SERIAL BULLY STANDING FOR PARLIAMENT

Dear Readers,

          Given a bit of power some people just can’t help abusing it. Such a person is Murray Norton, a former BBC Radio Jersey presenter, who is standing in the October election for the States of Jersey, as the parliament in this Channel Island is called.

          My son Simon Abbott died of a heart attack in Jersey aged 47 having been relentlessly cyber-bullied in the last two years of his life. And there is ample evidence to show what stress does to your heart.

Norton led the charge ably assisted by his photographer friend Ian le Sueur.

          Simon’s crime in the eyes of Norton and his followers was that he unsuccessfully tried to raise money for the trust he established to help women suffering from post natal depression. He did this in memory of his sister Samantha who committed suicide a few months after the birth of her first child.

      

  
         Norton had the power of the BBC behind him at the time the cyber-bullying occurred. And after Simon and I complained the Corporation’s highest authority the BBC Trust took the absurd decision that although its top executives had made Norton stop what he was doing, he had not been a cyber-bully (See BBC’s FINAL WHITEWASH JOB).

          It now turns out that Norton’s bullying extends to more than just social media. He is versatile when it comes to this most cowardly of activities.

          Norton says he has now retired from broadcasting after being a presenter for BBC Radio Jersey and Channel 103 FM. He claims credit for having been involved in charity fund raising for more than 30 years.

          On his blog Stuart Syvret, a former Minister of Health, who was forced out of office for trying to expose corruption by the powerful feudal Establishment that controls the Island, had this to say about Norton.

          Murray is a tireless charity fundraiser even to the extent of taking part in the cyber-bullying campaign of a less successful charity fund raiser in the hope that the unfortunate Simon Abbott would put the donated goods he received into Murray’s far more capable hands (See DID CYBER-BULLIES KILL SIMON ABBOTT).

          We understand that Murray took an active part in the campaign even to the extent of tricking the ill Mr Abbott out of hiding so that Murray’s photographer friend Ian Le Sueur could take an illicit picture of him.

          If Murray has ever expressed contrition for his part in this I have yet to see it.          

          Murray was joined in his efforts by some of the usual suspects including the voluptuous and colourful Maureen Morgan, who is a fortune teller and dildo saleswoman (See JERSEY’S SU-MO WITCH MORGAN GETS THE BOOT).

       

   Unlike the flaky Morgan, Murray is surely a shoe in with the dopey electorate of middle Jersey. With Murray the Establishment’s future will be in safe hands and the ill-informed will continue to enjoy the government they deserve.

          I always thought Norton was part of the Establishment. That explained why he was protected by the BBC and why the Police refused to take any action against him when Simon complained about being cyber-bullied (See JERSEY’S TWO FACED COPS).

          It also told me why the Establishment’s newspaper the Jersey Evening Post failed to report a line about the cyber-bullying libel case Simon brought in Jersey’s Royal Court against Norton, Le Sueur, Morgan and several others (See JERSEY EVENING POST – THE ONE EYED PAPER).

Norton owns two restaurants on the Island, Murray’s and Mash. And it was his fascist, Jackboot treatment of his staff that was recently exposed in the blog of Nick Le Cornu, a member of the Island’s parliament.

          As a lawyer Le Cornu represented some of Norton’s bullied staff at the local Employment Tribunal. They were what Le Cornu described as disgruntled Romanians complaining of poor employment practices and an arbitrary hire and fire culture.

          Apparently Norton had complained that the locals were work-shy and that was evidently why he employed immigrants from Rumania.

          Blaming locals and saying they don’t have the work ethic to work hard, is a way of disguising the fact that employers want a workforce that does not complain about poor treatment, low wages and long and often anti social hours, Le Cornu claimed.

          Here are examples of what it is like to work for a serial bully.

          Eduard Brailescu, a chef, was summarily dismissed in September 2013 after not turning up for a morning shift at Murray’s. He had contacted the manager the previous evening saying that his landlord required him to vacate his room and the new accommodation he had found fell through, obliging him to search again urgently.

          His shift was easily covered between the head chef and another one.

          However this was not good enough for our serial bully. When Norton, who was on holiday in France, heard what had happened he instructed his manager to immediately fire the Romanian and employ another chef who had worked there before.

          To rub it in our power hungry serial bully refused to pay Eduard his month’s wages to the date of his dismissal.

          The Tribunal only awarded Eduard his unpaid wages and holiday pay, but significantly Le Cornu added, At the time of writing this remains unpaid.

          Another case involved a Romanian kitchen porter working at Mash who over slept and missed his morning shift when his mobile alarm failed to go off because the battery was flat. He charged it and rang to apologise only to be told to come in the next morning. He was then sacked and received no wages for hours worked or in lieu of notice. This was settled out of court.

          A Romanian waitress employed on a full time permanent contract at Murray’s also got the bully’s Nazi treatment when she refused to sign a new short term contract that would have terminated at the end of the season. She was given notice and dismissed on the same day as her proposed temporary contract would have ended.

          But as other people have proved in Jersey if you are part of the Establishment you can virtually get away with murder.

          Hopefully when it comes to the election the locals will remember that Norton doesn’t think much of them as a work force and that they will cast their votes accordingly.

          Regards,

          Jon

P.S. Morgan recently stood unsuccessfully for the Jersey parliament, but with the backing of the Establishment the serial bully will unfortunately probably have better luck. But that’s the ‘Jersey Way’ as they say in this cyber-bullying capital of the world where a brave few are battling to get a semblance of justice from the administration.

   

                    

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. 
                                                      

CYBER WOLVES HUNTING SIMON ABBOTT

Dear Readers,

This is Part 2 of an extensive investigation that will hopefully help to one day make cyber-bullying a criminal offence in every civilised country in the world.

NOBODY SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO DIE THIS WAY 

There’s lots more to come so keep looking at my Blog

         Cyber wolves do what wolves do everywhere; they hunt in packs. And the one in the Channel Island of Jersey (See my posts Did cyber-bullies kill Simon Abbott? & Where have all the children gone?) led by BBC Radio Jersey presenter Murray Norton was no exception.

The joke's on NORTON now

         So when Norton the alpha male and his second in command photographer Ian Le Sueur decided to up their cyber-bullying campaign against my son Simon Abbott they got together to ambush him at a church in St Helier, Jersey’s capital.

LE SUEUR, cyber-bullying is not a pretty picture



         And Le Sueur stated in an email that Murray Norton asked me to go along with the camera.


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

         In documents that were lodged in Jersey’s Royal Court Simon described what happened. Murray Norton said he heard from people that I was dishonest, which I am not, so I said I would meet him at St Thomas Church, a private place, and not to tell anyone where we were meeting and that I would bring along Trust documents.

         These were from the Samantha Abbott Trust which Simon had set up in memory of his dead sister to raise money for women suffering from postal natal depression. Norton and his cronies had been doing their best to destroy the Trust by posting numerous social media comments claiming that Simon was only collecting money for himself and was giving nothing to charity - allegations which were totally unfounded.    

         I took along evidence of the authenticity of the clothes donated to the Trust including Leona Lewis’ dress, Simon continued.

         Miraculously he had got a host of top celebrities to donate items of clothing which he had planned to auction at his Jersey Fashion Show. But this never took place because of all the adverse comments on Facebook and Twitter.

SIMON on TV to promote his Trust

         Norton agreed not to mention where we were meeting at 10.00 am on Thursday, Simon went on. At 9.45 that morning I received a phone call from Jeremy Philips at the Police warning me that Norton had posted on Facebook where we were going to meet and the time, and that there could be a ‘lynch mob’ waiting for me.

         I rang Norton and asked what the hell he was doing posting this on Facebook. He said he had made a stupid mistake and later removed this. But it was too late as everyone on Facebook knew where we were meeting and the time.  

         I asked Murray who was at the church and he said ‘No one’. I then made my way to the side entrance. There was a group of about eight people on one street corner, another group of about five on the other side of the street and some people outside the church including a Policeman in uniform and I believe other plain clothed Police.

         He saw Norton in the car park just as he was phoning him to find out where he was. The two of them then went into the church and sat as far as possible from the entrance in the empty building.

         Norton asked Simon a number of questions some of which he said yes to and others where people had posted libellous comments he said no to.

         As they were leaving the church there was a flash of light from a group of people across the road. Simon darted back inside the building and asked Norton who the people were who had taken a picture of him. Norton at first said he didn’t know and then, when Simon asked him again he said it was Le Sueur.

         You just said you didn’t know who it was and now you say it’s Le Sueur, Simon told him. Norton replied that he had brought Le Sueur with him to prove they had met otherwise nobody would believe him.

         I told Norton not to put my picture anywhere, especially on the internet, Simon wrote. I later found out Le Sueur was inside the church taking pictures of me which he has now put on the internet causing me stress and anxiety.

SIMON in the church

         After the meeting Simon claimed Norton continued with comments on his personal profile wall saying no one would ever trust me and that I should hand over to him all the donations from the celebrities, raffle and auction prizes too, and he would auction them off on BBC radio and give the money to 10 of his chosen charities, worthwhile charities unlike the Samantha Abbott Trust

         Simon added, I didn’t give in to his demands and still have ALL the donations.

         As there was no evidence to support the libellous claims even Le Sueur concede in an email about Simon that there is nothing there (on social media) to suggest to us, that other than circumstantial evidence, he has, or is out to cause harm to anyone he befriends. The email was one he sent to somebody called Kelly as part of their efforts to prevent unsuspecting people falling foul of Simon Abbott.

         The snatched photograph Le Sueur took of Simon was then put on Twitter to enable other members of the pack to recognise Simon when he left his home so that he could be harassed even more on social media. And that was one of the reasons why he was too scared to leave his home unaccompanied in the months before he died in June this year.

         On 6 February 2012 Simon sent a desperate email to his advocate William Grace saying Ian le Sueur has spent the whole weekend spamming Twitter with my picture saying I’m a con man, conning items out of celebs and duping people out of hard earned money.

         Le Sueur had been hiding his identity behind the profile name Fashion_Juice.

Even on his own KADIDPRINTS website
 LE SUEUR is too ashamed to show himself

         I refuse to let this go on a minute longer and am requesting you to send him a letter on Monday please, otherwise I will be sending him a letter, Simon’s email continued.

         We worked out that his tweets will have been seen by over 500 000 people now. He is a sick, vile piece of scum taking a picture of me in St Thomas Church and spreading it across the internet as a con man etc. Enough is enough, I have put up with it for a year and Monday it stops. 

         WHAT’S YOUR OPINION OF THIS DEAR READER? IF YOU ARE PERFECTLY FIT AND ARE SUBJECTED TO THIS KIND OF DEPLORABLE CYBER-BULLING WOULDN’T IT AFFECT YOUR HEALTH?     AND IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A HEART PROBLEM WOULDN’T IT TIP YOU OVER THE EDGE?

         Regards,

         Jon, Simon’s father who is having great difficulty in coming to terms with what happened and the incredible fact that on a tiny island the authorities did nothing to stop his son being cyber-bullied to death over a period of two years or more. 

P.S. Note that I am not ‘Anonymous’ and nor am I hiding behind a false name like so many of the cyber-bully cowards do in Jersey.