Mother in controversial BNP video jailed

A mother of three who was at the centre of a controversial BNP video has been jailed

Helen Forster, of Park Place, Gravesend, was sentenced at Maidstone Crown Court to 11 months in prison for perverting the course of justice and common assault.

The 32-year-old admitted both charges, which related to an incident in Fort Gardens, Gravesend, on May 23. She was given an additional nine months in jail for breaching a suspended sentence.

In May, Forster was given a 10-month suspended prison term after being convicted of intimidation. In that case the court heard she had encouraged a group of children to throw eggs and fire an airgun at the home of her neighbour Meherjan Miah, who lives there with her young children.

Following Forster’s conviction for intimidation, it was reported in the media she was a member of the British National Party. However, Paul Golding, BNP councillor for the Swanley St Mary’s Ward of Sevenoaks District Council, vigorously denied she had ever been a member of his party, calling the reports “outrageous lies”.

In a video, Cllr Golding said Forster "is not a member of the British National Party and she never has been". He added: “I contacted our membership department and asked them to check all of our records going back many years and she is not on there whatsoever.”

Cllr Golding interviewed Forster in the video and she denied ever being a member of the BNP. However, News Shopper discovered she was registered as a member of the party under a different name - Helen Colclough.

The video was made as part of Cllr Golding’s Operation Fightback campaign, which aims to expose so-called media lies. When asked to explain why his video on Forster contained a lie, he said he was unaware she was a member of his party under a different name at the time of making the video.

News Shopper

BNP councillor defends party after members burn gollywog at festival

A BNP councillor has defended the party after members were filmed burning a gollywog and making racist comments during a festival. Paul Golding (left), British National Party councillor for the St Mary’s ward in Swanley, has condemned members who were shown performing the mock trial of the gollywog.

A News of the World reporter filmed the ritual while undercover at the party’s Red White and Blue family festival in Derbyshire last month. The group, which included a 12-year-old girl, dubbed the stuffed toy ‘Winston’ and charged him with being black before dropping him onto a fire. One member, identified as John Coombes, of Maidenhead, Berkshire, a council candidate for that area, said: “He thinks he's not black. He's charged with being black. Get on there.” The 45-year-old added: “Let's get a real one. In the town we'll find one or two.”

Police in Derbyshire have launched an investigation after seeing the video footage. A spokeswoman said: “Officers will be contacting the newspaper which alleges that an undercover reporter witnessed unlawful activity while at the event.”

Cllr Golding, who was elected in February, says the views of the people involved in the mock trial are not representative of the BNP. He said: “If you subtract these morons from our 13,000 members it is something like 0.01 per cent of the party. They are all being disciplined and it will be very severe, if not being kicked out of the party.”

The News of the World article claims members gave Nazi-style salutes and shouted Sieg Heil, and music with racist lyrics supporting Hitler was played. Cllr Golding said he was at the festival but was not aware of the racist activity, and he says the party is not racist.

Party leader MEP Nick Griffin was also at the event, which was attended by around 1,200 BNP supporters. He said the party will be organised to give non-whites no power if new legislation forces it to allow them to become members, the article alleges. Cllr Golding says the BNP is for white British people, so there would be no reason for non-whites to join other than to cause trouble within the party.

Last month News Shopper revealed that a Gravesend woman convicted of intimidating an Asian mother was a member of the BNP, after Cllr Golding made a video stating she was not. Helen Forster, aged 32, of Park Place, denied being a member in the video posted on YouTube and the BNP website, but she was registered under a different surname - Colclough. Cllr Golding says he was unaware Forster was a member of the party under a different name at the time of making the video.

News Shopper

Woman who intimidated Asian mother was BNP member despite councillor's denial

Operation Fightback: covering up the lies - with more lies

When a woman convicted of intimidating an Asian mother was branded a ‘BNP mum’ by the media, Councillor Paul Golding made a video vigorously claiming she had never been a member of his party. However, News Shopper has discovered she was registered as a member of the British National Party - under a different name.

The Daily Mirror said Gravesend resident Helen Forster was a member of the BNP after she was found guilty of intimidating her Asian neighbour in May. In response, Paul Golding, councillor for the St Mary’s ward of Swanley, made a video in which he claimed the reports were “outrageous lies”.

The video [above] was posted on the BNP website and YouTube. In the video, Cllr Golding said Forster "is not a member of the British National Party and she never has been". He added: “I contacted our membership department and asked them to check all of our records going back many years and she is not on there whatsoever. I spoke to Andy McBride, the south east regional organiser, and he said that no-one in the whole region had ever heard of her.”

Cllr Golding went to Forster’s home in Park Place and interviewed her on her doorstep, and she too called the reports “lies”. The 32-year-old said: “I was not a paid member, I was just a graphic designer. I produced leaflets.”

However, a woman named Helen Colclough, of the same address as Helen Forster, was registered as a member and activist for the BNP. Last week a Kent Police spokeswoman confirmed that Helen Forster and Helen Colclough are, in fact, the same person.

The video was made as part of Cllr Golding’s Operation Fightback campaign, which aims to expose so-called media lies. But when he was asked to explain why his video on Forster contained a lie, he said he could not comment. After conferring with the BNP legal team, he told us: “I was told data protection stroke litigation rules mean I cannot say anything about the story.”

Following his election in February, Cllr Golding’s political career was brought into question when details of a family member’s criminal past were exposed. His brother Jamie has been convicted of stealing cars and committing more than 150 burglaries in the Bexley and Kent area.

Last Monday (July 27), Forster pleaded guilty to common assault and perverting the course of justice at Maidstone Crown Court. She has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on September 7. The charges relate to an incident in Fort Gardens, Gravesend, on May 23. In May she was given a 10-month suspended sentence after being found guilty of intimidating her neighbour Meherjan Miah, a 30-year-old mother of four. The court heard Forster had encouraged children to throw eggs and fire an air gun at Mrs Miah’s home.

News Shopper

BNP mother-of-three admits assault

BNP neighbour from hell, Helen Forster

A mother-of-three who has previously claimed to be a member of the British National Party (BNP) has pleaded guilty to common assault and perverting the course of justice. Helen Forster (see here and here for more info), of Park Place, Gravesend, admitted the charges at Maidstone Crown Court on July 27.

The 32-year-old, who has previously stated she has produced leaflets for the party, has been remanded in custody and will be sentenced on September 7.

The two charges relate to an incident in Fort Gardens, Gravesend, on May 23. In May, Forster was given a 10-month suspended sentence at Maidstone Crown Court after being convicted of intimidation. In this case, the court had heard she had encouraged a group of children to throw eggs and fire an airgun at the home of her neighbour Meherjan Miah, who lives there with her young children.

News Shopper

If you tell a lie big enough...

A British National Party claim on Monday that the police are investigating Searchlight for attacking a commercial company’s website is a lie of which Joseph Goebbels would be proud and further evidence of how the party’s election campaign is falling apart.

The BNP website went down for several hours over the holiday weekend. On Sunday evening the party claimed it had suffered a “massive Denial of Service Attack … emanating from Eastern Europe and Russia”.

The statement, which appeared on the blog of Simon Darby, the BNP’s deputy leader, continued: “On Friday the servers of Clear Channel, part of a huge conglomerate that provides billboard advertising, suffered a similar attack. Their IT professionals tracked the criminal activity back to a notorious ‘anti-fascist’ organisation.

“This organisation was protesting at the decision by Clear Channel to allow the BNP to display advertising in support of our European Election Campaign.” The statement claimed that Clear Channel’s lawyers were issuing writs against “the perpetrators” that would involve “the possibility of potential criminal charges including racketeering”.

A further statement on Monday claimed that the “Counter Terrorism Unit at Scotland Yard” was investigating the attack on the BNP website and that Searchlight “is now being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for a similar attack on the servers of Clear Channel”.

Clear Channel denied the BNP’s claims. A spokeswoman for the company told a Searchlight researcher: “I’ve checked with our IT department and we haven’t experienced any denial of service”.

Last week Searchlight asked people to email Clear Channel to protest against its decision to display BNP posters and over 5,300 people responded. So far Clear Channel is standing by its policy of allowing all political parties to advertise at the market rate though the company “does not support them in any way”.

The BNP knows well the difference between a denial of service attack on a website and an email protest campaign. Paul Golding, who runs the BNP’s “Operation Fightback”, has himself often asked supporters to email media outlets that have run anti-BNP stories and anyone else who has upset the fascist party.

We can only assume that the BNP has realised just how hard it is being hit by the constant exposés of its fascism and lies in the media and is desperately trying to divert attention from its difficulties by throwing out wild accusations against its opponents.

Last week the BNP placed on its website an interview with Helen Forster, a party member, that Golding recorded after her conviction for racist intimidation was exposed in the Daily Mirror. Although she had told the Mirror reporter that she was “still in the BNP”, she lied blatantly to Golding that she had never joined the party. The BNP then falsely claimed it had taken the “Daily Mirror’s scalp”. Promised writs from the BNP’s fake “lawyer”, Lee Barnes, failed to materialise.

Searchlight awaits Clear Channel’s writs and Metropolitan Police enquiries about a fictitious attack on Clear Channel’s website with bated breath. The BNP should remember that wasting police time is a serious criminal offence.

Meanwhile, whatever the real reason for the absence of the BNP’s website over the weekend, Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, could not let it pass without grabbing another opportunity to milk his supporters for money. Claiming ludicrously that the BNP had suffered the “largest cyber attack in recorded history”, he explained that they had been “forced to hire a Cyber Defence expert” and “need to invest in additional hardware and servers”. The items had to be paid for immediately, but “every penny we possess is allocated to the Euro Election Campaign”.

The party therefore desperately needed £5,000, so much so that Griffin had “personally donated £250 to this appeal to set things in motion”, no doubt yet another of the lies that seem to trip so easily from his mouth.

Hope not hate

Operation Lieback

On Tuesday we carried the Mirror's report of "BNP mum" Helen Forster's conviction for intimidation, earned after she and a mob of children besieged the home of terrified neighbour Mrs Meherjan Miah. Single mother and benefits claimant Forster, who has prior convictions for dishonesty and drug possession, was let off with a 10 month suspended sentence.

The Mirror reported that after her conviction Forster demanded that the local council "move on" Mrs Miah to prevent further incidents and confirmed her membership of the BNP - "And yes, I'm still in the BNP."

The BNP, stung and clearly rattled by a succession of negative press reports, immediately mobilised its farcical (and largely fictitious) "Operation Fightback" to search for holes in the Mirror's story, and was soon claiming to have found the biggest hole of all - that Helen Forster, given address XX Xxxx Place, Gravesend, Kent, was not and never had been a member of the BNP!

Very quickly the party's Operation Fightback dispatched a hysterical email entitled "Fight back against Mirror lies!", saying

BNP South East regional organiser Andy McBride has dismissed the story as nonsense saying that the person in question is NOT a BNP member, either current or in the archives. This has been confirmed by our Membership Department.

This latest smear job is a complete fabrication. We need all our online supporters to take a few minutes to lodge a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission...

Somebody, then, was lying. Was it the Mirror? Was it Helen Forster? Was it the BNP?

This was quickly followed by an email from Nick Griffin, who said:

Today the leftwing Mirror newspaper published an outrageous and vile smear attack on the BNP claiming that a certain Helen Forster was a "BNP mum" and that she incited youngsters into a racial attack.

Operation Fightback immediately hit back with press releases and e-bulletins holding the Mirror to account for one little inaccuracy: Helen Forster is NOT a member of the BNP and NEVER has been!

Operation Fightback has produced a video detailing the whole saga..

And indeed, in suspiciously double-quick time, the BNP had produced a video, in which an indignant Paul Golding allegedly "tracked down" and doorstepped Helen Forster. According to the BNP's website, Golding "tracked down the person named in the Mirror story, Helen Forster" - note the semantic difference made by the qualification "the person named".

That struck a number of BNP watchers as odd, as did the despatch with which Golding arrived on Miss Forster's doorstep.

A post accompanying Golding's video, both appearing ON THE SAME DAY as the Mirror's report, had this to say:

She [Helen Forster] told BNPtv that the Mirror story was a pack of lies, that her family’s safety had been endangered by the story and that she was going to take legal action against that newspaper.

Ms Foster said she was not a member of the BNP, and that the only reason why the Mirror had invented this pack of lies was to try and damage the BNP’s campaign.

Cllr Golding told BNP News that the Press Complaints Commission had been formally notified of this latest set of lies.

“We are not going to sit idly by while the controlled media lie about our party,” Cllr Golding said. “The Mirror can rest assured that we will be proceeding with all legal channels to make sure that they are punished for this outrageous fabrication. They will learn the hard way that we now have the capability to expose their lies.

“This latest story utterly discredits these media rats, and the public will now be able to soberly assess the veracity of all future anti-BNP smears against this background,” he said.

Indeed the public will "be able to soberly assess the veracity of all future anti-BNP smears against this background", since there is now little doubt that both the BNP and "Helen Forster" were lying through their teeth.

Last night an interesting post appeared on UKIP's British Democracy Forum, here reproduced in full:

Posted by Mark Croucher - Another BNP Councillor caught lying

Just thought this little illustration of the depths the BNP are prepared to sink to would be of interest in this section.

This morning, the Daily Mirror reported on a BNP activist convicted of waging a campaign of racial hatred against a neighbour in Gravesend, Kent.

The BNP promptly despatched their 'Rapid Response Unit' to interview her. The unit, headed by Councillor Golding of Sevenoaks District Council, said that the woman named, Helen Forster, had never been a BNP member and was not known to the party. They then interviewed her on her doorstep saying how disgraceful it was that the Mirror was attempting to 'set up' the BNP.

Living locally, seeing the front door rang a bell: I live in Dartford, about 7 miles from Gravesend. It just so happens that that particular front door is just around the corner from where I used to work, and I have friends who live very close. So, on the way home this evening, I took a spin down to Gravesend and, sure enough, the house was the correct one: Snipped, Gravesend. So, I popped into my friends house and asked if they knew who lived there, and imagine my surprise (not) to be told that it was a Helen Colclough, who also calls herself Helen Forster. Naturally, I was even more surprised (not) to discover that she was known locally as a BNP activist and member who - wait for it - likes to tell people that she designs leaflets for the BNP.

So, not only did Cllr Golding lie twice - once about her not being a member, and once about the Mirror story not being true - but Ms Forster/Colclough was also in on the lying act by claiming to have never been a member of the BNP.

Given the amount of copies of the BNPs membership lists which are floating around, I'm sure someone can confirm this.

Now it just so happens that the leaked BNP membership list is freely available at numerous locations which can be accessed by anybody with an internet connection - and guess what?

There, listed as living at XX Xxxx Place, Gravesend, Kent is one Helen Colclough, Activist, who gives her email address as the clearly racist nig5@msn.com.

And so we have an explanation as to how Paul Golding came to arrive on "Forster's" doorstep with such speed, and for that curious qualification "the person named... as Helen Forster".

It's because the BNP knew all along that "Helen Forster" was "Helen Colclough", but - as ever - intent on pulling the wool over the eyes of the public, the Press Complaints Commission, and its own gullible membership, the upper echelons of the BNP decided to concoct a cock-and-bull story and in so doing yet again pointed their own gun firmly at their own temple and smirkingly pulled the trigger.

By what defect of his vision Regional Organiser Andy McBride allegedly failed to notice that the much published Mirror photograph of "Helen Forster" bore an uncannily striking resemblance to his own activist, Helen Colclough, is something we'll have to get back to you on.

BNP mum Helen Forster led kids' race attack

Meet the female face of the BNP - the sneering single mum who led a mob of kids to throw eggs and fire an airgun at an Asian neighbour.

Graphic designer Helen Forster, a paid-up member who produces leaflets for the far right group, was yesterday spared jail after being convicted of intimidation. She was the lone adult urging the hate-filled kids - some only 10 - to shout abuse during the siege at the home of terrified Meherjan Miah, who had previously lodged a complaint to police about a racially-aggravated assault.

But after getting off with a 10 months suspended sentence, mum-of-three Forster, 32 - who has previous convictions for dishonesty and drug possession - failed to apologise. She just defiantly called on the authorities to "move on" Mrs Miah to stop further incidents. She had already shouted threats through Mrs Miah's letterbox and admitted that the eggs thrown in the retaliatory incident last August "may have come" from her fridge.

Maidstone crown court heard that although she had not been found guilty of criminal damage herself, she had "encouraged" the youngsters. They included a cautioned boy of 14 and airgun shooter Matthew Back, then 17, who also walked free as he had spent nine months on remand. He said he only "joined in" because he knew Forster, who lives on benefits in her council house in Gravesend, Kent. She, like Back, also got community service and supervision.

Outside court she said: "I've asked the council to move Mrs Miah on but nothing's happened. And yes, I'm still in the BNP."

Hope message to 'bomb city'

Our Hope not Hate bus yesterday hit Coventry - destroyed by Nazi bombers in WWII. And special issues showing BNP candidate Simon Darby getting Hitler salutes in Italy reminded locals of the peril of voting for racists. Councillors agreed: "We must keep fighting Fascism."

Mirror