In 1997 Robert Henderson, a retired civil servant, wrote to the then leader of the Opposition Tony Blair to ask for his help. Eventually he wrote a dozen or so letters to Blair and Cherie Booth. Blair then tried to have him prosecuted but the legal authorities refused to act. Blair or someone close to him then set the tabloids on him and he was smeared in the Daily Mirror (also used to smear the journalist Greg Palast) and Daily Record as a stalker and a racist. This was discussed in Lobsters 37 and 39 and 43 and Henderson’s detailed account of the affair, including the text of the letters which started it, is at < http://www.geocities.com/blairscandal/ >. Here he describes some of the recent harassment he has experienced and his responses to it.
How the story developed
Since the Blairs’ failure to have me prosecuted I have been subjected to a campaign of harassment which continues to this day. My post has been regularly delayed and opened, every now and then opened so ostentatiously that I can only conclude that it is being done deliberately in an attempt to intimidate me. I also believe that my telephone and e-mail traffic is being routinely interrupted. Modern tapping methods do not give telltale clicks and whirrs, but I do get an extraordinary number of failures to disconnect lines at the ends of calls and phantom ring-backs which occur when the receiver is replaced at the end of a call, the phone rings and no one is there when the receiver is lifted. Most tellingly, on one occasion, an act of exceptional harassment occurred in apparent response to a telephone conversation I had which was unknown to anyone but myself and the other person.
The Internet attacks
In 2002 the story took a new turn. On 12 April a post was made to a number of the larger UK newsgroups which accused me falsely of being a paedophile. The post contained my full name and address and incited people to attack me. The poster had also set up a paedophile web site which he or she falsely claimed was mine. I had no idea who had made the post. On the 16 April I received an anonymous phone call from a man which I taped. The caller gave me the name of the password, Fyfield, for the account of the person who had done the posting about me to the newsgroups.
On 7 May 2002 I received the following unsolicited e-mail purporting to come from a Detective Constable in the Metropolitan Police named Liz Wright:
‘Mr Henderson, the Fyfield you are concerned with is Frances Fyfield, real name Frances Hegarty; check your TV listings for last night. She is a senior CPS prosecutor and works at the CPS HQ. She deals mostly with alleged police corruption. She did me a big favour a couple of years ago and if she finds out that I’ve been in touch with you that is the end of my career so please what ever you do destroy this E-mail after you’ve read it. I’ve made exhaustive enquiries and it is true that she was the main lawyer Cherie Blair consulted. She wanted to drag you into court. Hegarty lives not far from you in Petherton Road. You will have to deal with her personally, either by force or by the civil law but don’t mention me and try not to drag in the Blairs or you will get nowhere.’
Frances Fyfield, is a crime writer and Crown Prosecutor still working with the Crown Prosecution Service. According to the police, DC Liz Wright denies knowing anything of the e-mail. I have spoken with Hegarty/Fyfield and she has denied any knowledge of the newsgroup post, being a friend of the Blairs, or having been involved in the Blairs’ attempt to have me prosecuted in 1997.
On 31 December 2002 a further newsgroup post was made which again falsely represented me as a paedophile, gave my full address and incited people to attack me. On this occasion an e-mail was sent to me which threatened me if I did not take down the Blair Scandal web site.
On 20 March 2003 the third attack on me occurred. This time it took the form of a post to newsgroups falsely purporting to be from me. The post gave the name of Francis Fyfield and an address which purported to be hers. The post claimed she was responsible for the prosecution of Muslims recently and incited violence against her.
Coincidences?
The newsgroup post in April 2002 was made two days after I had submitted a complaint to the Chairman of the Inland Revenue.
The 31 December 2002 post and e-mail were sent eight hours after I had spoken on the phone with the countryside campaigner Robin Page. Quite absurdly in my view, Mr Page was under investigation at the time for ‘inciting racial hatred’ at a countryside rally. During our telephone conversation I offered to appear as a witness for him to demonstrate that the application of the law on racial incitement was only applied when politically expedient, something I could prove conclusively. The charges against Mr Page were dropped shortly afterwards. No one but Mr Page and I knew the phone call had taken place at the time the newsgroup post and e-mail were sent. If our conversation and the newsgroup post and e-mail are linked, the only rational explanation for that would be that my phone is being tapped.
The 20 March 2003 attack occurred 4 days after I had made a complaint to the police about the bribing of police officers to give information by The Sun editor Rebekah Wade – who had admitted to the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee that she had done this – and The Mirror editor, Piers Morgan – who had admitted receiving information from the police in a letter to the PCC in 1997.
The police
I reported the first newsgroup post to the police shortly after I discovered it. I made the report to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, because my previous complaints had been either not investigated at all by my local police or investigated only in the sense of going through the motions. I contacted Sir John Stevens’ office after a week to find out what action had been taken. The answer was none. I then wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), David Calvert-Smith, asking him to intervene. Eventually, after the intervention of his office, an investigation was begun in mid-July 2002, three months after my original notification of the complaint. By that time the computer audit trail was cold and any possible evidence from the CCTV at the Internet Cafe from which the post was made had been lost.
I have reported the two subsequent newsgroup posts attacks and the threatening e-mail to the police and investigations are supposedly underway. However, the police refuse to interview the Blairs or to investigate properly the Frances Fyfield avenue.
The Data Protection Act (DPA)
The original Mirror story mentioned that Special Branch had been asked to investigate me despite the fact that the Crown Prosecution Service had declared unequivocally that I had committed no crime. Using the Data Protection Act (DPA) I have confirmed that Special Branch did take an interest in me. It took three years before they would reveal it, but eventually the Metropolitan Police admitted that Special Branch had a file on me. Use of the DPA has also resulted (after years of trying) in confirmation from MI5 that they have had a file on me since 1997.
The Data Protection Tribunal (DPT)
I made a subject access request to MI5 under the 1998 DPA act when it became ‘live’ in 2000. I received a reply which took the regulation Security Service ‘We can neither confirm nor deny’ line. This appeared to be in direct contradiction of the 1998 DPA and the Human Rights Act (HRA). Accordingly I appealed to the DPT (now the Information Tribunal), challenging MI5’s right to neither confirm nor deny whether any data was held. (Under the DPA MI5 have the right to withhold data on security grounds but use of that power would confirm that data was held.)
My appeal was scheduled to be heard by a panel of three. One was a retired Appeal Court judge, Sir Anthony Evans. The other two members were Michael Beloff QC and James Goudie QC. Beloff and Goudie were not only closely connected with the Blairs but also the Labour Party. These relationships were of prime importance because my appeal concerned data which, if it existed, could only have related to the Blairs’ attempt to have me prosecuted and the aftermath of that failed attempt.
Mr Beloff was joint head of Cherie Blair’s old chambers at 4/5 Gray’s Inn, Gray’s Inn Sq. where Mrs Blair was a member from 1991 until 2000 when she left to join a new chambers, Matrix. Mr Beloff originally intended to join Matrix but withdrew at the last moment. He is also a personal friend of the Blairs and was the lawyer called in to sort out Geoffrey Robinson’s problems with his offshore trust. He is a former chairman of the Society of Labour Lawyers.
Goudie is also a personal friend of the Blairs and the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine; so is his wife, Lady Goudie, who was made a baroness by Mr Blair in 1998. Goudie is a former Labour leader of Brent Council and was once a prospective Labour parliamentary candidate. He has done legal work for the Labour Party. Lady Goudie is a major fund raiser for the Labour Party and acted as chief fund raiser for Frank Dobson when he ran for the post of mayor of London. Lady Goudie is a friend of Gordon Brown’s wife, Sarah Macaulay, and has done work for her PR agency Hobsbawn Macaulay. The Goudies attended the Macauley-Brown wedding.
That such a panel was allocated to my case is unsurprising because the Lord Chancellor appoints the members of DPT panels. The present Lord Chancellor, Derry Irving, is a very close friend of both the Blairs who were once pupils in his chambers. Tony Blair also practised in Irvine’s chambers until he entered Parliament. Cherie Blair’s move to Beloff’s chambers was initiated by Irvine. Irvine is also a personal friend of Goudie and Beloff and has had a professional relationship with Mr Goudie dating back over a quarter of century. Goudie is currently joint-head of Lord Irvine’s old Chambers.
Despite the links between Blair, Goudie and Beloff, the President of the panel, Anthony Evans, refused to disbar them from sitting. Consequently, I made a complaint to the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir John Stevens, accusing Evans and Irving of conspiring to pervert the course of justice in the most blatant fashion by deliberately packing a judicial panel. Stevens refused to begin an investigation. I then submitted a complaint against Sir John Stevens to the Met. That complaint is still under investigation by the Met’s Department of Professional Standards.
In the end my appeal never came before the DPT because the Lib-Dem MP, Norman Baker, had an appeal on the same issue of ‘neither confirming or denying’ upheld by the DPT which meant that my appeal fell as the precedent was established. I then made a new appeal to MI5 and got an admission that they held data on me. However, the full data was not revealed. I am still fighting to get the data released.
As things stand, I am effectively without the protection of the law because the police simply refuse to meaningfully investigate any complaint I put forward. As the person who is making the newsgroups posts is giving my name and address, I may be attacked. There is also the danger that I will be ‘set up’ for prosecution on bogus charges. My first thought when I saw the first newsgroup post in April 2002 was that someone was trying to set me up.
If anyone wishes to contact me for further information they can do so by e-mailing me c/o the editor of this magazine.