Nadine Dorries’ “Stalker” Smear used by Cyberbully as Justification for Harassment of Tim Ireland

Back in February, I sent an email to Nadine Dorries MP. Here’s the content:

Dear Ms Dorries

I see from a post that you made today on Twitter that you have forwarded certain emails etc. to the Metropolitan Police concerning Tim Ireland and a man named Charlie Flowers. As you may or may not know, Mr Flowers has made threats of violence against Mr Ireland, and when asked why he has claimed that he was acting on your behalf because Mr Ireland supposedly sent you a death threat. By this, Mr Flowers is refering to the incident in which you posted a Tweet about sitting in a churchyard, and Mr Ireland responded with a Tweet to you linking to a YouTube video clip taken from the film “The Omen”, in which a priest is killed in a churchyard by a supernatural entity.

I understand that you considered this joke by Mr Ireland to be offensive, and that you have had on-going disputes with him that have spilled over into personal animosity. However, I am sure that you cannot agree that his Tweet amounted to anything close to a threat of any kind, or that a self-styled vigilante should be harassing him as a consequence.

I have had dealings of my own with Mr Flowers and his associates (a gang calling itself “The Cheerleaders”), and I have seen first-hand how they have harassed Mr Ireland and other people. They have a dispute with Mr Ireland on a different matter, but they are using his disputes with political figures such as yourself and Iain Dale as opportunistic cover for their harassment. Regrettably, Mr Ireland’s complaints about this are now being mischaracterised as some sort of “conspiracy theory” on his part, although he has never claimed that you or his other political opponents are connected with Mr Flowers.

I have extra information about this matter, and I would like to add a statement of my own to the police investigation. I would therefore be grateful if you could give me contact details for whomever you have passed your materials on to.

Yours sincerely
Richard Bartholomew

The background to this letter was that Tim had been suffering a sustained campaign of harassment from Flowers and certain other individuals hiding behind fake IDs – his home address had been published on-line in attempt to force him “to go back to Australia”, and there were direct threats of violence. In February, Sunny Hundal chanced upon Flowers at a public event and challenged him; Flowers reportedly “claimed he was doing it on behalf on Nadine Dorries and had informed her and Paul Staines and Iain Dale about it”. Tim asked Dorries about this, and she posted a Tweet:

I have fwd all emails etc to the Met Police who are reviewing with the harassment unit

This seemed encouraging – she seemed to be confirming that she had received a message from Flowers and had realised it was appropriate to pass it on. But why was she being so vague about it? As Tim observed, with some frustration:

 …she does not specify who those emails were from, who she reported them to, or when she reported them (my money’s on yesterday, if at all).

I think my letter conveyed the importance of the situation succintly enough, and there was no reason why my name should have put her off. However, my email was not acknowledged, and it now appears that Dorries in fact used the incident for her own purposes – not to help Tim shake off a bully, but to have Tim himself investigated by the police for supposedly stalking her. This was revealed last night, when Dorries made a remarkable scene in public at hustings in the village of Flitwick when she discovered that Tim was filming the event (Flitwick is pronounced “flittick”, as someone else helpfully points out in this video):

And sure enough, Flowers is using the incident as a justification for acts that a man of any decency would find shameful:

Tim has a post on the Flitwick debacle here. It’s of particular interest that Dorries mentions Patrick Mercer MP at the end of her harangue – it shows that she has been paying close attention to Tim’s situation, so she can’t simply claim that his dispute with Flowers was a detail beneath her concern. Mercer, it may be recalled, is the MP who for a long time endorsed Glen Jenvey, an “anti-terror expert” who generated a front-page splash for the Sun by posting a fake message to a Muslim website in order to concoct a terrorism scare. Tim discovered the deception, and Mercer disassociated himself from Jenvey once the evidence of manipulation was indisputable – but he wasn’t too keen to make much of a public thing of it.

Flowers and his friends turned against Tim last autumn; the attacks began after Tim discovered that an associate of Flowers named Dominic Wightman – another self-styled “anti-terror expert” with past links to Jenvey – had been feeding Tim and me false information in the hope that we would write blog entries attacking another man, against whom Wightman has a grudge. However, Wightman and the “Cheerleaders” deny any link to each other. Flowers regards himself as some sort of “anti-jihadi” activist, and he has made links with both British Muslims for Secular Democracy and the English Defence League (at the Westminster demo he held a loudspeaker for the Sikh EDL leader Amit Singh, whom I blogged here). One of his “Cheerleader” friends is not above dipping into Redwatch to fish out personal details about someone else whose private life they want to disrupt.

It seems that Tim’s problem is that certain of his political opponents don’t like his persistence in debate and his willingness to dig deeply to get information. Their answer is simply to suggest that pressing a point which they would prefer to shrug off is evidence of mental instability, and to complain of “stalking”. Any appeal for them to show a bit of decency when things get out of hand is simply used as further evidence of mental instability, and perhaps serves as source of amusement. One might expect this from bloggers – but from an MP?

29 Responses

  1. Thanks again for taking the time. Thousands wouldn’t.

    I can’t say I’ll be too impressed if Nadine’s been portraying the actions of Charlie Flowers as evidence of my stalking her… especially when Charlie Flowers claims to be attacking me because I’m stalking her.

    FFS, I think I may need a diagram to explain it to some people.

  2. Good analysis, as always, Richard.

    Typical of Flowers and the Cheerleaders (aka appaling-failed-band the Fighting Cocks) to shout success when they spend their time flopping about doing nothing of consequence.

    Big up and onwards.

    I’m appalled the Beds Today paper hasn’t done more on this.

  3. I hold no brief for Nadine Dorries (I am not a slave to the Tory Party) and politically find her to be a bit of a one woman walking implosion.

    I hoped that the threatening against Tim Ireland had stopped. I noticed this nauseating and childish piece of character assassination from February 15 this year:
    http://westminsterjournal.com/content/view/247/40/

    I may not agree with all of Tim’s policies, but he has a sense of humour, he is an essentially decent person (who has a family that do not need any harassment, or threats from fabricated “lawyers”), and he is as persistent as a terrier in trying to get answers to his questions. That is no justification for campaigns and threats against him.

    I would get annoyed if Tim were to beset me with emails to a question, but first and foremost, he has not made threats against anyone, he has not had to hide behind anonymity or behind a bunch of anonymous people who seem to play games.

    So I am going to stick my head above the parapet and say that I am fully behind Tim in this. He has a right to go abut his business, and to ask questions that he believes to be in the benefit of “public interest”.

    And if certain people who once classed me as a “friend” get their noses put out of joint about this, and consequently decide that I am therefore to become a target for any harassment of any kind, so be it.

    I hope that the harassment of Tim Ireland has ended, but if I see any evidence of threats or intimidation against me, I will defend myself (using entirely legal means).

    In a so-called democracy, there should be no place for people who use aliases and anonymity to mount campaigns of persecution against individuals.

  4. […] Tells Messianic Jew it is “Entirely Opposed” to Rev Robert WestAdrian Morgan on Nadine Dorries’ “Stalker” Smear used by Cyberbully as Justification for Harassment…Carl Eve on Nadine Dorries’ “Stalker” Smear used by Cyberbully as Justification […]

  5. Thank you, Adrian. That means a lot.

  6. No problem. I should have been more forthright in my support, a lot earlier than this.

    It is about time this bullying bullshit comes to an end. And if it means taking sides, I am always going to side against the bully.

  7. Old people acting childish and bullying each other. Your kids better not google you lot :)

  8. 1.) Rubbish. He’s a stalker. He stalks and sends death threats to women.
    2) Failed band? Don’t think so luv- 20,000 fans and 5 albums out. And more to come.
    3.) Here’s a test for mentally ill, cyber-bullying, sociopathic stalker Timothy Ireland- turn up at one of our do’s with your camera. Oh, don’t want to? Funny that. Well here’s a final challenge- if you don’t turn up at one of our events, you’re a coward, and that goes for you gimps Bartholomew and Hundal.

    • 1) Anyone can see that the supposed “death-threat” was nothing of the kind. Even you can see it, you’re just blustering. You and your friends did something cowardly and disgusting to someone who didn’t deserve it, and now you’re lying to try to justify it to yourself.

      2) I’ve been given to understand that your band recently fell apart. Your advertised gig at the The Lamb was a no-show. Why did you and “Shooter” decide to put Jude in the frame like that?

      3) Your “Cheerleader” friends – if there’s more than one of them (you all seem to have the same IP) – won’t even give their real names. That’s cowardice. And whatever you think of me, that doesn’t change the lowness of what you did.

    • What total bollocks.

      I make no comment about point 2 – but if you think on point one that Tim Ireland makes death threats against women – prove it with some links to EVIDENCE.

      On Point 3 – Tim Ireland is an individual. Your “challenge” is not a challenge to prove his case, but seems nothing other than a veiled threat of violence. There is a huge difference between “cowardice” and “common sense” .

      If you think that Tim Ireland is mentally ill – do you think you present yourself as compassionate, rational and humane to taunt him?

      There are many words for people who bait those that they perceive to be mentally ill -but the most apposite term is “bully”.

      And when such a bully goes online, then that person becomes a “cyberstalker”. You accuse Tim of being a cyberstalker, but approve of cyberstalking tactics to be used against him?

      There seems to be some cognitive dissonance here…… or is it “bluster” as Richard maintains, or hypocrisy?

      And a final point. Did you see the video above? Do you remotely think that Nadine Dorries is some sort of victim who needs some knight in shining armour to protect her?

      Nadine Dorries is not beyond reproach – her claims in that video are brazen untruths. She also claimed to live in a Cotswold home (see here) as her main address, though no-one has seen her living there. She is currently under investigation for her suspicious expenses claims.

      I belong to no tribe. I do not have to big myself up by surrounding myself with others to back me up or defend by position. I speak as I find. And on the issue of cyberstalking against Tim Ireland, it is morally wrong. For you to justify it makes you morally wrong too.

    • Charlie Flowers has also assured me that if I turn up to one of his gigs, I would be physically attacked in response to an act he equated with stalking. So if I show up I’m a stalker, and if I don’t I’m a coward. Sorry to disappoint anyone looking for logic in all of this.

  9. I have a hobby of making music with this software called Fruity Loops Studio and was wondering whether this group is a victim of this software.

  10. […] used her complaints against him as a vigilante excuse for their campaign of harassment. Dorries knows this, and so one can only imagine the depths of the calculated and immature spite exposed by the […]

  11. […] that the attacks on Tim were undertaken because of Tim’s opposition to Nadine Dorries MP (see here). Wightman in turn has also disavowed any association, although Flowers did work with […]

  12. […] by Nadine Dorries MP, whom Tim has attacked and satirised on numerous occasions. As as I  blogged in May, Dorries retaliated by seeking  to portray a mocking Tweet as some kind of death […]

  13. […] the publication of the above, Tim has asked Dorries for details about her contact with the police (as have I) – the police have not spoken to Tim. The accusation is not just annoying: last year […]

  14. […] Twitter Critic: Uses Paul Staines to Push Smear « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion on Nadine Dorries’ “Stalker” Smear used by Cyberbully as Justification for Harassment…Nadine Dorries Takes Revenge Twitter Critic: Uses Paul Staines to Push Smear « […]

  15. […] with her lies even though she knows that a cyber-stalker has been using her accusations as a justification for a campaign of harassment against Tim and his […]

  16. […] blogging about Dorries is that her false accusation of stalking against Tim Ireland has led to Tim being targeted by a cyberthug named Charlie Flowers. Flowers, angry that Tim had exposed some on-line activism […]

  17. […] accusations here. It needs to be stressed that her poisonous lies have already borne fruit, as they have been used by a third party to harass Tim for real: this person is a cyberthug named Charlie Flowers, who, […]

  18. […] in which Flowers had invested his sense of self-worth), but Dale’s accusation (and that of Dorries) provided cover and perhaps some self-justification and inspiration. The entry on Dale’s blog […]

  19. […] “stalker” smear, particularly as used by Dorries, has also been used as an excuse by someone getting a cheap power-trip from subjecting Tim to some real-life […]

  20. […] The video below shows the event at which Dorries is claiming that a crime of harassment took place – no reasonable person could regard Tim’s behaviour as threatening or disruptive. Further background is provided here. […]

  21. […] who indulge in this self-debasing behaviour use the “stalker” accusation as cover, as self-justification, and as a means to incite […]

  22. […] those critics, though, that sets my bile duct a’twitchin’. She’s tarred them as stalkers, shirkers and conspirators. When a Labour tribalist did go too far – plundering her […]

  23. […] One defence might be that she simply doesn’t know what’s going on – however, I explained the situation to her last year in a letter, and a Conservative blogger who knows her may have […]

  24. […] an excuse to subject Tim to some real on-line harassment, in the belief that Dorries’s lies provide cover for their activities. Because I’ve expressed my opposition to this, I’ve also been […]

  25. […] journalists who have used Dorries’ outbursts as a source of easy churnalism, and a gang of on-line thugs who subjected Tim to a campaign of abuse and threats of violence as some kind of vigilante […]

  26. […] by Wightman, and he clutched at post hoc justifications for his behaviour: hence, he cited Nadine Dorries‘ dispute against Tim, and accused me of being part of a far-left conspiracy. Such is […]

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