Denouncing @PNWnet / Project Nightwatch / www.projectnightwatch.net

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This is just a note to say that MHN formally distances itself from the @PNWnet account and associated Project Nightwatch Blog.

On 12 October 2024, PNWnet tweeted (archive) accusing YouTuber Ann Drogyne of, “ongoing online threats, doxxing and abusive online activity” directed at myself and a number of others. They did not email me first. They did not reply when asked for evidence (they have replied to previous emails, in which I asked them not to mention me). They did post on Twitter admitting receipt. They have provided no evidence.

So, they are saying I am a (1) victim of crimes, but (2) will not say what those crimes were (where are these threats and doxxing posted) and (3) will not provide any evidence said crimes even happened, let alone as to the perpetrator. This post seems to me like it could be harassment. It is calculated to cause annoyance and distress to myself and others, with no good reason for doing so.

I have no idea who @PNWnet is, and bear them no ill-will. However, no one asked them to get involved in any matter on my behalf and I repudiate their statements as made without consulting me, and apparently without any basis in fact.

PNW has not dealt with me before. I would simply observe that I am legally qualified and have sued lot of people who thought they were being clever, for example Esther Baker. There is a copy of the final judgment in that case here. Some of the people I have sued thought they were safe because they were anonymous.

I do not intend to waste my time on an irrelevant trolling account – yet – but I want my position clear. There is nothing to stop me from applying for a disclosure order against Twitter or the UK based hosting company for projectnightwatch.net, Enix Limited.

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Cleverly Out Despite Shapps Support – MHN Supports Robert Jenrick for Conservative Leader

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Robert Jenrick is MHN's pick for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Robert Jenrick is MHN’s pick for the leadership of the Conservative Party.

James Cleverly is out of the race for Conservative leader, despite being boosted by the support of former MP and Defence Secretary Grant Shapps who was chair of his leadership campaign (archive). Cleverly obtained 37 votes, rivals Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch obtained 41 and 42 respectively. Cleverly doubtless benefited from Tory ‘big beast’ Grant Shapps’ support – it just was not enough. The question is which candidate can now connect with the the party, reconnect with former Conservative voters and appeal to the wider public. MHN says that means a proper strategy with credible policies that appeal to to voters and to Conservative Party members – past, present and future.

Grant Shapps has always been good at picking Conservative leaders. He was one of the signatories to David Cameron’s nomination papers for leadership. My personal opinion is James Cleverly gained more from Shapps’ support than Shapps did from backing him. Of course, Shapps is a canny politician and the support was undoubtedly in part based on the calculation that Cleverly could win and then reward his supporters. He was very close to correct – two or three votes more would have seen Cleverly in the final round. It was very close and Cleverly’s loss of two votes in the final round came as a big surprise to observers.

Grant Shapps, former MP for Welwyn Hatfield and former Defence Secretary. His support has been a large, influential boost to Cleverly's campaign. Even Shapps' formidable campaigning skills however, did not get Cleverly over the line.

Grant Shapps, former MP for Welwyn Hatfield and former Defence Secretary. His support has been a large, influential boost to Cleverly’s campaign.

The question is, what comes after the ballots of MPs? It is all very well to be able to predict and count support in the Parliamentary Conservative Party, but after their votes comes the Party members’ vote followed by the most important vote of all – the next general election.

Make no mistake, Labour did not win the last election. Keir Starmer obtained a large majority with fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘disaster’ of 2019. In the 2024 General Election, Starmer’s Labour received 9,708,716 votes. In 2019, Corbyn’s Labour had 10,269,051 votes. The only reason Keir Starmer got a whiff of power was that the Conservative vote split. When the New Labour-ish right regained power in Labour and ousted Corbyn, Tony Blair wrote a triumphant article in the Guardian, “Labour’s task is not to make itself feel better – it’s to win power” (archive). He summarised his message about Corbyn like this,

“The proximate cause of defeat was not complicated or hard to see, but simple and in plain sight. We put forward a leader and a manifesto that voters thought unacceptable to such a degree that many were repelled. Too extreme economically. Anti-western. Lacking in patriotism. And therefore dangerous.”

Tony finished, “These things are obvious. The frustration is that it is necessary to say them”. I haven’t seen Tony Blair for years since I was Labour Party staff in 2005 and as a local staffer I was part of the entourage on a visit he made to Enfield. I felt like responding, “touché”. The reason Corbyn was ever Labour Party leader is the same as the reason Keir Starmer got less votes. New Labour is a far, far more tainted brand than Corbyn’s hard leftism has ever been. That is an objective truth demonstrated by the cold hard numbers from the last election.

MHN author Sam Smith and (then) newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1997.

MHN editor Sam Smith and (then) newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair a very, very long time ago in 1997.

When I was 18 I was a starry eyed Labour supporter, indeed a party official. What we were promised was a, “Third Way” (archive) between left and right. What we got was something else – a government that mostly cared about image. Not just spin over substance but which presided over a culture in which whistle-blowers and critics were actively terrorised. As a few examples from many, there were the mid-Staffordshire Hospital scandal (archive), the Essex scandal (archive) and of course the Rotherham Scandal (archive). Under Labour, police and local authorities were afraid to acknowledge or tackle the rape of 1,400 children due to a fear of being accused of racism by the government. Aside from that was a great deal of race baiting and laughing with contempt at our members and supporters. There was casual corruption even over trivial issues. The contempt for the supposedly benighted masses ran to the bone. That is Tony’s legacy. That is why Keir Starmer got less votes than Jeremy Corbyn. That is why I cannot envisage ever returning to Labour. That is why all attempts to rehabilitate Blair have failed. To respond to Tony, “The frustration is that it is necessary to say.”

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@RedotEngine Makes Progress – @GodotEngine Mismanagement Exposed

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A week ago MHN published an article on a split in the @GodotEngine community caused by perceived partisan political posturing and high-handed bans. This week, I revisited the two repositories to see whether new rival fork the Redot Engine (@RedotEngine on Twitter, @Redot-Engine on Github) were making any actual development progress. I observed that Redot were beginning to ramp up and move forward. Whilst trying to compare, I discovered that @GodotEngine had left pull requests (units of completed programming work) open and unresolved for over five years. Based on the Godot Engine project’s own public records and my experience as a Senior Software Developer and owner of an IT firm, in my opinion that is mismanagement by the Godot Engine maintainers.

The Godot Game Engine project maintainers have left *completed* work by volunteer developers to languish for over five years without approving or rejecting.

The Godot Game Engine project maintainers have left *completed* work by volunteer developers languish for over five years without approving or rejecting. If it still, ‘needs work’ after five years the request should be closed and they can always open a new one if they want to submit an improved version.

Redot Engine is a fork of the moderately well known open source project, the Godot Game Engine. It was formally launched last week after posts by project members were perceived by some as partisan political comments. This was accompanied by controversial bans and social media blocks which alienated a significant chunk of the Godot community. I followed up to see if there was any development substance to the new project or whether it was just political noise.

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The Godot Game Engine, Juan Linietsky, Nathalie Galla, Purges, Misogyny and Abuse

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Juan Linietsky is the founder of the open source product the Godot Game Engine. He has set his Twitter profile private after a storm of protest hit the project, including over his own statements.

Juan Linietsky is the founder of the open source product the Godot Game Engine. He has set his Twitter profile private after a storm of protest hit the project, including over his own statements, which could amount to unlawful discrimination if made in jurisdictions such as the UK.

The popular open-source project for the game making tool Godot Game Engine is imploding after describing itself as #Wokot on Twitter, facing allegations of political purges and unlawful processing of user data, leading to a storm of condemnation by users, donor exits and the creation of a rival ‘fork’ called the Redot Engine. The problem has been worsened by a tone deaf post about gender politics from founder Juan Linietsky which may be seen by some as pro-transgender, but, although he may not have intended it, in your author’s opinion may be seen by others as endorsing abuse and misogyny. In some jurisdictions, the post could be seen as unlawful discrimination or creating a hostile environment.

The Godot Game Engine is an open-source tool for making games. For those readers unfamiliar with software development, it is a pre-written library of code that can be used to avoid reinventing the wheel when making games. Such libraries are popular because they save a lot of time and money. They are not generally political and nothing in the Godot Engine license has any political content, instead using the popular MIT license.

Problems at the project began on 27 September 2024 when the official account posted this tweet (archive):

The Godot Engine official account triggered the controversy by describing the engine as #Wokot.

The Godot Engine official account triggered the controversy by describing the engine as #Wokot.

The post, to MHN’s mind is gauche, but it was probably not the cause of the project’s problems. The project was responding to ludicrous assertions online that only ‘woke’ game developers used engines, which is absurd. Lots of companies use engines from a variety of commercial and open-source brands. What really triggered the outrage was blocking people for mild dissent and requests for technical fixes:

A developer sent this mildly critical message only to be blocked.

A developer sent this mildly critical message only to be blocked.

Twitter user @funnygamedev tweeted the above message asking for fixes to bitmap font functions (archive), only to be blocked shortly thereafter (archive). Other users reported similar experiences, only to be blocked. Some users even complained of being blocked when they had never used or interacted with the @GodotEngine account [1] (archive) [2] (archive).

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Shame of Cambridge Police: How Investigator Susan Marsh Failed Me as a Victim of Sex Crime

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Your author is a proven victim of sex crime. Proven in the High Court, not the court of Tumblr, when I was the subject of revenge pornography / falsified pornography by neo-Nazis. Readers might expect the most supportive and appropriate institution to be police. Far from it. In this article I am naming and criticising Investigator Susan Marsh 3253, whose behaviour, in my view brings shame on Cambridgeshire Police and Chief Constable Nick Dean. The failure to support me as a victim of sex crime is consistent with a recent report critical of the force (archive), which criticised how the constabulary deals with calls from members of the public and management of sex offenders.

Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police Nick Dean was planning to retire but then decided to stay. Cambridge deserves better.

Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Police Nick Dean was planning to retire but then decided to stay. Cambridge deserves better.

On 10 April 2024 I was the victim of a serious, real world crime (not internet crime). I consider this connected to the earlier sex crime referred to. Hertfordshire Police attended. Officers listened, with bodycam active, as I explained my concerns. They asked me to upload documents, which I did, that pointed towards a suspect based on their online publications.

Whereupon nothing happened. When I called to enquire, I was told the crime had been allocated to a police employee. When I updated the crime online because the suspected perpetrator had posted online as being in the area, the police officer who saw my update had no idea of the prior information I had given and closed the investigation. In the meantime, another police force dealing with a similar, likely related, offence in another part of the country, had been hard at work obtaining forensic evidence and CCTV footage. They identified the suspects’ vehicle, a 5 door model.

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Hemming Wins Preliminary Trial in Hemming v Poulton

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John Hemming and Sonia Poulton faced each other in court again in Hemming v Poulton at a preliminary trial of meaning on 11th July 2024. The hearing did not go well for Sonia, who has always denied defaming Hemming.

Artists impression – John Hemming and Sonia Poulton clash at the High Court in London on 11th July 2024, backed by supporters. Poulton extends a skeletal hand across the battlefield, urging her undead minions forward.

For the past four years, Sonia Poulton has been denying she defamed John Hemming. As to some of her posts she even denies they mentioned him. That position began to crumble, badly, earlier this year when Deputy Master Irena Sabic (a High Court procedural judge) struck out Poulton’s denials as inconsistent with a witness statement and ordered a preliminary trial of meaning.

The preliminary trial of meaning occurred on 11th July 2024 and the judgment is here, for those who prefer to read the court’s words for themselves. Under consideration were two of the five publications for which Poulton is being sued. The judge, Deputy High Court Judge Susie Alegre, found both publications contained defamatory meanings. The weakest was an opinion meaning – but still defamatory, for a video Poulton made with Shaun Attwood and published in 2019. Even so, Poulton faces a critical difficulty. Opinion meanings are usually easier to defend – except for damning documents that have now passed into the public domain. Correspondence with police shows that Sonia Poulton finds Esther Baker so untrustworthy she would not give evidence for her in their failed criminal trial (charges dropped) against Darren Laverty.

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Why I am Voting Conservative and Grant Shapps, Not Reform UK

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Grant Shapps, Parliamentary Candidate for Welwyn-Hatfield 2024.

Grant Shapps, Parliamentary Candidate for Welwyn-Hatfield 2024. A longstanding, hard-working, MP.

The Witchfinder will be voting for long serving, hard-working, local MP Grant Shapps and the Conservatives, not Reform UK, Labour, Liberals nor Green.

I’ve met a lot of politicians. I’ve been one. I was a Labour Student, Chair of my Labour Society at University. Later I was a Labour Councillor, and was a politician. I’ve been Labour Party staff and one of those be-suited people walking around behind Tony Blair during a local visit. I’ve been a Conservative and a blogger. I’ve been invited to eat at the House of Commons by Labour MPs and Conservatives.

My experiences on both sides are why I’ll be voting for Grant Shapps and the Conservative Party. I have the good fortune that is relatively easy in Welwyn-Hatfield, which has a had a genuinely good Conservative MP in Grant Shapps. Sadly, our society has lost its way. The so-called expenses scandal, now almost forgotten, revealed that much of Parliament was on the take. From moat cleaning, to pornographic movies, it seemed that almost the entire House of Commons was quite literally taking the mickey. Grant Shapps was one of the few Members of Parliament who was not – he was called an, ‘expenses saint’ (archive) even by left-wing paper the Independent.

Some Labour MPs I have met were spiteful and petty. One instructed me to exclude an annoying, un-telegenic party activist from events on an, ‘unofficial’ basis contrary to their own party rules. They were overruled on one occasion by redoubtable Labour (former) General Secretary Margaret McDonagh, who was organising a national event featuring Tony Blair and was able to manage the behaviour without needing to mess about with secret exclusions. The incident was memorable to me, because it was rare for a senior Labour official to do something non-sociopathic, leaving me with a permanent good impression of McDonagh. Sadly, she was the exception that proves the rule, in my experience.

Shapps shares some of McDonagh’s better traits. As a local MP, he is hard-working but not unkind. He has his flaws, but the worst attacks that have been on him are that (i) he used some pen names, like many authors (e.g., ‘Michael Green’) and (ii) he once, as national Co-Chair failed to act swiftly on conduct allegations – but I agree with Conservative Home’s opinion that the buck for that stopped with Lord Feldman. Others clearly share that view, because Grant was taken back into the cabinet as Defence Secretary.

Character is not the only consideration of course. The key problem facing the Conservatives is the government’s national performance. Here, I understand the doubts and why some people might vote for other parties, until you look at the alternatives. Continue reading →

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Sonia Poulton Resigns from TNT: Did She Jump Before Being Pushed Over Child Abuse Case?

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Sonia Poulton says she has resigned from Australian online platform TNT Radio (archive). But did she jump before she was pushed after misleading her followers again about her latest loss in the ongoing case of Hemming v Poulton, which includes allegations of child abuse against her? As a result of misleading statements by Poulton, MHN is publishing the whole court order from a recent hearing.

Sonia Poulton Video Statement

A High Court Judge has struck out a critical part of Sonia Poulton’s Defence and ordered costs against her. She has also parted ways with her most recent employer (again). Are these things connected?

At the last hearing in Hemming v Poulton, both former MP John Hemming and I applied to strike out parts of Sonia Poulton’s Amended Defence and Counterclaim. In fact, both applications were partly prepared by myself, based on advice from barrister David Hirst and John’s application was delivered by barrister Matthew Hodson.

John’s application succeeded, mine failed. Net result? Part of Sonia Poulton’s pleadings were struck out as inconsistent with an earlier witness statement (that is, lies). She was ordered by Deputy Master Sabic (a High Court procedural judge) to pay John £4,000 and I was ordered to pay her £150. John is indemnifying me, so he is bound to pay it. On any measure, Sonia still made a net loss of £3,850.

Sonia is being sued by John Hemming for libel, harassment and breach of the GDPR. The claim includes allegations of child abuse. One part of the claim is that Hemming alleges that Sonia named two child torture victims in breach of a court order, when the judge who imposed the order had made clear it would harm them. Hemming says that Sonia was interviewed by police and the video was taken down. Sonia Poulton admits to this. Hemming then goes on to say Poulton lied to her followers about it on her fundraising page, accusing him (and for that matter, myself and Darren Laverty) of trying to frame her to conceal child abuse perpetrated by himself. He says she acted with malice because she knew she was guilty of the crime, even if she got off by grovelling and saying it was an accident. Even if she did not believe she was guilty, she at least knew it was reasonable to report her to police, since accidental or not, she did breach a child protection court order. So even then, he argues, her post was malicious. Sonia denied her words bore this highly libellous meaning on the basis that she was not talking about us. Irena Sabic KC struck out the denial because it contradicted an earlier witness statement. In effect, the court has found that Sonia was talking about us. Her words referred to Hemming. The next step is a pre-trial to determine what her words meant.

Sabic upheld John’s application and said my application had merit and was, “ably” presented but she wanted to leave the contested pleadings for trial. So, my application failed. The judge did not grant me permission to appeal the refusal of my application, but she said I could run all of those defences at trial. I have applied to the higher court for permission, it is an appeal from a Deputy Master so it goes to a High Court Judge. In the meantime there is a preliminary trial which Sonia is likely to lose as the key point in her defence was struck out. Unfortunately, Sonia has written about this in misleading terms as though she had a great success. What is horrifying is that at least some of Sonia’s deluded followers think she has won the entire case.

Twitter user xCharlyJox is going to be disappointed.

Twitter user xCharlyJox is going to be disappointed.

@xCharlyJox believes Sonia has won. In fact, the whole order is below.

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Naming the Abusers: Casual Nausea’s Zoe Barrow, Shawn Fendley, Matthew Kemp, Edward Mackenzies-Kitchen, Simon Kelly and Ian “Tree” Robinson of Manchester Punk Festival

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MHN had never heard of z-list band, Casual Nausea, currently with the label TNS Records, until he was provided documentary evidence of band members’ complicity in sickening abuse. The band has been trying to secure the cancellation of an innocent man, based on what seem to be unproven and untrue sexual abuse allegations by an obsessed fan who has publicly announced her intention to, “ruin” the victim’s life. What is concerning is the band and their label’s denial, failure to take accountability nor follow any identifiable procedure, together with that of their fellow abuser Ian “Tree” Robinson of the Manchester Punk Festival. This is especially vile and hypocritical given Robinson’s own claimed history of accusations against him. Your author is a proven victim of sex crime, in an actual court not a Tumblr post and MHN feels morally obliged to expose those who misuse such allegations. In your author’s opinion, such conduct amounts to abuse in itself.

Casual Nausea - a montage of pictures produced by Scott Bradley of 'Phukin Photos'. Despite the photographer's skill and the careful use of lighting and in one case, monochrome, he cannot disguise the fact that Casual Nausea are talentless, unappealing, overweight, dross. Pictures used for the purpose of criticism and review.

Casual Nausea – a montage of pictures produced by Scott Bradley of ‘Phukin Photos’. Despite the photographer’s skill and the careful use of lighting and in one case, monochrome, he cannot disguise the fact that Casual Nausea are talentless, unappealing, overweight, dross. They also failed to respond meaningfully to the allegations in this article by the deadline. Pictures used for the purpose of criticism and review.

In 2016 I was a victim of crime perpetrated by members of a vile terrorist, stalking, forum who created revenge pornography of me and also made false allegations. I obtained a court judgement against them. So I was horrified to learn that members of the band, Casual Nausea, had been part of a similar cowardly campaign to help an openly malicious – in my opinion sexually motivated, false allegator – try to destroy the life of an innocent musician. Worse, the stalker was also helped by Ian “Tree” Robinson of the Manchester Punk Festival and tacitly by Casual Nausea’s label TNS Records, whose founder Andrew Davies has failed to take action over the band’s conduct. Now they face accountability in the form of a campaign to have them excluded from the music industry and to name and shame those who work with them.

Sex crime is devastating to victims and we as a society should ensure it is severely punished. No less serious though is the problem of malicious accusers and those who deliberately waste law enforcement time. Aside from the suffering caused to those wrongly maligned, who have rights too, false allegations take desperately needed resources from actual victims. Specially trained police officers and supporting staff are a scarce, overstretched resource. When their time is wasted, it is likely that somewhere a woman or a child may be raped with no redress. Such people deserve the harshest condemnation. The foreseeable consequence of squandering police resources is the image of a vile rapist or paedophile thrusting into a screaming victim.  Even those who do not contact police but spread or accept gossip discredit real victims and contribute to a growing toxicity in society around sex crime and sex abuse. That is what Casual Nausea, Ian “Tree” Robinson, Andrew Davies and TNS records are accused of assisting.

Our story concerns an innocent musician – let us call him, “Dave” (name changed to protect the innocent). Continue reading →

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Lying Sonia Poulton Has Critical Defence Summarily Judged, Ordered to Pay Costs – Donors Should Ask for Money Back

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Sonia Poulton Video Statement

A High Court Judge has struck out a critical part of Sonia Poulton’s Defence to John Hemming’s claim and ordered costs against her.

Sonia Poulton faced yet another reverse on Wednesday as High Court Deputy Master Irena Sabic KC (archive) handed her a defeat in the latest round of former MP John Hemming’s ongoing libel, harassment and data protection claim against her. Hemming is suing Poulton for a number of online publications and she has been desperately claiming for several years now that most of them are not about John Hemming. Unfortunately, Poulton foolishly tried to claim allegations she made in a post (‘the 5th Publication’, in the claim) is not about John Hemming when she had signed a witness statement to the contrary. The judge was not impressed. In my opinion, based on the contradiction, Poulton was deliberately lying. Donors to Poulton should take note of the below, and seek their money back!

The Case Management Conference (‘CMC’) your author attended this week with Sonia Poulton was one of the maddest court hearings I have ever, ever attended, despite the extremely efficient judge. It was originally listed for costs management and case management. John Hemming and I then made applications for directions and to strike out parts of Ms Poulton’s claim. We followed the rules on cooperating for time estimates. Ms Poulton did not. We filed proper applications – Ms Poulton did not, but raised lengthy issues including a request for an expert witness. An anonymous expert witness. An. Anonymous. Expert. Witness. Despite being sanctioned on costs to the tune of over £30K at the hearing in October, Ms Poulton also applied for penalties against us for, “oppression” on costs.

As the hearing began the Deputy Master disposed of Ms Poulton’s applications in mere moments on the basis there was no time as there was no proper application (and therefore, time allocated in the hearing). She then moved on to the serious allegations against Poulton.

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