Lee Barnes resigns, declares BNP ‘cannot be trusted with political power’

Edmund Standing, August 10th 2010, 3:03 pm

Lee John Barnes LLB (Hons), well known for being not only the BNP’s ‘Legal Director/Officer/Adviser’ but also one of its most consistently fanatical supporters, has left the party. You can read his rambling ‘Formal Resignation Letter’ in full here. Highlights include:

Over the last few years since the arrival of Jim Dowson into the party, Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson have repeatedly chosen to break the most obvious of laws including such debacles as ;

1) The Marmite Case

2) The unlawful use of stock images from a photoshop company during the European Elections

3) The EHRC court cases

4) The unlawful sacking of Michaele Mackenzie

5) The illegal suspension of Peter Mullins and many others

All of these were done under the orders of both Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson.

Regardless of how much income the party has had over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been squandered on avoidable court cases.

[…]

What was particularly galling for me was the Michaela Mackenzie case.

I informed Nick Griffin on the day he sacked her that what he was doing was unlawful.

Not only did he ignore my advice, he later went to an Employment Tribunal and called me a ‘crank’ as a way to ‘explain’ why my advice to him was ignored.

The actions of Nick Griffin in this case alone has cost the party over twenty five thousand pounds, and as of Friday last week the money owed to Michaele Mackenzie has still not been paid.

This means the party will now be dragged back into court and probably bankrupted as a result.

As far as I am aware the party is now technically insolvent.

[…]

As far as I am aware donations to the party have flowed to a trickle as well as party renewals and new inquiries.

[…]

In relation to the illegal suspension of Peter Mullins and others, I spent months trying to get Nick to see sense on this issue.

It was only after months of arguments that Nick Griffin was forced to relent, drop their suspensions and re-admit them.

During this time I was threatened by Jim Dowson with violence for putting the parties legal interests first as he was the person pushing Nick Griffin to expel Peter Mullins and others.

I am not the only BNP member or BNP officer to have been threatened with violence by Jim Dowson.

It appears that when Jim Dowson doesn’t get what he wants he likes to threaten people with his connections to loyalist killers and terrorists in Northern Ireland in order to intimidate people into doing his bidding.

My complaints to Nick Griffin about Jim Dowsons threats of violence directed at me and other party members have been ignored.

All I can say is that Peter Mullins is a decent, honourable man whilst Jim Dowson is a convicted criminal, with links to Loyalist terrorism and terrorists with a string of failed companies to his name who bought his ’reverend’ title off of the internet.

[…]

The decision yesterday to unlawfully suspend dozens of activists simply for them standing against Nick Griffin in the leadership contest is the action of utterly irresponsible incompetents.

Nick Griffin knew before the leadership challenge even began that he could not be removed as leader of the party.

The BNP constitution was re-written specifically to ensure that no-one can ever remove Nick Griffin from his role as chairman.

[…]

I cannot remain as the Legal Officer of a party that acts unlawfully towards its own members, that rewards years of party loyalty with unlawful suspensions and expulsions, that covers up serious allegations of sexual abuse by senior officers, that expels long standing members who ask for financial transparency within the party and that refuses to act to protect its own officers when they are threatened with violence by other senior officers.

Such a political party cannot be trusted with political power in our society.

[…]

I hereby quit my role as BNP Legal Adviser with immediate effect.

L. J. Barnes LLB (Hons)

Barnes may be an oddball but he is presumably well aware of the basics of UK libel law. This makes the statements and accusations made by Barnes in this letter all the more damning. When a previously slavishly loyal BNP officer goes public with claims about law breaking, bankruptcy, threats of violence, incompetence, and authoritarianism, and states that ’such a political party cannot be trusted with political power in our society’, it’s pretty clear that that party is in dire straits. Which is of course very pleasing to hear.

[For those interested in finding out more about Jim Dowson, Searchlight has a three part exposé here.]

More great articles from the gang at Harrys Place:

http://hurryupharry.org/2010/08/10/lee-barnes-resigns-declares-bnp-cannot-be-trusted-with-political-power/#comments

My Resignation Letter From the BNP

Formal Resignation Letter.

10th August 2010.

Just over a month ago I won a court case for the BNP against Greenwich Council that not only changed the entire basis of electoral law in England, it also saved the party around ten to fifteen thousand pounds in legal costs and damages.

The legal arguments I drafted up and sent to the court ensured that the BNP won the court case.

For those idiots who will seek to attack me on the grounds of me being a red / traitor / unqualified crank (tick the usual pejorative as applicable) I mention this legal case I won for the party so as to ensure that decent people, and not the idiot sock puppets we see on the VNN Forum and Green Arrow site who are the vermin in the gutter of British Nationalism, understand that until yesterday when news of the mass suspension of party activists and organisers was announced I was still a loyal officer and supporter of the party.

I have pleaded with people to put the interests of the party first and before their own personal animosities and feuds.

As this has been ignored I have no choice but to take this action.

Over the last few years since the arrival of Jim Dowson into the party, Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson have repeatedly chosen to break the most obvious of laws including such debacles as ;

1) The Marmite Case

2) The unlawful use of stock images from a photoshop company during the European Elections

3) The EHRC court cases

4) The unlawful sacking of Michaele Mackenzie

5) The illegal suspension of Peter Mullins and many others

All of these were done under the orders of both Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson.

Regardless of how much income the party has had over the last few years, hundreds of thousands of pounds have been squandered on avoidable court cases.

Whilst party income has undoubtedly rose since Jim Dowson became involved with the BNP, so has the vast amount of money paid out by the BNP in legal costs incurred by the BNP.

Legal issues that were once dealt with internally within the party have been ’outsourced’ from the party to individuals paid by Jim Dowson and Nick Griffin, resulting in the parties internal legal affairs no longer being scrutinised or run by the BNP Legal Unit.

This ‘outsourcing’ of legal issues and cases, such as the drafting up of the new BNP constitution and dealing with the Marmite Case, have resulted in the party wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds on fighting legal cases that could have been avoided, had the party debated and addressed those legal issues internally.

What was particularly galling for me was the Michaela Mackenzie case.

I informed Nick Griffin on the day he sacked her that what he was doing was unlawful.

Not only did he ignore my advice, he later went to an Employment Tribunal and called me a ‘crank’ as a way to ‘explain’ why my advice to him was ignored.

The actions of Nick Griffin in this case alone has cost the party over twenty five thousand pounds, and as of Friday last week the money owed to Michaele Mackenzie has still not been paid.

This means the party will now be dragged back into court and probably bankrupted as a result.

As far as I am aware the party is now technically insolvent.

Outstanding court costs, wages bills, election expenses and also forthcoming legal cases against the party mean the BNP is now technically bankrupt.

As far as I am aware donations to the party have flowed to a trickle as well as party renewals and new inquiries.

This means the party should be avoiding creating new legal cases and liabilities, not rushing into them as though the party is awash with money to fight such legal cases.

Bankruptcy of the party will have very serious implications for the BNP membership.

If the party is made bankrupt then the BNP membership as a whole will be directly financially liable for its outstanding debts as an unincorporated association and not Nick Griffin or Jim Dowson.

This is because Nick Griffin has no assets and Jim Dowsons financial assets are probably hidden away in some Spanish or Swiss bank account outside the UK.

In relation to the illegal suspension of Peter Mullins and others, I spent months trying to get Nick to see sense on this issue.

It was only after months of arguments that Nick Griffin was forced to relent, drop their suspensions and re-admit them.

During this time I was threatened by Jim Dowson with violence for putting the parties legal interests first as he was the person pushing Nick Griffin to expel Peter Mullins and others.

I am not the only BNP member or BNP officer to have been threatened with violence by Jim Dowson.

It appears that when Jim Dowson doesn’t get what he wants he likes to threaten people with his connections to loyalist killers and terrorists in Northern Ireland in order to intimidate people into doing his bidding.

My complaints to Nick Griffin about Jim Dowsons threats of violence directed at me and other party members have been ignored.

All I can say is that Peter Mullins is a decent, honourable man whilst Jim Dowson is a convicted criminal, with links to Loyalist terrorism and terrorists with a string of failed companies to his name who bought his ’reverend’ title off of the internet.

These facts are easily ascertained off the internet, as the media have undertaken investigations into Jim Dowson and published this information widely.

Unfortunately, as the Peter Mullins case revealed, Nick Griffin thinks the law as regards the unlawful expulsion of members does not apply to him, even though he was shown by the courts during the John Tyndall case that the law does apply to the BNP.

The decision yesterday to unlawfully suspend dozens of activists simply for them standing against Nick Griffin in the leadership contest is the action of utterly irresponsible incompetents.

Nick Griffin knew before the leadership challenge even began that he could not be removed as leader of the party.

The BNP constitution was re-written specifically to ensure that no-one can ever remove Nick Griffin from his role as chairman.

Therefore to suspend the people who supported the leadership challenge is both unlawful and tactically inept.

The people who supported Eddy Butler would have been facing the choice of either knuckling down or resigning from the party.

Instead they have been unlawfully suspended and therefore can now launch new legal actions against the party.

The law is clear.

BNP members have a constitutionally protected right to stand for party leadership.

To suspend them for doing so is unlawful.

The way they have been suspended is also unlawful.

I have no doubt that they will now unite to form a class action against the party thereby incurring more legal costs and damages against an already virtually bankrupt party whose debts far outweigh its income.

The tragedy is that Andrew Brons has been dragged into this idiotic affair, for he will have no choice but to do as Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson say and declare that the leadership challengers did not get enough nominations and so cannot stand against Nick Griffin for a leadership election.

But what has most sickened me over recent weeks is the way that the serious allegations of sexual assault from the BNP member Shelley Rose have been ignored by Nick Griffin.

I have never met Shelley Rose, nor have I ever spoken to her.

I do not know the truth or otherwise of the allegations she has made.

As soon as I saw the Youtube video of her allegations I sent an e mail to Nick Griffin, and spoke to him on the phone, asking that in order to ensure the party and its public image is protected that both Shelley Rose and Jim Dowson be suspended as members and as party officers and that a full and transparent investigation is initiated.

The BNP cannot ever be seen as a party that protects perverts or a party that refuses to address allegations of such a serious nature from a female member.

Any allegations of sexual assault by any female BNP member against any male BNP member must be treated with the utmost seriousness and an full investigation begun.

Failure to do that allows the media to attack and undermine the party and its public image.

Jim Dowson is not a member of the BNP, so therefore in order to demonstrate that the party was taking these allegations seriously then he should have been immediately suspended as a party officer and from all party offices until the investigation and disciplinary procedures into the allegations were finished.

If Shelley Rose was found to have lied then she should have been expelled.

If Jim Dowson was found guilty of bringing the party into disrepute, Gross Misconduct and sexual assault then he should have been dismissed and sacked from all party offices he holds.

Instead what has happened is that Shelley Rose has been suspended, no investigation has been initiated and no sanction applied against Jim Dowson.

Instead of having a transparent investigation into the allegations, the internet attack dogs on sites like the Green Arrow website and the VNN Forum have been set upon Shelley Rose and abused her name and reputation.

They have slandered, threatened and vilified her and by so doing have disgraced not just the BNP but British Nationalism as a political movement.

This is intolerable.

The BNP cannot be seen as a political party that punishes the victim of a sexual assault whilst protecting the perpetrator of the crime.

All such allegations have to be treated with the utmost seriousness.

All such allegations must be investigated.

The issue is simple enough to understand.

Any married BNP party officer in a senior position who spends the night in a hotel room with a BNP female member other than his wife must be sacked.

This must be done for one simple reason.

A party officer lured into a secret affair opens himself up to being blackmailed or manipulated.

Such a scenario creates a fundamental conflict of interest between their personal life, their professional duties and their political responsibilities that is simply unacceptable.

A party officer who is in charge of the BNP finances via its income, who controls the BNP membership lists and who has such influence over the chairman of the party must be entirely above reproach at all times.

If it had been someone working for MI5 who had lured Jim Dowson into a sexual assignation in a London hotel room and then filmed him with hidden cameras and used that film to blackmail him, then MI5 would now be in control of the BNP’s finances and income and have access to all our membership data bases and be able to virtually control the party.

And we would never know about it.

Any married man foolish enough to have been discovered having stayed the night in a hotel room with a young woman other than his wife, and especially a ’reverend’, is an individual who may also have done so in the past and therefore is not suitable to be in that position.

In the world of business, and in the education system and police, any senior manager who has an affair with a junior member of his staff that threatens the good name of the organisation is guilty of Gross Misconduct and dismissed.

Whilst it may be acceptable for the Tories, Lib Dems and New Labour to act in such a manner it is not acceptable for senior officers of the BNP to do so, especially senior officers in charge of BNP finances and income and the membership data base.

But it appears that Jim Dowson is an ’untouchable’ in the party and that whilst Nick Griffin is prepared to sacrifice dozens of loyal members with decades of party loyalty, he will not deal with Jim Dowson.

It therefore appears that Nick Griffin no longer wishes to receive any counsel from anyone who wishes to put the legal interests of the BNP, its members, our public image and our future electoral expansion before the interests of Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson.

I cannot remain as the Legal Officer of a party that acts unlawfully towards its own members, that rewards years of party loyalty with unlawful suspensions and expulsions, that covers up serious allegations of sexual abuse by senior officers, that expels long standing members who ask for financial transparency within the party and that refuses to act to protect its own officers when they are threatened with violence by other senior officers.

Such a political party cannot be trusted with political power in our society.

If I stay on within such a party then it will appear as though I am supporting and condoning such actions.

Unless the BNP begins ;

1) An immediate fully transparent investigation into the ongoing allegations of financial mismanagement within the party which allows BNP members and officers to ascertain exactly what the party finances are, where party assets have gone and what the background behind the legal costs of recent legal cases have been. This is required in order to ensure that internal party mechanisms are in place to protect the party from such legal liabilities and allegations of financial impropriety in the future.

2) An immediate and fully transparent investigation into the threats of violence made against any party members and officers by Jim Dowson.

3) An immediate and fully transparent investigation into the allegations made by the BNP member Shelly Rose against Jim Dowson.

4) An immediate and fully transparent investigation into who authorised the unlawful suspensions of BNP party members Peter Mullins and others and also whether the present suspensions of members and organisers suspended for being involved in the leadership challenge are also legal. As part of the inquiry it must establish whether an independent body within the party should be established that vets and checks any orders for the suspension of members and officers of the party issued by the chairman or other officers are legal before the suspensions or expulsions are authorised and issued. This is required to protect the party from potential legal liabilities.

5) The establishment of an internal ‘BNP Reconciliation Committee’ which allows all BNP members and officers to air their grievances and discuss issues of concern to officers and the membership without fear of suspension and expulsion so as to allow us to move forward as a united party.

6) An immediate party inquiry into how the party can establish an internal mechanism for protecting the employment rights of party officers from arbitrary dismissal so as to ensure no more legal cases and legal costs are imposed against the party.

7) An immediate party inquiry into establishing an internal party mechanism that requires the chairman of the party to discuss and debate with senior officials of the party any financial or business actions that may impinge or impact upon the party directly or accrue legal or financial liabilities for the party before those decisions are taken.

8) Jim Dowson now controls the BNP membership database, the BNP donor database, the BNP treasury department, the BNP subscriptions operation, the BNP media & communications operation and the BNP website. This is completely unacceptable and legally questionable. There is no power in the constitution for the chairman to devolve such internal party offices or party operations to an individual who is not a party member. The BNP constitution does not give the chairman the power to allow a non-member of the party to hold, have access too or have power directly over BNP party finances or confidential information relating to party members. Nor does the chairman have any power to move party assets owned by the party outside the party and especially into the hands of an individual who is not a member of the party. Therefore all financial assets owned by the party and under the control of Jim Dowson must be declared and returned to the party. No officer of the party, either member of non-member, should be ever again be allowed to have such internal control and influence over such a vast amount of essential internal BNP operations now or in the future. Such over centralisation of power around Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson means the party is now vulnerable.

If party assets have been moved out of the party and into companies owned by Jim Dowson by Nick Griffin then this is potentially defined as “Fraud by abuse of position” and is defined by Section 4 of the Fraud Act 2006. This is such a case where a person occupies a position where they are expected to safeguard the financial interests of another person such as BNP members, and abuses that position; this includes cases where the abuse consisted of an omission rather than an overt act.

In such cases of potential fraud, it requires that for an offence to have occurred, the person must have acted dishonestly, and that they had to have acted with the intent of making a gain for themselves or anyone else, or inflicting a loss (or a risk of loss) on another. The fact that such issues may have potentially arisen means the party is at serious risk of investigation and prosecution.

I do not believe the list of assurances that I believe the party requires in order to allow it to move forward as a united organisation will be given by Nick Griffin.

In all good conscience I can therefore no longer remain as an officer of the party.

If I stay on as an officer of the party then I will be seen as condoning the above issues and problems.

I am not prepared to do that.

I hereby quit my role as BNP Legal Adviser with immediate effect.

L. J. Barnes LLB (Hons)

http://leejohnbarnes.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-resignation-letter-from-bnp.html

The Searchlight stuff:

Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took over the BNP. Part 1 of a three part investigation.

| Part 2 Dowson’s empire | Part 3 Dissecting the Dowsons |

From rags to riches

By Gerry Gable

Ten years ago Jim Dowson (pictured) was a down-at-heel anti-abortion campaigner and hardline Protestant, who had marched with a loyalist band that played songs in praise of the convicted loyalist murderer Michael Stone (pictured below).

His luck changed when he formed an alliance with Justin Barrett, a far-right Catholic lawyer and leader of the notorious Irish anti-abortion group Youth Defence, which had previously stormed buildings in Dublin in their crusade against a woman’s right to choose. In 2000 Barrett had attended a rally of the German nazi National Democratic Party, where he met Roberto Fiore, the Italian fascist friend and mentor of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader. The trip was arranged by Derek Holland, one of Griffin’s old colleagues from the days of the National Front Political Soldiers.

Barrett attracted attention as the lead spokesperson of the successful Irish campaign against the Nice Treaty in 2001 and money started to flow from far-right anti-abortionists in the United States.

In 1999 Dowson had formed Precious Life Scotland and it was through cooperation between his group and Youth Defence that he met Barrett. The link proved beneficial when Barrett pitched £50,000 into Dowson’s organisation to pay for the production of anti-abortion CDs and video tapes to be distributed to schools and churches in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Dowson was a “rent-a-cause” extremist who had been kicked out of the Orange Order. He has a list of criminal convictions including breach of the peace in 1986, possession of a weapon and breach of the peace in 1991 and criminal damage in 1992. Although a Protestant, he was happy to sell thousands of photographs of the Pope at inflated prices to Catholics in the Irish Republic.

Barrett faded from the public arena after the Nice Treaty vote was rerun and went the other way. His political demise was hastened after the publication of his book The National Way Forward, in which he described immigration as “genocidal”. He also became increasingly antisemitic, influenced by the nazi leaders he had met in Germany.

In contrast, Dowson’s campaigning activities grew. He turned his sights on gay people and encouraged his followers to abuse and threaten people who attended or worked in abortion clinics.

This resulted in Dowson parting company with some of his Precious Life fellow activists, but he was now in a financial position to go it alone, turning his faction into the UK LifeLeague. He never looked back.

Dowson, 45, started working with the British National Party late in 2007, and he quickly revolutionised its fundraising. His first appeal, launched at the time the BNP was tearing itself apart in an internal rebellion, was carried out as a free sample to show the party what he could do, but since then he has worked on a percentage commission.

His work for the BNP grew to encompass the provision of manage-ment training in Spain and revamping the party’s administration. Early in 2009 he set up the Belfast call centre, piggybacking it on his successful fundraising for the LifeLeague, thereby cutting costs and perhaps giving doubtful BNP officers the impression of a larger operation than it actually is.

Over the past two years he has clearly raised huge sums for the party, although it remains financially strapped. Partly this is the result of scams, such as the truth truck, which Griffin claimed had been bought with thousands of pounds of supporters’ donations. It turned out still to belong to Dowson’s private company, Adlorries.com, and, like much of the other equipment the BNP claimed to have bought, it was only leased by the party.

Today Dowson practically owns the BNP, which he briefly joined to placate his critics but left as soon as the heat was off him. He remains at loggerheads with many senior party officers and employees. One, whom he sacked in spring, is heading for an employment tribunal.

Griffin’s claim that the BNP is being flooded with donations via Dowson’s call centre is a lie. Income is down to a trickle and membership is a mere 8,000 or so. People are not queuing up to join after the end of the three-month moratorium on membership, they are leaving in droves, especially since the latest membership list leak from Dowson’s Belfast bunker.

All this comes on top of the party’s forced climbdown over its racist constitution, the non-appearance of its 2008 accounts and concern over the number of senior party officers who have been put on the European Parliament payroll as staff of the two BNP MEPs.

You may also be interested to read
• A place in the sun Jim Dowson has been at the centre of allegations about his property dealings Searchlight Magazine December 2009
• BNP links to Troubles charity A fundraising expert for the far-right BNP helped head a charity for Troubles’ victims that has raked in taxpayers’ cash. Sunday Life 6 December 2009
• Dissecting the Dowsons Part 3 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• Dowson’s empire Part 2 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• From rags to riches Part 1 of a three part investigation Searchlight Magazine November 2009
• BNP Bosses Uncovered A former employee lifts the lid on life working for 44-year-old Jim Dowson and the BNP in Belfast by Steven Moore Sunday World October 2009
• ‘Cash strapped’ BNP fails to deliver accounts Sonia Gable on the BNP’s current financial problems Searchlight Magazine September 2009
• The man who bought the BNP Sonia Gable untangles a BNP financial web Searchlight Magazine July 2009
• Truth truck or lie lorry? Sonia Gable uncovers another BNP financial scandal Searchlight Magazine August 2008
• BNP accounts don’t add up Sonia Gable analyses the BNP’s latest figures Searchlight Magazine September 2008

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/Jim-Dowson-From-rags-to-riches

Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took over the BNP. Part 2 of a three part investigation.

| Part 1 From rags to riches | Part 3 Dissecting the Dowsons |

Dowson’s empire

Sonia Gable shines a light on Jim Dowson’s string of business and campaigning interests

Solas NI

Solas NI, a charity with the registration number XR86269, describes itself on its website as a victim support group set up to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is “to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs”. It was formed in 2003 and up to 2007 had received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation.

Jim Dowson is not known to hold any position in Solas, but its chair is Alex Thomas, a business partner of Dowson and husband of his sister-in-law, who is also involved in Solas. The charity also uses the same address and telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.

Adlorries.com Ltd

Jim Dowson is the sole director of Adlorries.com Ltd, the company that hired the Belfast staff. Incorporated in October 2004 it describes itself as “an independent company providing professional services without prejudice to NGOs, charities and political organisations … We are the complete business solution,” its scanty website claims.

The BNP’s “truth truck”, better known outside the party as the lie lorry

The company owns little of substance. Its latest accounts show fixed assets plus cash of nearly £27,000 against £25,000 owed in debts and long-term loans.

One of its assets is the BNP’s “truth truck”, better known outside the party as the lie lorry. Last year the BNP claimed to have bought the truck after a successful appeal to supporters to raise the £26,550 needed. However when bailiffs tried to enforce a county court judgement against the BNP, the party’s solicitors responded that the vehicle was “registered in the name of another person who … has no connection with the judgement debtors”.

In fact the truth truck turned out to be the same vehicle that Dowson had bought two years earlier for the anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, after appealing for donations from supporters. It even had the same name. A press release issued in April 2006 claimed Operation Truth Truck would “enable the pro-life message to reach the unreached across the towns and cities of Britain”. The UK LifeLeague and the BNP had milked their gullible supporters twice over for the same “truth truck” which never left the ownership of Adlorries.com.

Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd

Incorporated in February 2009, Albion Logistical Solutions Ltd has an address in Loughborough and one director, Jim Dowson. It was this company that organised the printing of over 28 million glossy BNP European election leaflets earlier this year.

Midas Consultancy

Early in 2008 BNP senior officers and activists were invited to attend “high level management training” arranged by “a professional management consultancy and training company”, which “uses a property in Spain as its main training base”. Searchlight quickly established that the organiser was a Belfast-based business called the Midas Consultancy, the name under which Jim Dowson marketed his management and fundraising skills, and that the training base was in Valencia on the Costa Blanca.

Christian Youth Fellowship

The Christian Youth Fellowship shares premises with Solas NI and its contact person is listed as J Dowson. Its activities centre around anti-abortion and anti-gay campaigning, though in May it took part in the launch of TIDY Northern Ireland’s Clean Coast Programme on Portrush, Whiterocks beach.

UK LifeLeague

Jim Dowson is the main public face of the hardline anti-abortion UK LifeLeague, which uses highly provocative tactics, such as publishing the home addresses of abortion clinic staff. Similar actions by anti-abortion groups in the US have resulted in the murder of doctors.

Formed in 1999, the LifeLeague claims to be committed to peaceful campaigning “to end the violence of abortion”. Although its website states that “campaigning is an important part of what we do”, the organisation appears to have done nothing since early 2008 apart from raising money.

Ultraplumb.com Ltd

Jim Dowson helped his eldest son, James Dowson Jr, to set up Ultraplumb.com Ltd, a company registered at Dowson’s address in Cumbernauld, Scotland, in 2007. Dowson Jr, 21, (pictured) is the sole director and Marion Thomas, Dowson Sr’s sister-in-law, is the Company Secretary. Ultraplumb styles itself as “Northern Ireland’s premier plumbing company” but of the three testimonials on its website, dated 2007, one is from Thomas herself. Its accounts are several months overdue for filing at Companies House.

After the exposé of the BNP’s Belfast bunker operation in the Irish press, Dowson Jr painted out the signs on his company’s vans, fearing reprisals from the local population.

Jim Dowson: How a militant anti-abortionist took over the BNP. Part 3 of a three part investigation.

| Part 1 From rags to riches | Part 2 Dowson’s empire |

Dissecting the Dowsons

The leak of the BNP membership list last month has turned the spotlight on the party’s Belfast call centre, the tensions it has caused in the party, and the links between the man who runs it and a charity that has received a six-figure sum in EU funding. Matthew Collins and Simon Cressy investigate.

The posting on the internet of a British National Party membership list two days before the BNP leader’s prized appearance on Question Time was a huge embarrassment to the fascist party. After the BNP lost an earlier list of members and contacts last year, the party promised to put security measures in place to ensure such a thing could never happen again. It was only because of this promise that the BNP managed to stem a walkout of members concerned about losing their jobs and friends because of the revelation of their racist adherence.

Searchlight can now reveal that the “security measures” consisted of handing over the files to Jim Dowson, a hardline anti-abortion activist with a string of criminal convictions, who runs the party’s “secret” administrative lair in Northern Ireland.

In what has become known as the BNP’s Belfast bunker, an office on an industrial estate in Dundonald, Dowson’s private company, Adlorries.com, employs staff recruited through employment agencies, to handle BNP members’ personal information. Staff are not security vetted, though East Europeans and Asians applying for work at the call centre are automatically rejected, in contravention of employment legislation.

Staff, one of whom is the wife of a police officer working at Castlereagh police station, do not even have to sign a confidentiality clause. Yet one of their roles was to persuade up to 3,000 lapsed members that their personal information and membership details would now be kept securely and encrypted in the secretive call centre.

Dowson has told the police that a former staff member leaked the membership data after leaving her job taking a laptop computer in lieu of £2,000 that she claimed she was owed in unpaid wages.

One of the employment agencies that supplied staff to Adlorries was Office Angels. The firm would only speak to Searchlight through a PR company but confirmed that it had supplied staff to the call centre. A statement from Office Angels said it had terminated the contractual arrangement once it learned that Adlorries was a “third party supplier to the BNP”. It added: “We do not discriminate against a person’s race, age or sex. It is totally against Office Angels’ values to do this, not to mention against the law.”

The BNP claimed that Northern Ireland was a “safe haven” away from the strong opposition the party faces on mainland Britain. Since spring this year the BNP has carried out almost all its telephone fundraising and recruitment activities from the Dundonald office and another in nearby Ballyhackamore. Staff solicit donations and send out information packs all over the UK for a wage of £6 an hour plus commission based on the amount they raise.

Since the move to Northern Ireland the party has been trying desperately to plug a succession of embarrassing leaks to the Irish press identifying key personnel in the Irish operation and exposing the gradual and almost forced takeover of the BNP by a man who claimed publicly to have “stepped down” from fundraising for the party, but who still has his hand very firmly on the BNP’s purse strings.

Gradually, since Dowson first became involved with the BNP in late 2007, he has taken over more and more of the party’s operations and drawn the BNP further into his web of business, campaigning and charity interests.

Until the membership list leak, BNP members were receiving an average of three telephone calls a month from the call centre, soliciting donations and encouraging people to renew their membership early or upgrade to the life or gold membership schemes.

Legal action by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission has forced the BNP to suspend recruiting members while it makes changes to its constitution. Instead, Dowson is now desperately trying to revive the near moribund Trafalgar Club, members of which contribute at least £15 a month in exchange for an annual dinner with speech by Nick Griffin, the party leader, usually in a smart country hotel, on the Saturday nearest to Trafalgar Day, 21 October.

Dowson has also put his staff onto increasing subscriptions to the party periodical Voice of Freedom as well as making begging phone calls for donations to fight the EHRC’s case against the BNP. In reality the funds are being raised to pay the EHRC’s costs, which are likely to be awarded against the BNP, after Griffin gave up the hopeless battle.

All these calls are made from the same telephone lines that the Dowson family use for their charity, anti-abortion work and the plumbing business run by James Dowson Jr. In overall charge of answering and dispatching calls to the correct part of the set-up is Marion Thomas, Dowson’s sister-in-law.

Marion Thomas is married to Alex Thomas, who acts as chair of Solas, a Northern Ireland charity, which he runs together with Dowson. Solas NI is a victim support group set up in 2003 to help bereaved and injured victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles. It says its aim is “to ensure that those most affected by the Troubles have recourse to a non-political and non-sectarian organisation which caters specifically for their needs”.

Solas operates from the same address and uses the same telephone number as another Dowson organisation, the Christian Youth Fellowship.

When Searchlight telephoned the number it was answered by a woman with a Scottish accent who gave her name as Marion. We then asked to speak to Jim [Dowson] and she proceeded to connect us.

Searchlight has discovered that up to March 2007 Solas received £111,479 of funding under a European Union programme for peace and reconciliation. The money, part of a £6.8 million allocation for projects in Northern Ireland in 2006-07, came via Proteus, an intermediate funding body.

Announcing the grants, Pat Donnelly, chief executive of Proteus, said: “There is real evidence that projects funded by PEACE II [the EU programme] have contributed to a significant change in mindset and created the necessary preconditions for genuine cooperation and improvements to take place”.

Dowson’s past record and current involvement with the racist BNP, which only seeks to divide communities, shows that cooperation is the last thing on his mind.

As well as controlling income coming in through the call centre, Dowson has placed his own accountant John Thompson to look after the BNP’s books. Thompson, who is based in Comber, also looks after the accounts for Alex Thomas and Dowson’s anti-abortion campaign, the UK LifeLeague.

Last April, Griffin announced that the “current and anticipated growth” of the BNP had necessitated the formation of a “full Treasury Department” headed by a professional chartered accountant”, whom he did not name. Thompson’s main achievement in that role appears to be the failure to produce the party’s 2008 accounts on time, incurring a fine of at least £1,000 under electoral legislation.

Thompson was supposed to work under the oversight of the BNP’s treasurer. At the time of his appointment this was one of the many party positions held by Simon Darby, the deputy leader. Thompson is believed to have clashed a number of times with Darby over the payment of bills, in particular to Romac Press Ltd in east Belfast, which now does the party’s printing, including the endless begging letters the party sends out to an esoteric mailing list.

It appears that Romac Press, which also prints for Dowson’s other operations, is being lined up to print Voice of Freedom. Senior party members on the mainland are said to be resisting the move, but Dowson hopes this may placate the owners who still have a large bill to be settled.

Senior BNP officers on the mainland have also voiced concern over the apparent independence of the Irish operation. They include Simon Bennett, the BNP’s webmaster, Eddy Butler, the national organiser, Martin Wingfield, the Communications and Campaigns Officer for the two BNP MEPs, and even Darby. Bennett is especially aggrieved because Dowson is earning commission on the money he raises for the party. Bennett was offered commission on donations raised through the BNP website but the party appears to have reneged on the promise.

Searchlight can reveal that it was Griffin’s sole decision to give Dowson free rein to run major BNP administrative functions. Perhaps it was to pacify them that the BNP announced in June the appointment of Emma Colgate as the party’s administration officer in place of “consultant Jim Dowson”, though in fact Dowson’s role has not changed.

Dowson’s remit is not limited to Northern Ireland, however. During the European election campaign the BNP announced proudly that it had acquired a number of office premises to house its growing operations, but kept the locations secret.

Searchlight has discovered that early this year the party leased three rooms in a smart building on the Salmon Springs Trading Estate in Stroud Gloucestershire for “training” at a cost of £5,000 per year. However it was not the BNP’s name on the tenancy but that of Adlorries.com. The three-year lease was a waste of the BNP’s money. Except for one meeting, at which the party sacked Michaela Mackenzie from her positions as administration officer and national nominating officer, the offices have remained unused and unfurnished.

West Midlands organiser Alwyn Deacon: runs a secondary BNP call centre in Nuneaton

It is different in Nuneaton, where the former pub landlord Alwyn Deacon is fronting the BNP’s merchandising operation, Excalibur, complete with a mini call centre with 20 phone lines, in a property leased in his own name from the local Conservative council in Slingsby Close on the Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate. Deacon and his wife follow a series of fundraising guidelines set down by Dowson, under which former customers of Excalibur as well as all other party members and even members of the UK Independence Party are bombarded with phone calls and special offers.

How the BNP will afford these new premises is unclear. Any attempt to hide the costs in the party’s expenses claims for the new MEPs would of course be fraudulent.

Partly to meet the concerns of members of the Party’s national advisory council about Dowson’s power in the party, Griffin’s daughter Jennifer and her new husband Angus Matthys moved into a flat in Comber last month to begin work at the Dundonald call centre. Ms Griffin, a former leader of the Young BNP, once manned the tills at the same Co-op store where her father was briefly employed. Now she is allegedly forging her father’s signature on the photograph of the revered leader that gold party members receive as thanks for their generosity.

Since moving to Northern Ireland, Jennifer is believed to have concurred with Arthur Kemp, the South African former apartheid intelligence agent who now edits the BNP website, that despite his father’s wishes, Dowson’s eldest son, James, could not be publicly anointed as the head of the BNP’s youth wing. The decision has apparently caused resentment in the Dowson family as the Griffin and Dowson heirs vie for supremacy in the call centre.

However, this has not stopped Mr and Mrs Matthys joining Dowson Jr as members of the Goldsprings “kick the Pope” marching and flute band, a clear sign that despite the BNP’s protestations to Anglo-Irish members on the mainland, a strict evangelical, racist and sectarian policy still runs through the very core of the BNP.

Another of Dowson’s religious cohorts unpopular with senior members on the mainland is Zak McAdam. An IT specialist who has clashed with the BNP’s webmaster Simon Bennett on a number of occasions, McAdam recently made a name for himself with a one-man campaign against lesbians and computer games. A number of holders of party laptops were furious to discover that they could not access pornography after McAdam blocked access to some of the party employees’ favourite porn sites.

Although the latest BNP membership list leak has been overshadowed by Griffin’s Question Time appearance, limiting the damage in terms of bad publicity, advisory council members are angry and are blaming Dowson for the embarrassing loss of data that were supposedly kept encrypted.

Wingfield, whose wife Tina used to be the party’s membership secretary, was the first to comment shortly before midnight on the eve of the anticipated leak. Wingfield blogged: “I know the leak certainly didn’t come from our end here.”

Days after Griffin’s disastrous performance on Question Time and the membership list loss, Jennifer and Angus Matthys attended this year’s Trafalgar Club dinner alongside Dowson at a smart country house hotel near Ross-on-Wye. The tension between senior BNP officers and Dowson, and the animosity between Griffin’s daughter and Dowson Jr, cannot have made for a congenial evening.

Searchlight thanks all the people in Northern Ireland and England who have helped in this investigation.