DEFENDING MURRAY NORTON by Tony Bellows

Dear Tony,

            I hope you don’t mind if I begin by introducing you to my readers. Tony is a 55 year old prolific author and blogger (Tony’s Musings). He lives on the Channel Island of Jersey and from what I’ve seen on the internet this could be in the running for the title of Cyber-bullying capital of the World.

       To use the island’s pet expression, if this is The Jersey Way it is nothing to be proud of.

       Anyway Tony the real point of this letter to you is to deal with the whitewash job you did on Murray Norton, the BBC Jersey Radio presenter, whose cyber-bullying activities were exposed by Britain’s Mail on Sunday to its 2-million odd readers. 

BREAKING: 30/10/2013 Norton announced on his 9-12 slot that this would  be his last day for the foreseeable future.

       And also of course on my blog (see Where have all the children gone? DID CYBER BULLIES KILL SIMON ABBOTT & CYBER WOLVES HUNTING SIMON ABBOTT).

       Your version made him whiter than the best washing powder could ever do.

BBC Jersey Radio presenter MURRAY NORTON

       Surely Norton is big enough to stand up for himself. I gather he wouldn’t speak to the Mail on Sunday, which speaks volumes. And when Simon sued him for libel he justified nothing in his answering affidavit, but merely denied all Simon’s allegations.

       On your blog you say that my son had decided to sue those who had unwisely used robust language in describing him. You neglected to mention that Norton was one of them.

       And if there was nothing basically wrong with what had been said why did you describe its use as unwise?

       By a strange coincidence robust language is exactly how Jon Gripton, Norton’s BBC boss, described what Norton used when he ruled that this had not been cyber-bullying. 

       Was that once again the Jersey Way I wondered?

       You excuse the use of the word con by saying: Some of the language used may have been provocative, but Mr Abbott’s rebuff against legitimate questions probably caused that.

       What obligation did my son have to explain himself to people, many of whom he had probably never met, when they were slating him on the internet?

You added: The essence of Twitter is brevity, and while the word ‘con’ may not imply a criminal scam, that is not always apparent.

       If you think that the use of the word con can have another meaning other than that the person is a crook then you are in Jersey fairyland. And Twitter’s brevity is not an excuse for indelibly staining somebody’s character.  

Con man, con artist or con merchant is a person who swindles others by means of deception or fraud. In other words a crook. 

       Elsewhere you say: We have to look at the parameters of deception. It is pretty clear that Mr Abbott was not an outright conman (is there a difference between this and an ordinary conman?), aiming to swindle people of goods and funds and make a tidy profit. But there are other kinds of deception, such as continuing to promote events while aware of financial mismanagement because of accounting ineptitude. That is not deliberate deception, but it is hiding the true state of affairs.

       You were doing everything you could to put a dishonesty label on him. He was trying various schemes in an effort to get one to work. And he didn’t have to do much accounting because he hardly made any money.

But in doing so he never defrauded anybody. In fact he said in a statement I have that if tickets were sold for events that never took place he always gave people their money back.

       You say you have been unable to trace what happened to various donations such as 10 300 bottles of spring water; 10 000 finger rolls and 7 500 sachets of sun tan cream which were promised for Simon’s World’s Largest Picnic event

       Well Simon didn’t take them. In his answer from the dead (his statement which I have) he said: I have records of all the offers of sponsorship, but I did not have to call on these offers as the event did not take place.

       He explained he had applied for a Public Events Licence with a very detailed plan. But as the people who had volunteered to help him fell away he was left on his own and that’s why it was turned down by the Bailiff’s Entertainment panel.    

     

SIMON

  You complained that the Mail on Sunday article put the failure of all Mr Abbot’s (‘t’ for two please) fund raising down to the intervention of Mr Norton. This most emphatically is not the case.

       So you kicked off your post by seeing something that was not there just as the cyber-bullies did in my son’s case. And you continued doing this throughout your defence of Norton.

       Inevitably you left out things that might have been detrimental to Norton while at the same time you complained that the paper had not given the complete picture.

It quotes me as saying that Simon’s schemes failed to raise money, partly due to his own shortcomings and partly because it was an impossible task to make a success of any project being slated on the internet.

       How can this possible mean that Norton stymied all Simon’s fund raising efforts.

       You quote Simon as saying in court papers: People think I am a conman, dishonest, and even that I make up the death of my sister. Because he (Norton) works for the BBC everyone follows he (sic) and joins in.

       You interpreted this as meaning that Simon was accusing Norton of saying this about his sister when he was referring to people in general as having said this.

       And you defended Norton, as you did throughout your post, by saying: There is no evidence at all that Mr Norton made any accusations against Mr Abbott that he made up the death of his sister.

       Of course there wasn’t and Simon never said there was.

       I dealt quite extensively in a previous post (CYBER WOLVES HUNTING SIMON ABBOTT) about how Norton arranged for his photographer friend Ian le Sueur to be at St Thomas Church so he could snatch a picture of Simon during his meeting with Norton.

Flash LE SUEUR in  the shadows

       But you didn’t mention anything about Le Sueur even being there or that the photograph was then put on Twitter to make Simon’s life a further hell.

       As Norton and Le Sueur were clearly acting together they are equally responsible for what each of them did with that picture.

       But according to your version of this meeting Norton did everything right.

    

Snatched pic of SIMON

  
       Norton agreed to meet Simon alone, but you say Norton turned up with a few people to witness the meeting, and make sure it was properly recorded.

       Of course this wouldn’t have been the least bit intimidating for Simon.

       You quote this online message which you say was purportedly written by the radio host: Simon, if you are reading this - which my friends, he might be – give it up, come clean on the finances of the Trust, put the items you claim to have from the famous to good use. I’ll auction them for some people in real need instead of false events that help no one.

       You go on to imply that this couldn’t be any kind of bullying as the Mail did not make it clear how this could be deemed harassment.

IAN LE SUEUR exposed

       What about this that formed part of the quote that you used only part of: I have pretty well run out of patience with this guy. I’ve met him, tried to help him and he even had the cheek to complain to the BBC that I’m harassing him. The Police and the press and possibly the taxation authorities must be sent all the complaints, with hard evidence that Simon has actually done something wrong. I will once again ask Jersey Police if they have any further thoughts on him.

       If that’s not harassment I don’t know what is, especially as there was absolutely no evidence to warrant any kind of Police intervention.

       Here’s a sample taken from the court records of a few more comments from Norton and others, who climbed on this trolling wagon so ably led by the presenter. They were made in about September 2011, when Simon was trying to organise a fund raising event in Guernsey.

       Norton: Our friend Simon Abbott - For those wishing for an update on what the Samantha Abbot Trust is doing - it does appear he is attempting to hold a Fashion Show … in Guernsey.

       Fran Torode: Thanks for the warning!!!

       Fran Torode: Yes please, I want to spread the wraning (sic).

       Paula Jayne Richford: Oh Maureen, if it wasn’t so awful, it’d be laugh out loud and pee your panties funny!! I’m going to spread the word.

       Norton: As we find out more we will publish … just thought you should know - it won’t happen - these events never do.

*    *   *   *

       Norton: Well he’ll have to find another venue now! The (sic) have been asking about him and I don’t think they like what they’ve heard so far!

       Karen Slater: When are we going to be able to put a stop to this man Murray you have done a great job so far can’t our local police sort  him out x

       Daniel Straiton: Thanks for the update will make sure I pass the info on. I don’t know about a film being made maybe a cartoon “Looney Tunes”

       Fran Torode: the total complete fraud - you’d think he should be inside for this??

       Christophe Chateau: Am tagging some Guernsey friends in this message so they can read the posts above and be forewarned Avril Earl, David Earl please pass onto any Guernsey contact!

       Liz Walton: We’ll keep an eye out over here Murray. Thanks for the tip off.

       Liz Walton: I have posted a warning to my Guernsey friends.

IS THIS HARRASSMENT TONY OR WAS IT JUST ‘ROBUST LANGUAGE’?

      

       There was a lot more similar stuff on both Facebook and Twitter. Here’s a few of Ellen Vincent beauties that were on Facebook:

       Ellen Vincent: Is that Simon Abbott not on facebook himself he’s only set up a page for his sister so as to con us honest jersey people out of our money!!!! What a sicko he couldn’t have really loved his sister to use her name in this way.

       Ellen Vincent: I’ve just been blocked by simon abbott from his sisters page for questioning him about his bad intentions.no one give this man money if you want to donate do it with respectable valid charity not his car crash im(sic) starting to doubt he even had a sister and hes(sic) just a typical con man (There’s the quote Tony that you blamed Simon for attributing to Norton)

       Ellen Vincent: excactly(sic) who will take up the challenge of opening the simon abbott is a conman page and then we could set up a charity fight between him and some big f.k.r and all proceeds will go to charity without fail lol

IS THIS HARRASSMENT TONY OR IS IT STILL JUST ‘ROBUST LANGUAGE’?

       You say there is no evidence of continual and mass harassment by Tweets of the kind suffered by, for instance, the historian Mary Beard. 

Just because Simon didn’t receive a bomb threat the harassing he did get seems to have been alright in your eyes, even though at least one Tweet suggested he should be assaulted.

       You also accuse me of letting my grief be channelled into an outburst of hate against Mr Norton.

TONY BELLOWS defender of the defenceless

       You once again jumped to the wrong conclusion. I could hardly hate Norton as I had never heard of him until after my son died and nor have I ever met him.

       But I believe that if you have a job as a BBC presenter you should be a lot more responsible than to take part in cyber-bulling of this kind, because it reflects not only on your own moral standing, but on the BBC’s as well.

       And that’s why I felt this type of bulling, which he was part of, should be exposed in an effort to stop it happening again as it clearly must have pushed my son over the edge.

       Regards,

       Jon

               P.S. You wouldn't by any chance be Norton's friend?

*NOTE: I have had numerous comments for the posts about my son Simon being cyber-bullied to death. The majority were from Jersey's largest family - ANONYMOUS.  Only a few people had the guts to be named. When I asked a Jersey resident why so few people there were prepared to come out of the shadows he replied: Because they lack testicular fortitude.