dream” of catching up with the mainstream parties’ “amazing online electioneering databases”. That was why Griffin told Golding he was not bothered to fight elections until the new system, named Alfred, came online to solve all the party’s electoral problems.

Griffin has said that would take two years, and no doubt several fundraising appeals, while providing a ready excuse for numerous electoral failures. But, according to Golding, instead of turning to reputable experts to develop a suitable elections database, the BNP “hired an amateur IT guy who downloaded a free piece of software off Google and began to bodge/edit it”.

Golding reveals that “the IT projects manager brought in to make Alfred work has walked away stating it will never work (and hasn’t been paid his wages in the process), so Alfred has been quietly shelved”, leaving the BNP with no election capability at all.

Griffin has said his main aim is to get re-elected as an MEP, yet he has also spoken of turning the BNP into a “civil rights” movement and abandoning elections. The next European election is in 2014 and Griffin may just be using it as an excuse to do nothing much for the next three years, by which time little will remain of his party. Either that or Griffin believes incredibly that people really will vote for him because of his participation in a parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg about which voters know and care little and BNP activists even less.

Thanks to Sonia Gable at Seachlight

Barnsley: antifascists march as EDL’s links to BNP exposed

Around 100 people turned up to support the joint Barnsley Trades Council and UAF demonstration in Barnsley on Saturday 19 February against the fascist British National Party, despite snow and harsh conditions. But on the day, antifascists found themselves opposing both the BNP and the English Defence League.

Both the BNP – which tries to hide its long history of fascism – and the racist street thugs of the EDL have sought to deny connections between the two organisations, although the EDL’s leader “Tommy Robinson” is a former BNP member and other fascists are central to its organisation. But the links between the two groups were exposed when members of the EDL’s Yorkshire division turned out to defend the BNP’s stall in Barnsley as local trade unionists and antifascists marched against them.

The BNP is standing in the Barnsley Central byelection on 3 March. Local trade unionists and antifascists organised the march to oppose the BNP after the fascist party’s leader Nick Griffin’s recent visits to the town and the BNP’s attempts to maintain a stall in the town centre. The BNP wants to whip up support for its poinsonous racist and fascist ideas – local people are determined to oppose them.

The trade union and antifascist demo marched through the centre of Barnsley to show their opposition at the site where the BNP hold a stall.

Demonstrators were shocked when 50 EDL members marched up from a pub shouting abusive slogans. For an hour, police kept both groups penned in and refused to allow the trades council march to proceed. But the antifascist demonstrators inisted they would march and the police eventually led the EDL back to the pub where they had been drinking earlier.

The trade union demonstration then proceeded through the town centre, chanting and outnumbering the fascists on the BNP stall and the EDL bully boys who had come to defend the BNP.

A rally in the centre of town was addressed by a number of speakers including the national president of the UCU and regional speakers from the GMB and FBU unions. The rally finished with a call to leaflet and campaign against the BNP in the byelection.

UAF

Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up

Hard-core porn star to run BNP “family festival”

Linda Kitchen

With the Barnsley by-election set for 3 March, the British National Party appears increasingly uninterested in promoting its faux family image and the party’s diminishing number of members in Yorkshire are once more calling into question the judgement of their leader, Nick Griffin.

The surprise appointment of Ian Kitchen as a replacement for the highly regarded Chris Beverley as the new Yorkshire and Humber regional organiser in January, with Simon Goodricke, one of Griffin’s regular bodyguards, as his deputy, brought to the fore one of the worst kept secrets in the BNP’s recent history.

Kitchen, from Hemsworth near Pontefract in West Yorkshire, has long been regarded by members as an oddball and a Griffin sycophant. Most see him as a harmless crank who allegedly suffers from brain injuries resulting from a car accident.

Kitchen attracted attention for his strange and rather awkward looking cameo appearance at the launch of the BNP’s 2010 election manifesto in Stoke-on-Trent. Standing behind Griffin and Simon Darby, then the party’s deputy leader and a local parliamentary candidate, he appeared with what looked for all intents and purposes a saucepan on his head as he mimicked a poor man’s pantomime St George.

Alongside his promotion to regional organiser, Kitchen and his fourth wife Linda have been entrusted with running and promoting the party’s annual booze-fuelled punch-up, bean feast and “family orientated” Red, White and Blue festival. Their appointment has the potential to cause acute embarrassment for the party and adds to suspicions among members that the leadership is running Yorkshire region into the ground.

For alongside promoting the BNP’s alleged clean-cut image and Christian beliefs, Mrs Kitchen is a hard-core porn actress and the star attraction on a number of websites that show and sell films for a particular market in mature and genitally pierced “grannies”. There are also a number of explicit photographs of Linda, who has the word “slave” tattooed across her abdomen, engaged in sexual acts not with her husband but with alleged and consenting strangers.

The availability of the photographs and film, which rejoices in the title Freddie’s British Granny F*** 15, on a number of porn websites has long been an open secret in the BNP and one of which Griffin is believed to be aware. Their explicit and extreme nature prevents Searchlight from reproducing the evidence here.

The appointment of Kitchen irked Eddy Butler, the unsuccessful BNP leadership challenger, who has encountered Kitchen at the BNP’s offices at the European Parliament in Brussels, where Griffin sits as an MEP for the North West and Andrew Brons, a former chairman of the National Front, represents Yorkshire and the Humber.

Linda Kitchen with husband Ian and stepson also called Ian

According to Butler, Griffin lied to Yorkshire members when he claimed he did not know that Kitchen had allegedly been jailed for violence and “gives out DVDs of his wife engaging in hard core pornographic acts with strangers”.

Certainly the language used by the film’s promoters to market it is not what one would expect from the self-appointed moral guardians of the nation. Mrs Kitchen is described as a “slutty granny” among other degrading and offensive descriptions for women.

Interestingly, Butler claims that the disgraced Barnsley Labour MP Eric Illsley was forced to resign as a result of the work of the former BNP “sleaze buster” Michael Barnbrook, now out of favour with Griffin. Kitchen helped kick off the Barnsley by-election campaign for the BNP by attempting to charge £1 entrance to a party meeting. Perhaps this is typical of the ideas Kitchen brings to the table in a now morally as well as financially bankrupt BNP.

Goodricke, Kitchen’s deputy, is also far from a fine upstanding member of the community. One of Griffins regular bodyguards, Goodricke was thrown out of the police service in disgrace and conned an 80-year-old woman out of £1,000 as he awaited trial for perverting the course of justice.

The former West Midlands Detective Constable, described as “an unremarkable detective”, was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment 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 £100 million from Columbian drug barons.

An international police investigation was under way but collapsed after the tip-off. Goodricke was a gambling addict who had borrowed £200,000 from one of the fraudsters, to whom he later gave insider information.

While on bail he tricked a pensioner into loaning him £1,000. He had first met her some years earlier while investigating a broken window at her house. When Goodricke tried to beg more money from her she became distressed and wrote a letter asking him to leave her alone. He was said to have duped her with a sob story telling her he owed £3,500 on his mortgage and his house was about to be repossessed.

The court heard however that he was not in arrears and there had been no threat of repossession.

Goodricke was dismissed from West Midlands Police in 1996, two years after being suspended on disciplinary charges.

Hope not Hate

BNP announces candidate in Illsley successor race

A female community worker has been selected as the BNP candidate in the by-election to replace Eric Illsley.

Enis Dalton was announced as the candidate in a party meeting at Farm Road Working Men's Club in Kendray, attended by leader Nick Griffin. There had been speculation that he would be the candidate, compounded when the party's press spokesman refused to deny it last week.

Anti-BNP Protesters gathered outside the meeting.

Barnsley Chronicle

Beating back the BNP in Barnsley

Red Pepper magazine is running a debate on the future of anti-fascism, one we'd like to bring to the Lancaster Unity community. With Red Pepper's agreement we have republished two of the three articles here and here, each with a different take on the way forward. Belatedly, here is the third and (for the moment) final article...

There is certainly a need for new ways of taking on the BNP, says Paul White, but that doesn’t mean ditching the old ways as well

In the build up to the recent elections in Barnsley, we distributed both UAF and Hope Not Hate leaflets to a much larger section of the electorate. These were the standard-issue ‘Vote Anyone but Nazi’ literature, highlighting the Nazi backgrounds and criminal activities of the BNP’s leading members and candidates. In addition, we held two rallies in the town centre as part of our ‘Reclaim our Town for Democrats’ campaign. This was a response to the BNP having had a regular presence in the main shopping precinct for the past few years on a Saturday, with a stall distributing literature and selling their newspaper. On top of all this, we had established a regular Love Music Hate Racism event at a local club in an attempt to bring young people into the campaign, and to raise awareness.

Despite our best efforts, Barnsley has found itself labelled the fascist capital of Britain, with the BNP achieving its highest percentage of the vote here. Disregarding the factor of the collapse of the Labour vote, it became obvious that simply saying ‘don’t vote BNP/they’re Nazis’ plainly hadn’t worked – again!

There is certainly a need for new ways of taking on the BNP as they become an increasingly more serious threat to everything we have been fighting for all these years. We’ve begun this reflection in Barnsley.

First, while in the past we were just active around elections, we will be active all year round, in the market place, on the streets, on Facebook, in the local press, around football matches – really involving the people of Barnsley. We’ve set up a Barnsley FC supporters group against the BNP, and we are reclaiming the market place.

Second, we are becoming much more deeply engaged with local campaigns addressing the root causes of the many social issues and problems in Barnsley that allow the BNP to capitalise on people’s disaffection. This means defending the health service, campaigning for affordable/social housing, defending jobs. We marched through the city centre last month against job cuts. The BNP had nothing to say.

It would obviously be great if we had candidates standing in the next elections who could offer an alternative, but this is something that will no doubt be discussed in the future.

However, for those of us in localities like Barnsley where the BNP is active and visible, we cannot afford to completely ditch our existing structures, contacts and networks in order to start afresh. We need to maintain our relationship with local trade unions, regardless of what we feel about the Labour Party (I, for one, would not be actively encouraging people to vote for them). The unions provide a vital link to organised workers within the area – significantly, this is something the BNP does not like. We need to learn from what hasn’t (and what has) worked, and develop new strategies and methods, hopefully involving a wider layer of campaigners. We need to be realistic about what works, and what doesn’t. The stakes are far too high to be dogmatic.

Paul White is a trade unionist, socialist and Green Party member

Red Pepper

Police intervene to separate BNP from protesters outside Griffin meeting

Some Griffin supporters greet the Press

About 200 protesters gathered to register their anger as BNP leader Nick Griffin was due to turn up to a meeting in Barnsley last night. He was here to address the Barnsley branch of the BNP at the Fleets Inn, Smithies, ahead of the European elections next month. But, when word got out, the Unite Against Fascism and Love Music, Hate Racism organisations rallied their members and held a protest outside the pub.

Thirty police officers, including four on horseback, kept the protesters away from The Fleets as party members turned up to chants of 'scum' and 'smash the BNP'.

George Arthur was one of the protest's organisers. He said Mr Griffin had been convicted for Holocaust denial and was not welcome in Barnsley. "The policies of Griffin's party are homophobic and racist. We want to see greater social cohesion in Barnsley not the hatred this man is going to bring."

Fleets owner Steve Dutton told the Chronicle he was not political and the decision to hire out the room was purely a business one. He said: "It might seem mercenary but I cannot afford to lose custom."

The BNP had held meetings at the pub for about a year, without any cause for concern, he said and added the pub was open to the whole community.

Council leader Steve Houghton was in London yesterday and unable to attend the protest but said he supported it. "I find it very disturbing that people with extremist views like Nick Griffin feel they can find a home in Barnsley. The BNP stands for racism and the far right - it does not represent the views of ordinary working people no matter how they dress it up."

Barnsley Chronicle

Griffin planning to visit Barnsley Thursday

Nick Griffin is intending to speak at The Fleets pub in Barnsley tomorrow (Thursday) at 7.30pm. Local anti-BNP campaigners are calling for a demonstration outside the pub, so if you can get along there, it would be appreciated.

They are also asking for people to ring the pub on 01226 243678 to attempt to get them to cancel the booking.

Quit demands for councillor on BNP list

A BARNSLEY councillor is facing demands to quit after her name appeared on a leaked list of BNP members.
But Independent Coun Donna Hollins has denied being a member of the far right political party.

She was included in a list of 12,000 alleged members posted online.

Three months ago rumours swept the town hall that she was in the BNP.

Barnsley has never had a BNP councillor but in recent years the party has seen its vote increase. It came second in eight wards in elections earlier this year.

Coun Hollins has served on the council since 2004. She has represented Kingstone ward since May 2006. Her term of office expires in 2010.

A councillor, who asked not to be named, said if she was a BNP member she had deceived voters and should resign.

He added: "She's very meek, never talks to anyone. I can only remember her once standing in the council chamber and that was to second a motion against asylum seekers."

Miss Hollins, aged in her 40s, sits on the Regeneration Scrutiny Commission, Joint Employees' Consultative committee and Appeals and Awards Regulatory Board. She is also on the Friends of Locke Park committee and a Cooper Art gallery trustee.

She lives in Barnsley town centre and works part-time in a dry-cleaners.

Coun Hollins said she was aware her name was on the BNP list of members but when asked how it came to be there said: "No comment."

Ward colleague Independent Coun Geoff Bowden said: "We confronted her about this three months ago and she denied it."

Barnsley Council borough secretary Andrew Frosdick said: "I can confirm Coun Donna Hollins has contacted me as the officer responsible for the Register of Members Interests and she has confirmed that her entries on the register, which make no reference to membership of any political party, are accurate and up to date."

Town hall records show Coun Hollins seconded a motion lodged on June 26 calling for the council to, 'give immediate notice to terminate its contract with the Home Office for the provision of accommodation and related services to asylum seekers'.

Original Story

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

Anti-fascism Around The Country

Anti-fascists around the country have started campaigning against the threat posed by the British National Party (BNP) at the elections on 3 May.

Activists in the Yorkshire and Humberside region of Unite Against Fascism went leafleting last weekend in Leeds, Barnsley, York and Scarborough calling on people to use their votes against the Nazi BNP.

In the West Midlands, Unite leafleters, including Labour and Liberal Democrat councillors, covered Redditch’s Winyates ward. The BNP’s David Enderby gained a council seat there last year – but has since been convicted of assaulting his wife.

Unite campaigners in Luton will blitz the Farley Estate with anti-BNP leaflets this Saturday. Luton Unite is calling on people to assemble at 10.30am at the Farley Community Centre on Delphine Way.

Meanwhile Love Music Hate Racism (LMHR) has kicked off a national tour of universities to build support for the movement against the Nazis.

Full details of the tour are available at http://www.lovemusichateracism.com/

LMHR has also teamed up with the NUT and NASUWT teaching unions to launch a range of anti-fascist educational material for schools. This includes a CD compiled by Drew McConnell of Babyshambles which will be distributed free to schools across Britain.

Activists in the GMB trade union in Barking & Dagenham, east London, turned out last Saturday to campaign against the BNP in nearby Thurrock, Essex, as part of the Daily Mirror’s “Hope Not Hate” tour.

Tom Baillie, branch secretary of Barking GMB, told Socialist Worker, “The majority of people in this borough reject the fascist politics of the BNP – and we’re out to show that.”

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=11036

Socialist Worker