Bartholomew's Notes

From journalist James Fielding at MailOnline:

A former Kray henchman and Britain’s one-time most wanted armed robber have joined forces with an ex-detective to coax youngsters away from crime.

Chris Lambrianou, one of Ronnie and Reggie Kray’s most feared gang members, has teamed up with Terry Ellis, who spent nearly nine years in jail after a spate of multi-million pound heists, and retired Metropolitan Police officer Jon Wedger.

This is Fielding’s second article about Lambrianou for MailOnline, following a 2018 piece about how Lambrianou had found Jesus while in prison. That earlier article also referred to Wedger, mentioning that Lambrianou had “joined forces with former Metropolitan Police detective John Wedger [sic] to organise a sponsored canal walk from London to Manchester to raise funds” for a different charity. Both articles are liberally decorated with file photos of the elderly Lambrianou socialising with ancient London gangsters at mob-related funerals, even though he has renounced his former activities and criticised the mythologising of the Kray twins.

It seems likely that Fielding’s line to Lambrianou came through Wedger – Fielding previously wrote about Wedger for the Daily Express, in the wake of several articles promoting the conspiracy theorist Bill Maloney, a close associate of Wedger who seems to have disappeared from public view. Maloney’s contacts led to stories by Fielding with headlines such as “Female MP abused boy in care” – this was during the middle of the last decade, when just about any story alleging “VIP abuse” could make it into tabloid newspapers on the coattails of the Carl Beech circus.

Which brings us back to Wedger: MailOnline readers are not informed by Fielding that Wedger is a prominent figure within the UK conspiracy theory milieu, with a particular focus on child sex abuse and Satanic Ritual Abuse, – associates include the likes of Jeanette Archer and, previously, Anna Brees. Wedger runs a “Jon Wedger Foundation” that sells merchandise promoting his image (1), and in one of his videos he has scoffed at the idea that he should be financially accountable, arguing that it up to anyone who thinks funds are being misused to prove their case rather than for him to be transparent. Louise Dickens (granddaughter of the late Geoffrey Dickens) at one point was working with Wedger but she has now split from him, raising numerous concerns.

Fielding’s new article has further details about the new project:

The three of them help run Changing Lives, a charity which strives to divert young people away from crime by mentoring them and working with them to find work.

So far the project has helped a number of former criminals, including teenagers involved with knife gangs, a hardened bank robber and prolific prostitute, to go straight.

Based at the Pillar of Fire Ministries in Dagenham, Essex, the charity is a stone’s throw from the East End manor that Lambrianou helped the Krays run with an iron fist.

The “prolific prostitute” is described as someone who had been trafficked from Nigeria, and given this context the description of her as a “criminal” rather than a victim is troubling framing, although she is quoted as being grateful for their help. Pillar of Fire Ministries is a Black-majority church, led by Pastor Patrick Nnadi; Lambrianou previously had an association with the now-disbanded Jesus Army.

Terry Ellis was profiled by the Guardian in 2018. He was interviewed by Wedger for a podcast back in September – Ellis described him on Twitter as “the ex-police man who exposed police corruption and the cover up of child abuse”, which is also Wedger’s self-description.

Footnote

1. Here’s an image of James Zikic sporting an “I stand with Jon Wedger” t-shirt at Speakers’ Corner in London. Zikic provides security services to high-profile conspiracy theory promoters, including David Icke.

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From Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post:

The source of the coronavirus that has left more than 3 million people dead around the world remains a mystery. But in recent months the idea that it emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) — once dismissed as a ridiculous conspiracy theory — has gained new credence.

…a lack of transparency by China and renewed attention to the activities of the Wuhan lab have led some scientists to say they were too quick to discount a possible link at first.

Kessler’s article has been received with glee by strong proponents of the “lab-origin” theory of Covid-19, with Fox News reacting with an article headlined “Ted Cruz mocks Washington Post as ‘clowns’ after fact-check declares Wuhan lab leak theory ‘suddenly’ credible”.

More generally, a Substack post by Michael Tracey headlined “As New Evidence Emerges For COVID “Lab-Leak” Theory, Journalists Who Screamed “Conspiracy” Humiliate Themselves” is proving popular, although Kessler’s WaPo colleague Aaron Blake has a more measured perspective:

It has become evident that some corners of the mainstream media overcorrected when it came to one particular theory from Trump and his allies: that the coronavirus emanated from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, rather than naturally.

It’s also true that many criticisms of the coverage are overwrought and that Trump’s and his allies’ claims invited and deserved skepticism.

Blake notes that the Trump administration “leaned into” the lab-leak theory “hard” while declining to provide evidence.

He could have gone further: public discussion was positively corrupted by bad actors such as Steve Bannon, who produced an alleged whistleblower who claimed that the chimeric nature of the coronavirus was self-evident, but was being covered up by scientists in cahoots with China (she was heavily promoted on Fox via Tucker Carlson). In the UK, articles sensationally promoting – rather than fairly evaluating – specific lab-origin claims were prominent in the Mail on Sunday (which took credit for Trump being asked about the subject at a press conference) and the Daily Telegraph, which wheeled out  former head of MI6 Richard Dearlove to give the subject the aura and authority of “intelligence”, even though he has no more knowledge of the subject than the rest of us (Dearlove recently went on to provide similar commentary to LBC).

Meanwhile, scientific voices who argue for continuing scepticism risk being overlooked. On Twitter, a thread by Nsikan Akpan (former science editor at National Geographic) argues that there is evidence against the “lab-origins” theory and for the “natural origins” theory; his interpretation is backed by a data scientist with a biology background here and expanded on here.

UPDATE: See also “The Lab Leak Theory Doesn’t Hold Up” by Justin Ling for Foreign Policy.

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From Hoaxtead:

Jeanette Archer… has run into the problem which ultimately faces just about anyone who attempts to construct elaborate stories of Satanic ritual abuse out of thin air: sooner or later, the details will come back to bite you.

In this case, the most relevant detail is that her paternal grandfather, who she claims headed a Satanic cult and abused her from an early age, died in 1955, twelve years before she was born. The blog author dispenses with the possibility that Archer was instead referring to a step-grandfather, since “her mother didn’t remarry until Jeanette was 13”. This was when she acquired the “Archer” surname, meaning that her paternal family history was obscured.

Archer has achieved some prominence as a supposed “Satanic Ritual Abuse survivor” – supporters have included Jon Wedger, Shaun Attwood and Louise Dickens (Dickens has since fallen out with her), and last year she hitched her awful disclosures to a Covid conspiracy protest in Hammersmith, where she was applauded by Piers Corbyn. More recently, she was filmed ranting through a megaphone outside Downing Street about Boris Johnson murdering children and drinking their blood for the adrenochrome. This was again at a Covid conspiracy protest, and she appeared to enjoy the support of the crowd. (1)

It should be noted that Archer has not confined her claims to the conspiracy milieu – back in 2012 she made a complaint to Surrey Police, who then wasted some time dealing with her allegations. As noted by Hoaxtead, they apparently determined that her grandfather had never had a driving licence, but it seems they overlooked her impossible dates.

In the Hoaxtead comments, criminologist Richard Hoskins has some further details (link added):

As for Jeanette, Surrey police asked me to investigate a massive historic SRA claim about 10 years ago. I did all my due diligence but when I discovered that the allegator (new word which I rather like) was able to find all her blocked memories from, wait for it, Michelle Remembers my blood ran cold. I phoned the Chief Super and told him that by all means he could go and dig up the wells to find the buried baby bodies etc. but that he was almost certainly wasting precious police time. I told them she was a fake. To give them their due, they paid attention. Unlike dear old Mike Veale and Wiltshire police.

Footnote

1. In an earlier post, Hoaxtead also notes that Archer was accompanied at the protest by a large bearded bodyguard, identified as one James Zikic. As described by Hoaxtead, Zikic is a former mixed martial arts fighter who has also provided security to Wedger and to David Icke, as well as to the Turkish evangelist Hatun Tash. Apparently he used to work with Usman Raja, a cage-fighting coach who also runs a de-radicalisation programme; Raja responded to the Hoaxtead post by saying he was “genuinely sad to see him go so far astray”.

Hoaxtead also draws attention to other members of Jeanette Archer’s security detail: Dan Young, “who seems fascinated with guns and pseudo-military paraphernalia”, and self-described “occult researcher” Jay Fernandez, shown “clad in surveillance LARPing gear, and toting what looks like a firearm”.

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