Ollie Horner and Charlie Herridge, as well as their PR Rebecca Redwood, have been condemned by real victims of sex crime after vile opportunistic band-wagon jumping on unproven and untrue sexual abuse allegations. 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.

Shamefully, the band ZERO 9:36 is allowing vile abusers Snayx to tour with them.

Your author is a proven victim of sex crime, in an actual court not a Tumblr post. In 2016 I was stalked by members of a vile terrorist forum who created revenge pornography of me, leading to my well known lawsuit against the vile paedophile Kiwidynastia – a member of the infamous child stalking forum Kiwifarms. There is still a bounty to this day for his real identity. Dynastia, known to encourage the collection of pictures and other information about minors as young as five, had fabricated sexual images of me and accused me of sharing his own vile predilictions, as well as those of his perverted friend Joshua Conner Moon.

People who commit such crimes deserve to be punished. Equally however, there is little more vile than a false allegator or someone who wastes law enforcement time. Aside from causing huge distress to the falsely accused (who have rights too, of course) it draws resources from real victims. If a person in one place wastes the time of specially trained officers, 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 gossip discredit real victims and contributed to a growing toxicity in society around sex crime and sex abuse.

Such behaviour runs the gamut from making up vile sexual allegations, to simply encouraging such behaviour by jumping on bandwagons in ignorance of the truth. In my opinion and that of many others, such persons are abusers themselves, and it is in this context that I am naming as abusers Ollie Horner and Charlie Herridge of the inconsequential, ‘band’ Snayx and their PR Rebecca Redwood of Republic of Music.

On 2 November 2022 I ran a story about shocking abuse perpetrated by the organiser of the 2000 Trees festival, James Scarlett. In a statement written by James with the apparent assistance of Brendan Herbert, a partner at music law firm Laceys, Mr Scarlett did not deny the essentials of that story. A band scheduled to appear at the festival had been subject to sexual allegations. To police? Nope. On Facebook. James did not bother to hold an investigation, he just terminated the band’s appearance and opened a thread for discussion leading to wilder and ever more hysterical allegations.

Until I offered to consider providing pro-bono legal assistance to the accused band member. Within hours of my making contact, despicable James was in retreat. The post has been taken down. As far as I can tell, the allegations are wholly false. In contrast, the allegations in this article – and my last one – were put to the affected parties and have not been denied.

Since my discussion with James, I have been able to investigate matters further. There have been no police complaints. Nul. Zero. Except by the accused band member. There has been gossip about a single female allegator. I am currently looking at a private message she sent the band member the day after the incident – apologising for oversharing – as well as subsequent discussions of hanging out with the alleged rapist. These behaviours are inconsistent with the allegations.

In short, based on the band member’s account supported by the supposed victim’s contemporary messages, what may have actually happened was that a member of the accused band went back to the person’s tent at 2000 Trees in 2019 and the parties attempted, but were too intoxicated, to do the deed. The consent may have been there, but the penetration was lacking. Subsequently, the supposed victim was embarrassed, fearing it was their behaviour not the intoxicants. They apologised to the alleged perpetrator. Regardless, there is evidence that the purported victim sought out further social interaction with the accused which is inconsistent with the allegations.

When the allegations were made, there should have been an investigation by the festival. Posts should have been removed to avoid prejudicing it and to protect the rights of all concerned. The festival’s safeguarding policy should have been followed. Of course, it is not clear to me that the festival has ever had such a policy. The rules page for the festival on its website is currently a 404 (archive). The Welfare, Security and Safety Page – under maintenance (archive). Searching through the Wayback engine for the last 10 years, I looked in vain for anything on the website resembling a safeguarding policy. A draft of this article was put to James Scarlet and the Real Festival Company, but no denial has been received. It appears they had no safeguarding policy.

The total unprofessionalism of the festival in relation to this matter not only reflects badly on James Scarlett, but on the other directors of the Real Festival Company Limited – the company that runs 2000 Trees. Brendan Thompson is a lawyer, but it did not occur to him that lacking a policy on sexual harassment might be a bit of a #MeToo issue? Another director is Andrew Rea, a lecturer at Bimm Bristol. Did he really think it was okay?

I am in possession of an archive of the shambolic Facebook discussion invited by James. It appears it was likely crimes were committed as posters blithely named alleged rape victims despite this being a crime in UK law under section 1 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992. Rape victims have anonymity. Furthermore, there are multiple allegators coming forward against James Scarlett that dissenting posts denying the non-existent ‘rape’ were deleted. Again, Scarlett has not denied this damning allegation.

The state of affairs calls into question the competence not only of James, but also Andrew Rea. I have grave reservations about his being a fit and proper person to be a lecturer at any educational institution if this is the approach to safeguarding of a company he controls. One subtle problem is this – as I said above, alleged rape victims have anonymity – unless they waive it in writing. One way they can do this is by public internet posts in their own name. James’ opening of the thread may have induced women, who have not been told of their legal rights, to waive anonymity without realising it.

Of course, facts and logic were no bar to the members of the band Snayx, who decided to leap on the allegations via their Twitter account.

“Multiple allegations have been made against a band included in yesterday’s festival announcement. We as a band, view allegations like this very seriously and will always stand with victims. We have zero tolerance towards abuse of any kind and it’s our duty to speak out to protect our fans and the music community. Our team are looking into this urgently and we will of course be taking appropriate action in due course.”

Who the hell do these people think they are? Police? Politicians? Nope – a Z-list indie band trying to sound important. After James’ ill-fated post, the Snayx ran another statement,

“Following on from our statement earlier today, the festival have now taken action to remove the band in question from the line up and we fully support this decision”.

Which looks to me like it bears the defamatory imputation the allegations are true.

Do Snayx really think that someone’s career in the music industry should be ended by Facebook posts? Forum comments? Okay. As a website operator, I have immunity under s5 Defamation Act 2013 for user posts unless I act with malice. The defence is not defeated merely by the fact I moderate posts (e.g. by putting them in a moderation queue for approval). I think there is a compelling public interest to hold Snayx and their PR to the same standard. Not out of spite, or malice, but because it is deeply illustrative of the folly of their approach. So, if anyone feels Snayx has ever mistreated them in any way – sexually, or just plain rudeness – whatever – please feel free to post it here. I will of course still delete obviously abusive messages, or plainly factually false ones and I will comply with correctly drafted s5 notices. Deficient s5 notices will be declined.

There has been no investigation, and no police involvement. That means Snayx cannot have known the truth of the sex allegations. They were just mouthing off to sound important and promote their band. Such people are sickening to real victims of abuse. One such victim, abused whilst a child in care, had this to say: “Ollie Horner and Charlie Herridge are sick and vile excuses for human beings. I will be more than happy to condemn anyone who does business with them in the industry, to join pickets and to hand out leaflets. Snayx are snakes. They are vile and deserving only of condemnation.“

I have received a letter from solicitors for Snayx and Rebecca Redwood, objecting to the use of the term, “abusers”. Given the context in which I have used it is set out in the article, and the devastating consequences of false allegations, I am prepared to defend it and have told them so. In the meantime, it seems that Redwood has removed her picture as well as references to Snayx, other clients, and another PR firm, Longevity PR, from her LinkedIn (archive). Horrifyingly, so far it means Snayx are willing to stand by their behaviour.

When sent a draft of this article, Andrew Rea, James Scarlett and the Real Festival Company have not denied the allegations, nor even commented – neither have Rea’s employers BIMM. The latter have only asked for a delay – which in the circumstances where their employee’s company has engaged in behaviour that causes ongoing harm is not acceptable. That reflects extremely poorly on them as an educational institution and their CEO Adam Carswell. For an institution in the music industry in the days of #MeToo to be so arrogant as to have nothing to say is horrifying.

Because their vile behaviour has consequences. Their victims, and horrified uninvolved victims of child abuse, are now coming for their careers, and those of anyone who is foolish enough to give these men a platform. There is likely to be a write in campaign, and perhaps pickets and leaflets at their gigs. Sexual abuse is a messy topic and like the body fluids involved, when you throw allegations around carelessly they can prove sticky and toxic to all concerned.