Bartholomew's Notes

Back in April, a website called Hackney Hive published details of a literary festival in Stoke Newington involving Farah Damji, author of a memoir called Try Me. Among those who left comments was Charlie Flowers:

Farah has written a great book. You may not like her or even know her but read the book. I know this will be a terrific event. Back off her, Precious, Alex, we’re watching you.
-Black Eyed Girls

“Black Eyed Girls” is a reference to himself and some associates who call themselves “the Cheerleaders”. Flowers, as I’ve written previously, is a bully and cyber-stalker who hides behind a pretence of political activism, and he tries to deflect criticism of his behaviour by suggesting that critics must be in league with Islamic extremists. He has gathered a wider gang of supporters on Facebook, but it’s doubtful that most of them know what he’s really like.

Farah Damji has been at the centre of various controversies over the years; the media has dubbed her “London’s most dangerous woman”, and in January she was jailed for a short time for housing benefit fraud. She also regards a number of people as being her enemies, whom she subjects to abusive tirades. One of her targets – for reasons unknown –  is another author, named Precious Williams, and this is the woman whom Flowers is threatening in the comment above. Here’s a typical example of one of Damji’s tirades against her:

My views on Precious-the-cunt-Williams are not unknown to her. She is a headcase… Her book’s been dumped. Serves the little fame-fucking desperate saddo right.

(In fact, Williams’ memoir was recently published by Bloomsbury)

Similar comments have also appeared on Damji’s Twitter feed, although she has recently deleted some of these; in one, she expressed the wish that Williams (who is of Nigerian heritage) had died of malaria.

Damji also boasts that a harassment case brought against her by Williams was dropped by the CPS in May, supposedly due to lack of evidence. However, Williams gives her version of the background here, and suggests that cases are still pending. Also, around the same time as Damji made her boast, Flowers left a comment on his Facebook page that he “loves it when a plan comes together”, and in June he made a posting suggesting that he and Damji had been interviewed by the police:

just back from today’s three hours of CSI: London with Farah. We’re getting good at this LOL

Flowers’ association with Damji goes back to last year; she used to be listed as an “officer” of his “Cheerleadered” Facebook page, and in December a bookreading of Try Me was held at a pub in central London under the “Cheerleadered” name. However, she appears to have removed her name in recent weeks.

Flowers seems to have a need to threaten and harass people, but also to feel good about himself for doing so. He rationalised his harassment against Tim Ireland, for instance, by claiming that he was acting to protect Nadine Dorries MP. It seems to me that he has some sort of vigilante complex, although in the case of Williams his sole self-justification appears to be that he’s friends with Damji.

UPDATE: Not completely unexpectedly, and true to pathetic type, the “Cheerleaders'” response to the above was to create a fake Facebook account in my name supposedly showing me hassling an old lady for a date. A screenshot was then posted to the “Cheerleadered” Facebook page so that comments could be left calling me a “sex pest” and such. It seems that Flowers thought better of it after a few hours and deleted it all.

Also, Flowers is now raving about how I’m supposedly a Communist and in the SWP – not true on either count, although, as noted above, my political leanings are neither here nor there; whatever kind of person I may or may not be does not change the facts about what kind of a person he is.

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