Writing on Facebook, on-line troll Charlie Flowers has confirmed, with his usual swagger, that he was the “unnamed man” about whom the National Association of Muslim Police (NAMP) contacted the Home Secretary a while ago:
The letter referenced above from NAMP to the Home Office about me? That was the main reason they lost their funding. Do NOT fuck with me or my Cheerleaders.
In fact, other minority police groups lost funding at the same time as NAMP. However, although Flowers’ attempt to take credit for this may be opportunistic, there is no reason to doubt that the letter was not about him: he has previously mentioned that he was arrested and held by police for several days, and he has also previously accused NAMP of “persecuting” him. However, although this amounts to a claim of wrongful arrest, Flowers appears to have confined his complaints to elliptic comments on Twitter and Facebook.
So, was this simply a botched/biased intervention by NAMP, or was something else going on? James Brokenshire’s response to NAMP’s letter includes the confirmation that the decision not to proceed was made by the CPS. Some months prior to that arrest, Flowers was interviewed by police in relation to his involvement with Farah Damji. Police also declined to investigate threats made by Flowers against the blogger Tim Ireland.
Flowers appears to have become involved with the EDL through a prior association with Alan Ayling (aka “Alan Lake”); however, he claims that this was during a period when parts of the EDL were anti-Islamic extremist rather than simply anti-Islam. Among those Flowers met with was Darren Marsh; however, they later fell out and, true to type, Flowers posted Marsh’s home address on Facebook as an attempt to intimidate (this was on the now-defunct “NiceOnesUK” page). Flowers also attempted to co-ordinate an event involving ex-EDL members and the Quilliam Foundation. He also become involved with other Muslim groups, as I noted here.
Flowers first left a comment on my site on Christmas Day 2008, when he introduced himself as someone involved with Dominic Wightman’s VIGIL Network, which purported to track on-line extremists and which had the endorsement of Patrick Mercer MP. In late 2009, he began a campaign of abuse and threats against Tim at Wightman’s behest, although won’t admit this was the reason (he instead claims he was motivated by Nadine Dorries’ stalker-smears against Tim); he’s also targeted me for condemning his behaviour. The full background is here.
Also involved with VIGIL was Glen Jenvey; Wightman and Jenvey have also since then both had brushes with the law.
UPDATE (14 June): Flowers has deleted the above post, but he has meanwhile joined a relevant thread on 4 Freedoms. Again, he accuses NAMP of acting improperly, and he adds that:
I’ve never been in the EDL. I don’t even LIKE the police, let alone work for them. I do my own thing, my own way. If that should entail making a chart on the massively dodgy organisation known as NAMP, so be it. We’ve got some on the Infidels, C18 et al, too… When I was arrested, one of the arresting officers said to me ‘we know this is probably bollocks, Charlie, but we have to be seen to be doing it.’
…I would sooner have root canal work than talk to Scotland Yard again, but it looks like I’m going to have to ring them tomorrow to get this canned.
Flowers left the comment as “The-AEA”; this is the name of an umbrella group he created.
UPDATE 2 (15 June): On the same thread, Flowers has now posted a scan of a letter he received from a “Detective Sergeant attached to Specialist Operations at New Scotland Yard”, which states that the CPS “have decided that there is no case to answer”. Flowers writes that “It proves that it >was< all a load of rubbish after all”.
The letter is dated 12 July 2010, which was a few weeks after Flowers had been arrested; the month before, he had boasted on Facebook of having done “three hours of CSI: London with Farah [Damji]”. The letter also mentions Belgravia Police Station; Damji mentioned this location in taunts she made against Tim during this period.
However, Flowers was arrested for a second time, in December 2010. This may again have been “a load of rubbish”, but why trumpet a letter relating to an earlier arrest while leaving a later arrest unexplained? Especially when, despite the strange involvement of Specialist Operations in the summer, it is the December arrest which is more likely to be the one involving NAMP.
Flowers has acted towards me, and others, with malice and spite; but I carry no brief for NAMP, and I’m very open to the possibility that something untoward may have occurred. The Sun‘s 2009 “Terror Target Sugar” splash about Islamic extremists turned out to be a dud, and it appears that the Independent‘s story of NAMP officers “targeted by radicalised members of the EDL” is not all that it appears to be either.
If a police investigation involving NAMP was botched (or worse), it is in the public interest for the details to be known; especially given that the individual at the centre of the story must have good some reason not to have sought formal redress for wrongful arrest. And if the arrest was by the book, we must wonder why the CPS declined to proceed.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a comment »
