Earlier this year, a Bath woman known as Charisse Burchett (a fan of BNT creator Sonia Poulton) was excoriated online and in the Daily Mirror (archive), Sun (archive) and Mail (archive), after refusing to wear a mask on a flight from Berlin to the United Kingdom. Bereaved relatives of Covid-19 victims condemned her ignorance and arrogance. Though she claims a “private” medical exemption, by her own admission police did not find it acceptable. Now, she has ignorantly defamed former MP John Hemming, claiming he needs to face a jury when in fact his accuser Esther Baker’s allegations have been found to be, “untrue” in the High Court and she has been restrained for life from repeating them. By refusing to wear a mask and risking spreading Covid, denying the existence of Covid, as well as spreading debunked false allegations that cause huge distress to Hemming’s children, she is likely to pose a risk of harm to a number of vulnerable people.
One of the most tragic things about Brand New Tube’s (BNT) output is the denial of very real diseases. The website features Vernon Coleman, a man who still denies AIDS is a disease (archive) – “[…] it is now my considered view that the disease we know as AIDS probably doesn’t exist and has never existed”. There is no doubt AIDS is real, like Covid-19.
When I saw Charisse Burchett’s tweet about John Hemming earlier, at first I thought it beneath notice. She is just some nobody mum from the provinces with a bad attitude. A not-very-bright consumer of BNT conspiracy theories. Her remarks about Esther Baker and John Hemming were dead wrong. The facts are these as set out by High Court Judge Mrs Justice Steyn –