In May 2009 a document was posted on-line purporting to be an interview with Glen Jenvey conducted by Jeremy Reynalds, a right-wing journalist based in the USA. The document was for the most part an attack on Tim Ireland for unravelling the “Terror Target Sugar” fiasco, and it included “I know where you live”-type details. It was brought to the attention of Tim and me by the self-styled “terror-tracker” Dominic Wightman, who was a former associate of Jenvey; I give some background to the saga here. It should be recalled that in 2006 Wightman had been endorsed by Patrick Mercer MP, and Mercer had introduced Wightman to senior police at New Scotland Yard to discuss terrorism.
Reynalds confirmed to Tim that the document was a fake, and Wightman exhorted us to believe that a university lecturer named Michael Starkey had created it. However, rather than sounding off against Starkey, Tim instead went to the police, who traced it back to Wightman’s home via a broadband connection in his wife’s name. Wightman had a explanation, though; as Tim recalls:
Paul Wheeler (Farnham CID) told me that Wightman claimed not to be the author of this fake Jenvey/Reynalds interview that led police to his door; that he claimed to have merely uploaded it and genuinely thought it to be the work of… Reynalds. Wightman said this knowing that Reynalds denied it vehemently at the time, and that he (Wightman) had instead repeatedly tried to blame Starkey for it (while pretending to have ‘found’ the article on a site when he himself had uploaded it). Wightman knew I was deeply concerned about the fake interview, who was behind it, and what they might be capable of, and he chose not to confess or even alleviate my concerns in any way. Instead, he not only alerted me to it and repeatedly enhanced any concerns I may have had about it, but repeatedly tried to suggest that Starkey was behind it.
We also discovered that Wightman’s attempt to smear Starkey as the author had been driven by a desire for revenge: Starkey and Wightman had formerly been in contact, but Starkey had discovered that Wightman was dishonest.
In an email to me, Wightman refused to divulge where he had supposedly found the fake interview:
I did not write that article, no. It was offered from somewhere else but I’d rather not give that away at this stage. I will. There were far worse on offer, put it that way.
In the weeks that followed, Wightman began to write long abusive tirades on his website, explaining that his purpose all along had been to entrap Tim and me as collaborators with Islamic extremists.
Wightman’s denials were always ludicrous: he had admitted to lying to us, and he was unable to say where the document “was offered from”. In the time that has followed, Wightman’s attacks on Tim have tended to have obvious resonances with the “voice” of the interview’s pseudo-Jenvey. But what about evidence? As Tim notes:
the creator of the original [falsified interview] Word .DOC document was ‘Adninistrator‘ (note spelling), and… it was created on 12 May 2009 23:09:00, the fourth and final writing task involving 66 Minutes of editing time…
A few days ago, Adrian Morgan (a former associate of Wightman who became disgusted when he discovered Wightman’s methods) sent Tim and me some Word documents that he had received from Wightman some time previously: and once again, the author is “Adninistrator”. Wightman wasn’t just given the fake interview: he had created the document in which it was uploaded, and the fact he had spent more than an hour editing it is strongly suggestive that he didn’t just cut-and-paste it from somewhere else.
Also of interest: in early 2010 I received a series of emails from a sockpuppet account controlled by Charlie Flowers or an associate; as I’ve blogged previously, Flowers had formerly worked with Wightman, although they fell out when Flowers eventually realised he’d been manipulated (to save face Flowers has continued with an independent campaign of abuse against Tim and me). The first of the emails included a Word document called “Hitlist for 2010”, as well as some other materials (including the name of someone to whom Wightman purportedly owed money). The “hitlist” consisted of a list of Islamists, along with a few other names, such as Tim Ireland, Justice Eady, and Sir John Starkey; Sir John is Michael’s brother and a former member of Patrick Mercer’s constituency committee (Wightman sees both Starkeys as responsible for creating a rift between himself and Mercer). I forwarded the email to Wightman. His reply:
Love the hitlist! Never had a creditor called Hughes. And last reminder – cease and desist communication with me. Ta.
The list may have been concocted by someone else, but Wightman is given as the author in the properties, and it was again last modified (in February 2009) by “Adninistrator”.
Adrian has also forwarded to me a bizarre email from December 2009, in which Wightman suggested creating blog in the guise of an “African High Priest” and making contact with various Africans I have written about. The idea was that this blog would be used to make “outlandish religious comments”, leading me to write about the priest. After this, “Damian Thompson picks up on it and mainstream press”, at which point the denouement would occur: a posting purporting to show that either I had created the “African High Priest” myself or been manipulated into it in some way. The scheme was of course a feverish fantasy, inspired by a pathological need to feel empowerment through manipulation: Wightman claims to know Thompson, but this it’s doubtful that Thompson has ever heard of me or would have any interest in an “African High Priest” making “outlandish religious comments”. However, as I blogged a few weeks ago, someone echoing Flowers’ abusive lies about me has recently tried to pose as someone associated with some Nigerian Pentecostals I’ve written about.
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