Bartholomew's Notes

Although undoubtedly accidental, posts on Twitter/X posted by GB News “National Reporter” Charlie Peters yesterday have had the effect of breathing new life into conspiracist interpretations of the arson trial in which three young men are accused of having set fire to property associated with Keir Starmer. As discussed yesterday, the prosecution case is as follows, as reported by Sky News (emphasis added):

Continuing to outline his case, Duncan Atkinson KC says that the three defendants acted motivated by money and not political or ideological reasons.

…”It is not part of your considerations to decide who ‘El Money’ is and what reason he might have had to coordinate the actions of these defendants against these properties and this car associated with the prime minister,” Atkinson says.

“That is because you do not have to decide what motivated these three defendants.”

Conspiracists, however, assert without evidence and despite the obvious implausibilities that the three men were “rent boys” with a private grudge against Starmer. Normal media restraint prior to the trial was treated as a sinister conspiracy of silence which some (e.g. Andrew Bridgen) continue to assert exists despite widespread publicity now that the trial is underway. Peters quite properly does not refer to any of this nonsense, but a thread he posted yesterday obscures Atkinson’s assertion as to a financial motive (with phone transcripts presented as supporting evidence), and is written in such a way that most of the time it is not immediately clear whether the jury is being addressed by the prosecutor or instructed by the judge.

Here is the first of three:

I’m at the Old Bailey for the case against three men accused of arson attacks at properties and a vehicle linked to Keir Starmer.

The men are said to have not shown any political or ideological motivation and were paid by a Russian-speaking Telegram account called “El Money”.

This leaves open the question of what their motivation actually was, even though as reported by Sky News (a few minutes before his post) the prosecutor explicitly stated that they were motivated by money.

Next:

The jury has been told not to consider who “El Money” is and why he coordinated the arson attacks.

Jurors have also been told by the prosecution that they do not have to decide what motivated the defendants, only if they conspired to commit arson.

The men deny the charges.

This post has taken on a life of its own, via screenshots that separate it from the thread context. The clarification “told by the prosecution” at last appears, but its connection to the second line leaves the first line ambiguous – and those promoting the post as a screenshot have explicitly interpreted it incorrectly as an instruction from the judge (see this nested farrago of nonsense for an example)

Moving on:

The jury was also told that it does not matter whether the defendants knew that the vehicle and properties they were targeting were connected to Keir Starmer.

Jurors were also told not to consider if the links to the prime minister were part of their motivation for the attacks.

“Told not to consider” puts it more strongly than “you do not have to decide” – it creates an impression of the jury being warned not to do something, rather than advised they don’t need to do something. Thus motive is implicitly framed as something to be excluded, rather than as superfluous to the prosecution case. This is something that conspiracists will exploit to the full.

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From BBC News:

A Russian speaker recruited and offered money to Ukrainian men to carry out arson attacks on properties connected to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, a court has heard.

…The prosecutor said analysis of messages from phones recovered from, and connected with, the defendants showed “communication between them before and during the relevant period”.

He said [Roman] Lavrynovych was offered payment to set the fires by a contact using the name or pseudonym “El Money” on the Telegram messaging app.

The three defendants deny the charges, and while the trial is in progress commentary must be respectual of the law as regards contempt of court.

However, we can say that the first day of the trial has destroyed online conspiracist claims forming no part of the case, that the three men were rent boys with a grudge against the Prime Minister, who for some reason had decided to commit arson rather than sell their story to the press. This conspiracy theory had been allowed to fester online despite being it being obviously prejudicial, and it exploited the fact that once the defendants had been charged then further details were very unlikely to be published until the trial. Dark suspicions were raised of some sort of gagging order on the media, or if not some inexplicable conspiracy of silence that would have included media outlets usually viciously hostile towards Starmer on a daily basis. The speculation reached fever pitch on Monday, due to the media’s failure to report the non-story of some trial preliminaries. The first day of evidence was today, and the trial has now been covered extensively in the media (Sky News in particular has a very informative live thread).

Among those who spread the conspiracy claims, either directly or through insinuation, included the likes of Tommy Robinson, James Melville, Andrew Bridgen, David Atherton and George Galloway. Monday’s non-reporting also inspired media commentary on the left-wing site Canary, which was then amplified by Toby Young.

Mention must also be made of Reform UK’s Richard Tice, who in August amplified a photo of a banner over a motorway walkway that read “Starmer hates Brits, loves rapists, invaders & and rent boys”. Tice disingenuously shared the photo (posted on Twitter/X by @GBPolitics) as evidence of the “depths to which PM has lost confidence across the UK”, rather than because he was winking a sex smear against a political opponent arising from what appears to have been a crime targeting him.

UPDATE: John Bye notes further examples, including posts by Carl Benjamin, Gareth Icke, Jacqui Deevoy and John O’Looney

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From BBC News, 15 April:

Police are yet to identify a group of men who raped a woman outside a church in Surrey, four days after the incident.

The woman, in her 20s, was followed after leaving Labyrinth Epsom nightclub and attacked by several men outside Epsom Methodist Church in the early hours on Saturday.

The allegation was here reported as fact, but it relied purely on the woman’s account; and on 18 April, Surrey Police announced that after reviewing “an extensive amount of CCTV footage” and “interviewing potential witnesses, carrying out forensics investigations and conducting house-to-house enquiries” no evidence could be found. The investigation has now concluded, with police stating that the offence had not occured, and that the woman had given a “confused report” following an “accidential head injury”. In the meantime, Epsom has experienced public disorder orchestrated by right-wing elements led by Danny Tommo, most notoriously with a home for vulnerable adults coming under attack in the mistaken belief that it was housing refugees. (1)

The initial BBC report could very reasonably have begun with “Police are yet to identify any suspects after a woman reported that she had been raped by a group of men outside a church in Surrey”. However, it was perhaps natural to take the woman’s account at face value: everyone knows there are false accusers – Carl Beech, Ellie Williams – but signalling a position of agnosticism might have come across as pedantic scepticism and as downplaying a serious crime with similarities to a recent genuine case in Brighton. Also, the woman was not accusing anyone specifically, and so there was no need to be mindful of the rights of a suspect.

Naturally, the case attracted commentary from opportunists:  on 16 April, Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick was quick to demand that Surrey Police “share what they can about the horrific rape in Epsom”, the implication being that they might be remiss in doing so. Jenrick referred back to the Southport killings, stating that “the authorities were silent” and that this made “a bad situation worse”. This of course ignores that the police were limited in what they could say, and that one thing that made things “worse” was Nigel Farage suggesting a cover-up and giving spurious credibility to an online rumour. (2)

In this way, Jenrick invited the public draw adverse inferences from the fact that Surrey Police did not have anything to share – and once again, suspicion and disinformation flourished. On Twitter/X, CCTV images from an unrelated 2025 case in Humberside did the rounds as supposed images of Epsom suspects; they were debunked, but the high-profile Reform-adjacent activist David Atherton then addressed Surrey Police with the claim “I have just been sent images which purport to show the suspects from the gang rape in Epsom.” He went on: “Can I DM them to you for verification. No one is going to be shocked, if true.” Were these the same Humberside images, or something else? Atherton never clarified, although by claiming to be in the know he helped to whip things up while increasing his profile.

Next, on 21 April, a police officer answering questions from a hostile and abusive crowd in Epsom referred to the woman “the victim”. More properly, she ought to have said “the complainant”, but at this stage it would have sounded pointed and suggestive of scepticism, and it might have riled up the mob (3). The clip was exploited as a “gotcha” by Dan Wootton, with Atherton suggesting that it meant the police had lied about not having any evidence.

“Head injury” may be a strong defence against a charge of wasting police time, but some may feel that it is not a satisfactory resolution. Conspiracists have a window for contining to claim there has been a cover up, although more reasonably we might infer that the police would prefer not to prosecute in case it deters genuine victims from coming forward in future.

UPDATE: There’s a useful overview from Alan Rusbridger in Prospect.

Notes

1. Tommy Robinson was not present, but happily noted that a protestors had “hit a suspected HMO [House in Multiple Occupation] housing unvetted migrant men”.

2.  Jenrick also cites Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, who was quoted as saying that “I personally think that more information could have been put out safely without compromising potential criminal proceedings”. Hall, though, was unhelpfully vague about what information he meant exactly. Farage claims to have been vindicated by Hall – even though Hall was concerned with police countering the kind of disinformation that he was promoting.

3. The 2016 Henriques Report, by Sir Richard Henriques KC in the wake of the Operation Midland fiasco, criticised police procedures that instructed officers to automatically “believe” complainants, and recommended using the word “complainant” rather than “victim”. However, old habits die hard, and when presented with someone in distress who says she has just been attacked any sympathetic person might find it difficult to suspend belief.

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From Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick, on Twitter/X:

We’re told Starmer is “furious”.

Well only because he’s trying to save his own skin again over paedo pal, Peter Mandelson…

The lack of any article or pronoun before “paedo pal” (“his” or “the”) creates ambiguity, although the most natural reading is that Starmer has a paedo pal, who is Peter Mandelson. However, the post also includes a short clip from Jenrick speaking in Parliament, in which he refers to “the paedophile pal Peter”, more clearly denoting a reference to Peter Mandelson as a “pal” of Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson famously described himself as Epstein’s “best pal” back in 2003, several years prior to Epstein’s first arrest – although this is shaky ground for an attack from the right, given that the quote is from the same Epstein birthday book in which Donald Trump is also alleged to have also called Epstein “a pal”.

Unlike Trump, though, Mandelson remained friends with Epstein following his conviction, although this was no secret and he was hardly alone in being part of Epstein’s attempted social rehabilitation before his final fall. In September, it was further revealed that Mandelson had commiserated with Epstein over his original conviction, which he appears to have believed was unjust.

This poor judgement in matter of private friendship has since been overshadowed by more substantive allegations of wrongdoing: Epstein emails show that Mandelson shared confidential government business with him. His failed vetting prior to his appointment to an ambassadorial role perhaps rested in part on the reputational risk of his Epstein association, but also likely involved conflicts of interest over his business career. Jenrick, though, collapses all this into what he calls “a paedophile scandal”, a tacky and demagogic framing of Starmer’s predicament intended to inflame rather than inform the public.

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An X post from Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice:

After his nice messages at Eid and Ramadan, we look forward to a warm Easter message from King Charles III in his role as Defender of the Faith of the Church of England

Tice, of course, is here striking a sarcastic pose: his post obviously refers to a GB News story from a few hours beforehand, headlined “Buckingham Palace confirms King Charles will not issue Easter message this year”. His fiancée Isabel Oakeshott clarifies the point, while also exposing the cynicism behind it, in a coarser social media post of her own (redaction of “holy fuck” in her original):

THE King is head of the Church of England. He issued Ramadan and Eid messages, but apparently isn’t bothering with Easter this year. What the holy f***? Not ok.

The grievance is currently ubiquitous on X, with some conspiracy influencers also suggesting that the king is secretly a Muslim convert (what he does with the various alcoholic beverages he has been shown quaffing in public is unexplained). As noted by John Bye, Dan Wootton claims that Charles has “refused” to issue a statement, while the most unhinged rhetoric, from Laurence Fox, is a call to “bring back hanging, drawing and quartering for traitors”, posted alongside a video of Charles sending a Ramadan greeting in 2021.

However, a careful reading of the GB News source shows some false equivalence:

Buckingham Palace has confirmed King Charles will not issue an Easter message this year.

GB News understands that it is not a message that the Palace releases every year, unlike its annual Christmas speech.

The late Queen Elizabeth II did not frequently issue an Easter message either, opting to do so only during the coronavirus pandemic.

…Buckingham Palace’s decision not to release an Easter message will likely ruffle some feathers among Christians, given that in February, the King and Queen’s social media account faced backlash for issuing Muslims a “blessed and peaceful Ramadan” on Shrove Tuesday.

The first three paragraphs imply an “Easter message” as a “speech” comparable to what we get at Christmas, whereas the Ramadan message refers to a short text posted to social media – as was also the case with Eid. These texts are thin grounds on which to build a “double standard” resentment narrative, hence the recourse to other material: the 2021 greeting, which was a Covid-era morale booster (1), or some pleasantries about Ramadan made by Charles at a recent state banquet for the President of Nigeria.

The vitriol expressed this year goes beyond the usual culture wars clichés about the word “Easter” not appearing on chocolate eggs, and it is reasonable to suppose that the some of it has been spurred on by recent displays of Christian-nationalist religiosity involving Donald Trump and his court evangelists.

One GB News story headlines how a bishop is “bitterly disappointed” – only three paragraphs into the article is the bishop identified as none other than Ceirion Dewar, and readers are not burdened with the detail that he is the “missionary bishop” of an obscure Anglican offshoot based in Tennessee. Nor is there any mention of his association with Tommy Robinson.

Note

1. Inevitably, some sources mislead about how long ago Charles made the video: a clip posted to YouTube by Sky News Australia is entitled “King Charles under fire for issuing Ramadan speech but not Easter message”. This implies a false contemporaneity, not least because it obscures that he made the Ramadan speech as Prince Charles.

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