Day 6: Mon 23rd Jan

Day 6: Mon 23rd Jan

Woke up just gone six, which gave me time to read the re-read key chapters of a book by a leading Muslim theorist who has been influential on the Islamist movement. Did try to finish it last night, but it's not exactly a gripping read. Bacon and egg bap and orange juice for breakfast, then off to meet up with our steadily growing security team. We've added personnel and refinements this week, as it is only realistic to fear that some of our evidence may anger certain intolerant groups out there if it is publicised in the media this week.

Fog on the motorway held up one of the barristers this morning, so instead of starting at 10.30 a.m. things don't actually get started until 11 a.m. Proceedings begin with the judge reading his judgements on two points of law. His judgement involves a summary of the position of the defence and prosecution in turn, and then gives his verdict and the reasons for it. As we expected, the case is to continue.

One of our researchers has managed to dig out details of several media reports which both Mark and I had seen back in late 2003 and 2004, but which we hadn't been able to find until now. There is a short discussion over how much of this material should and should not be put before the jury. Some new material goes in straight away, one decision is deferred.

Just as we assume that this stage of proceedings is over, the prosecution barrister flags up another point that might become relevant later. It is now a quarter to twelve. The judge expresses concern that the jury have been sat in an adjacent room for two solid days while such discussions have been taking place.

11.50 a.m. The jury is now down to eleven members only. The elderly and rather large lady who last week was having trouble staying awake has submitted a doctor's statement saying that her diabetes and general state of health make her unfit for jury service, so she has been discharged from that duty. As a result, it would now only take two jurors to refuse to agree with the rest to produce a hung jury.

Prosecution again

The junior prosecution barrister, Mr. Mansell, rises to deal with the last part of their case, which is to tell the jury about the Schedule of Agreed Facts. These are basically that the speeches they have been shown are genuine, that the transcripts are correct (actually they contain a fair few errors and mistranscriptions, but there doesn't appear to be anything to worry about). Then there are photos of the venues at which the speeches took place. Quite what these are supposed to establish no-one seems to know, seems an even bigger waste of police time than the rest of the case to me.

Then how we were arrested, cautioned, interviewed and charged.

Potentially more useful to us, the jury were then told that the police had no recorded incidents of any disorder either after the meetings or after the broadcasting of the 'Secret Agent'. Finally, the prosecution notes the fact that I was interviewed about five speeches, but have only been charged in connection with two of them.

Mark starts his defence

Mark is called to give evidence by his Mr Lawson-Rogers just before noon. He swears on the Bible to tell the truth, etc. Rather odd, in a way, given that the truth is deemed to be no defence to the charges we faced. After being asked a little about his upbringing, Mark was asked how he first got involved in the BNP. He related how this was while he was at university he joined the Free Speech Society and, as time went on, became aware that it was only the BNP which was being denied freedom of speech. He became friendly with a BNP member, Chris Beverley, and subsequently joined the party.

The barrister then asked questions about the meetings, their relationship with the election campaigns of 2004. Some time was spent how pressure and threats from the far-left have forced us to limit attendence at all these meetings to people who are already known to us. Mark explained how redirection points work, and how we always have security both at the redirection point and at the venue.

With the judge having to make handwritten notes, Mark had to be reminded to take his answers slowly. He described his speeches as 'motivational', trying to encourage members of the audience to get involved in leafleting, canvassing and generally campaigning for the elections. Mark was then passed the transcripts of his speeches, and asked questions about them. Much of the information used in his speeches came from local press cuttings passed to him by local organisers for whom he was producing election campaign leaflets.

All the jury members seem to be paying very close attention to the exchanges, several jot down notes, others lean forward.

Soft touch Britain

The issue of Muslim paedophile gangs operating in Keighley was covered in some detail. Mark stressed that even when talking about such issues, he lays the blame at the door of the Labour party and the media, and urges people to help deal with the problems by getting involved in political activity. He explained his comments that all asylum seekers in Britain are bogus by referring to the United Nations rule that they should stop in the first safe country they get to, not travel through many safe countries in order to get to "Soft Touch Britain".

Mark explained how Political Correctness pervades so much of modern life that media editors feel obliged to downplay crimes by members of ethnic minority communities in order to avoid being branded 'racist'.

On the quote used extensively in the media last week "Let's show these ethnics the door in 2004", Mark pointed out that the word 'these' refers to bogus asylum seekers and criminals, not all members of ethnic minorities as the media have tried to imply.

After Mark had explained how he believes that getting people involved in politics actually helps defuse racial tensions, he was taken on to his second speech. In this he spoke of the ethnic cleansing murders of white farmers in Rhodesia and South Africa, then of the dangers mass immigration poses to Britain. Talking of the Muslim rioting in Bradford in 2001, he explained his belief that the use of thousands of petrol bombs against the police (he should have said white businesses too, perhaps that will come out in due course) showed that the trouble was premeditated and well organised.

He related how a local Muslim 'businessman' had used a car to block the exit of Manningham Labour Club, blocked or chained up the fire exit, and then petrol bombed the building in an attempt to murder the elderly patrons inside. He then told the court that the story about weapons training in a mosque in Bradford came from a tip-off from a police officer.

Powerful points

By 12.40 Mark's answers are really hitting home. Any initial nerves (not that any showed) have gone, and he's making powerful points left, right and centre. His figures for the vastly disproportionate number of racial attacks on whites by non-whites came from an official government website. Again, he stresses that our greatest concern isn't just the fact that it is happening, but the way in which the media cover such things up. Whether it's on the news or on soap operas, whites are always guilty, and anyone who seeks to deny this is silenced with the cry of 'racist'.

Of his comments about all the 'goodies' provided by the government, Mark explains how the list - in the Home Office's own Joint Tenancy Agreement - will be given to the jury a little later in the trial. He talks of helping British families in Leeds with two children in a damp bedroom, while bogus asylum seekers get full central heating, enough rooms, double glazing, etc. Asylum seekers walk in and get everything, while a family he helped were told they would have to wait four years to be rehoused, despite their daughter's asthma being aggravated by their living conditions.

Again, he finishes by referring the jury back to the section of the speech where he stresses the key role of political action in ending such injustice and getting a 'fair deal' for our own people.

On to the third speech, which started with him pointing out that whites are already a minority in his home city of Leicester, Mark had referred to white people being forced out of Bradford. His source for this - since the media hush up such stories - was a friend in the meeting whose family had suffered just such an experience.

This was the speech in which he called asylum seekers 'cockroaches'. He explained that the word came to his mind as the result of an 'in' joke with several people at the meeting after one had jokingly called him a cockroach. He accepted that in the context of asylum seekers the word was 'a bit crude', but pointed out that the papers like the Sun regularly used similar terms: Spongers; parasites, etc.

Merriment

After the lunch break, the judge reminded Mark that he had just been saying that he had another point to make when we finished the morning session. Mark grinned ruefully as he admitted that he couldn't remember what it was, bringing a slight ripple of laughter from the whole courtroom - judge, counsel and jury included.

More on the need for political involvement and solutions. Then a piece about an anecdote he told about a young drug addict, once a pretty girl and now, though "still somebody's daughter, somebody's sister", a wrecked human being. Why did he talk about this? Because he wanted to illustrate the human impact of the problems we deal with, and to point out that the liberals who preach multi-racism don't live or work in such poor areas, and have no real idea of what goes on in them.

The defence's opening 'Evidence in Chief' session ended with a few questions about the circumstances and timing of Mark's arrest and subsequently being charged, bringing out the 'conicidence' that the charges of 'inciting racial hatred' were laid in a high profile media spotlight just the day after the general election was called.

There's another 'five minute' break for the prosecution to be given a few last minute documents. As per the pattern already established in this case, this ends up stretching to some four times as long as that, with the jury only being recalled as it passes three o'clock.

Source notes

We then moved on to Mark's brief taking him through the bundle of evidence - mainly press cuttings - submitted in his defence. Each of the jury members also has a copy of the ring-binder and its contents. This is largely the source material for comments made in his speeches. It is divided into several sections:

The first section deals with the problems existing in Bradford. The appallingly anti-white Bradford Telegraph and Argus, and the institutionally anti-white BBC, are both pressed into service. These support parts of his speech which the police and CPS had earlier flagged up as perhaps being 'scaremongering'. Not so, for here was confirmation of the truth of Mark's comments about things such as the £27 million cost of the Bradford riot, and the brutal attempt by rioters to burn alive more than two dozen pensioners in the Manningham Labour Club. In support of Mark's claim that the riot was pre-planned, the court heard from cuttings about the theft of a milk float some days before, which seems to have been used to collect milk bottles for petrol bombs, and the fact that Muslim youths came from far and wide to join in.

The second and third set of papers looked at the clear connection between immigration, including asylum, and various crimes, including vicious anti-white race attacks in the area on males and females alike. Muggings, straight forward race attacks, rapes - cuttings overwhelmingly from the local papers backed up Mark's claim that multi-racial Bradford is riven with anti-white racism, and that the national media ignore virtually all such incidents.

The fourth section was the Joint Tenancy Agreement. Only selected pages were included, and Mr Lawson-Rogers took the court to the huge list, including new electrical appliances, furniture and fittings, including new 20" screen colour TV "complete with licence, to be renewed annually". Each asylum seeker should have exclusive use of one room - Mark pointed out that British families get no such rights.

Five: Mosque in Bertram Road, Bradford. Copy from the CPS of details of a tip-off to police about guns and explosives in the mosque. Was anything done about the tip-off? Somehow I doubt it, and expect to return to this in due course.

Six: Transcript of BBC TV news report about "Asian men seducing young white girls". Quite what the BBC were doing showing such news I don't know. Certainly it's out of normal character. Ann Cryer MPis quoted as blaming "strong cultural background reasons". 'Asian' leaders reject this claim, and are at great pains to deny that the targeting of non-Muslim girls exclusively has anything to do with Islam.

"Web of sex gangs reaches across UK" "Sex ring playing on 30 girls" and a wad of similar cuttings deal with what was (and still is) happening in Keighley.

End of day’s proceedings

With one of the jurors having a pre-planned and uncancellable appointment of some sort, the day's session for the jury ended early at 3.25 p.m.

More legal discussions once the jury members have left to go back to their normal lives and their own dramas, then we're on our way.

Time for me to go into conference with my legal team to go over the substantial bundle of potential evidence on my behalf, then to say goodbye to Jackie, who has been in court all day and must now head back home to the family and work tomorrow, then I'm due to meet BNPtv's Rod Gordon to do the day's website report.