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Darius Guppy writes to us again

The questions remain though, Tim:

Why did you take the word of a proven fantasist, liar and police informer at face value and without a jot of corroborating evidence in support of his claims? And what exactly are you doing in bed with such a deeply unsavoury nonentity?

Well, lessee.

Individual I\’ve never met (let alone got into bed with) who I\’ve found to be an amusing correspondent on this here internet against convicted insurance fraudster and would be beater up of journalists.

Tough one Darius, tough one.

34 thoughts on “Darius Guppy writes to us again”

  1. Poor Darius. No-one ever told him that when one finds oneself in a hole, the thing to do is not to bellow for an even bigger shovel…

  2. Surreptitious Evil

    Christ, he whitters on, doesn’t he.

    And double posts, or is that my brain giving up under the strain?

    I couldn’t see any “proof” either – plenty of assertion (which may or may not be true) but as we well know from ‘discussions’ here, that’s not the same thing.

  3. Just been doing a little digging and thought this might be of marginal interest to some. A quote from Hansard (House of Lords edition) during discussion of the Health and Social Security Bill 1984, Section 1075:

    “I want to refer briefly to some of the arguments that we have heard in the Committee tonight against this extension of personal freedom and personal economy, some of which the noble Lord, Lord Northfield, has already dealt with. I do not think that we need delay ourselves over the proposition that there is any danger of people damaging their eyes by acquiring glasses in the way in which I acquired mine, because at the trial of Mr. Risdon for his open defiance of the 1958 Act the President of the Ophthalmological Society (I hope I have the title right) acknowledged in court that there was no possibility of damage to adult eyesight from the acquisition of the sort of spectacles which Mr. Risdon was offering to his public. Frankly, I do not think that anybody this evening has attempted to refute that proposition, though they have made other allegations, to which I shall refer.”

    I haven’t read the whole debate but it does, on the face of it, look like the influence of one Peter Risdon on the change in law was not invented by Mr Risdon.

  4. “Why did you take the word of a proven fantasist, liar and police informer “

    The police are often arseholes but in general informing them of serious criminal activities is laudable. Yet to Guppy it is on a par with being a fantasist and liar.

    Mind you Guppy isn’t really against lying.

  5. I always presumed Darius Guppy was a character from that cartoon series that features an animated sponge.
    His parents must have really had it in for him.

  6. A few more references to the spectacles business are online, though they all seem to be from the Lords. My actions were also discussed in the Commons, where Kenneth Clarke said he was aware of the “Risdon affair” as the government changed to Health and Social Security Bill 1983 to permit the sale of reading glasses.

    It’s hard to imagine what Darius thinks he will achieve by denying things that are in the public record although, from my point of view, it’s pleasing that he has been making it so clear who the fantasist is round here.

  7. Well, lessee….

    How many of the posts above come from our friend Peter ‘Norman’ Risdon one wonders? He has a long history of this after all.

    See: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com for some amusing examples.

    You’re beginning to look as obsessed as him, Tim.

    And you share the same, girly tendency for panic. It only takes the Telegraph or Independent to publish an article by DG and it’s “Battle stations!” “All systems go!” “Red alert!” “Emergency!”

    Just as with Risdon, entire blogs are dedicated to DG, comments posted using pseudonyms on newspaper websites, and all within minutes. If you were more self-aware you’d see how much it looks like envy. In fact, were the implications not so distasteful, one would swear you were in love.

    By contrast Tim, tell us, how many blogs has DG dedicated to you? How many postings or tweets?

    Nil at the last count.

    Perhaps you’re just not important enough.

    (Surely not!)

    You’re also beginning to look as dishonest as Peter Risdon.

    You know full well that he was caught bang to rights posting a fraudulent claim about himself on the internet in his typically asinine way (the original subject of this thread) and you also know full well that you were rumbled falling for it.

    As was proven, it was Risdon who planted the original claim about himself on Wikipedia and Patrick Trevor Roper himself made no mention of Risdon in his recounting of the events in question nor any of Trevor Roper’s obituaries. To be fined a few hundred quid for selling some spectacles illegally is not at all the same thing as single-handedly “breaking the opitician’s monopoly” as he put it.

    In fact he was fined much more as well as being disqualified from being a company director by the DTI for ripping off the Revenue! (see Exhibits 50 and 51 in the nobodylikesagrass website).

    Needless to say no mention of this rather inconvenient fact in his recollections.

    But you should be more of a man Tim and admit when you’ve got it wrong. To use your own words:

    “Interviewer: What would be your main blogging advice to a novice blogger?

    Worstall: You will make mistakes and the correct response is just as Mother always told you. Admit it, apologize, make what amends are possible and promise not to do it again. This has a somewhat wider usefulness than blogging of course.”

    Quite brilliant,Tim.

    So, here’s the real answer to the questions that were put to you:

    The real reason you took the assertions of a proven fantasist, petty criminal and police informer (Risdon) at face value and the real reason you’re in bed with the man is that you identify with him:

    Bit of a reject. Generally rather unprepossessing. Same Beta Male chippiness. Resentment at your inadequacy and so on.

    But don’t fret about it Tim. If you pray hard enough, who knows, in the next life perhaps people will take you seriously as an economist, and if you’re really lucky you might even get into Eton.

    Your unconvincing distaste for ‘criminality’ is equally dishonest of course, and unconvincing – just like your economic arguments – on account of its inconsistency. Because if that distaste was genuine then it would be directed against your mate Risdon before anyone else, a man who, as all the evidence shows, has been spared numerous jail terms for a lifetime of petty criminality for only one reason: that he is a paid and registered police informant. An informant who grassed not only on DG but on numerous others, not out of any sense of civic duty, but to save his skin (see, for example, what his own business partner has to say about him in Exhibits 2 and 3 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

    And that’s not a nice person for you to be fiddling with on the internet, Tim.

    The truth of the matter is that your moral posturing is bogus, that you have no real moral compass, no genuine sense of right and wrong, true and false, good and evil. For you the world is divided into the few like Risdon who suck up to you on your blog because they don’t have any other friends, and then the rest of us who recognise you for the second-rate you are.

    So why don’t we leave it like this?

    You claim to be a fan of evidence.

    Good.

    In that case let the very few people who visit this page refer to the following links as samples:

    http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zS5cnNFtnaw
    https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/
    http://www.populartechnology.net/2011/06/origin-of-popular-technologynet-peer.html

    And let them judge for themselves.

    (And none of the usual Peter Risdon responses please such as “you’re so brave, Peter!” where he uses female aliases).

    Tim adds: Wouldn’t want to go to Eton though Darius. Downside was just fine for me: I never felt the temptation to pull an insurance fraud to keep up with my schoolmates in later life.

  8. Instead you just felt the urge to fail in everything you put your hand to – just like Risdon – and to be bitter about it.

    But don’t worry, Tim. Perhaps you’ll get into Eton in the next life. Maybe even the Bullingdon.

    In the meantime, the inconvenient facts:-

    Number of blogs, tweets, postings using pseudonyms dedicated by you to DG: we’ve lost count.

    Number of blogs, tweets, postings using pseudonyms dedicated by DG to you: zero.

    Conclusion: the fascination is unreciprocated.

    Now face it and get over it.

  9. Guppy is obsessed, isn’t he?

    Here’s a fun fact: He claimed to have committed fraud in New York in revenge for losses his father suffered in the Lloyds crash.

    The NY robbery was in March 1990. The Lloyds losses appeared in the 1991 accounts.

    Impressive psychic powers, I hope you will agree.

  10. Incorrect, Risdon. The main spate of Lloyds losses against The ‘names’ began in the late 1980s and DG’s father incurred his first serious losses as early as 1983, facts which were verified lawyers who had to give DG autobiography a clean bill of health on account of its serious allegations against Lloyds, who never sued DG for his claims. In addition both the Trial Judge and the Court of Appeal accepted Marsh’s explanation of events (DG’s co-defendant) which included DG’s personal motivations against Lloyds as entirely truthful and having “gone the whole way.” (See http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com as well as the extensive media reporting at the time). Personal Letters from the Lloyds agent involved in DG’s father’s underwriting were also shown as evidence to lawyers to substantiate DG’s claims.

    We’ve been here before, haven’t we Tim? See another libel for which Risdon was successfully sued for defamation by DG in Exhibit 53 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Returning to the substance of this particular thread: Risdon’s claim that he single-handedly “broke the optician’s monopoly”, a ludicrous claim which it was proved was planted by Risdon, here – https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/

    Now Tim that you will have had time to compose yourself after the initial panic upon the appearance of DG’s article in the Independent, look again at some of the comments above. How typically Risdonian in their cack-handedness. Take for example the comment by ‘Anthony’

    Now what are the chances that some random member of the public on a Sunday morning, coincidentally on the day that the Independent publish an article by DG, will have trawled through some Hansard publications dating back decades regarding a total nonentity like Peter Risdon? A million to one?

    It’s so Risdon in its hamfistedness, it’s embarrassing.

    For the very few people who will be reading this, let’s clarify the facts once again, therefore.

    Refer to:
    https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/

    As already stated, here it is proven that Risdon was the one who planted this lie. Risdon did NOT ‘break the opticians’ monopoly’ as he claimed. He was fined the equivalent of a car clamping fee for selling some spectacles illegally. In fact, the real person involved in challenging the opticians’ monopoly, Patrick Trevor Roper, had no recollection whatsoever of Risdon’s invented role!

    Indeed, Risdon was fined far more and disqualified from being a company director when he was prosecuted by the DTI for ripping off the Revenue some 300,000 pounds – something he conveniently forgot to mention in his recounting of his glittering entrepreneurial career (See Exhibits 50 & 51 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

    That glittering career also saw a number of other companies run by him forced into bankruptcy. Other inconvenient facts omitted by Risdon in his recounting of his Alan Sugar like skills include how he ripped off his company’s suppliers and his business partners, how he forged his business partner’s signature on cheques, how he stole from the tenants of his business premises, how he participated in an armed robbery in Scotland, how he attempted the most hilariously inept insurance fraud involving a large uncut diamond, how he fantasised about kidnapping and blackmailing DG. The list is endless. See his own business partner’s affidavit for example in Exhibit 2 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Other interesting contradictions and omissions. Risdon claims to be a supporter of ‘free speech’ and oppressed peoples such as Iranians under the current regime, for example. But this coming from the man who fantasised about supplying arms to despotic regimes in Africa. (See Exhibits 2 & 3 from the nobodylikesagrass website, for example). Admittedly when he went to the Ministry of Defence to elaborate on his schemes he was written off as a nut but the point is that those schemes reveal his instincts however potty they were.

    The truth is that Risdon has been exposed as a registered and paid police informant and petty criminal, Tim, and he’s ruined his life. He’s known as a filthy snitch, he’s failed in everything he’s touched, he lives in a grubby squat and his neighbours think he’s a weirdo.

    But he has no one to blame but himself.

    Moral of the story:

    Don’t grass; don’t be a total incompetent and, having grassed, don’t then make matters worse for yourself by coming up with excuses for your actions that a 5 year old would see through.

  11. Yes, ‘fact checker’ was me, the only time I’ve used a false name like that – and I mailed Worstall to let him know because it sat uneasily with me. I had thought I might float this without the personal stuff, but was forgetting Guppy’s insane paranoia. He sees me everywhere, including in the telegraph’s comments and in a comment above in this thread.

    Lloyds run a 3 year accounting cycle. The 1988 to 1990 losses were announced in 1991. They were still being announced in 1993 and allegations of fraud were made because of these delays. There’d been ups and downs before but that was when the ‘Lloyds losses’ scandal began.

    Don’t wibble about libel, Guppy. Using it cynically to try to suppress valid criticism doesn’t make you knowledgeable about it as law, as you just showed. Falsely stating that this was your motive would libel nobody.

    Let’s look at falsehood further. Another Guppy thread is that he committed the perfect crime until betrayed by me. Before I spoke to the police he was already on bail for smuggling and VAT fraud, everyone had realised the earlier ‘robbery’ must have been a fraud. Marcus Scriven in the Standard was hinting about it, the first thing Clive Goodman said to me when I went to him with that tape was ‘When is Guppy going to be arrested for New York?’. All before I spoke to the police.

    Before that, the NY police hadn’t bought it. The telexed Scotland Yard for background. Interesting reasons why – they included the fact that Guppy and Marsh had used a phrase in their account of the ‘robbers’ that doesn’t appear in American English.

    OK, North Africa, Guppy is confused, as seems often to be the case these days. It was Lebanon. I was asked to provide training services to a militia during the civil war, because one of my employees in my CCTV business knew I had a business association with some people in Hereford and that they were trying to sell training. I went to King Charles Street and was told ‘It would be illegal for you to do it, but if you were to we’d be interested in knowing what’s happening’. I didn’t do it.

    Maybe you’re thinking of the chap who wanted to sell armoured cars to Iraq during the Iran Iraq War, oh Iranian patriot. Who was that now…?

  12. Oh did I mention this? Guppy is a liar. If his allegations against me were true he’d write them under his own name. Instead, he’s falling back on the evidence of his pedophile friend Tom.

    I’ve lost touch now – is he still selling dope to underage girls, in exchange for sex, Darius? I ended my association with him when I found about about that. How about you?

  13. It’s pointless rehearsing these issues over and over again Tim.

    We’ve been here a thousand times before and the evidence is laid out clearly in:

    http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Let readers judge for themselves.

    Risdon doesn’t like mention of libel actions because it’s inconvenient.

    Again, the indisputable evidence:

    Exhibit 53, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Regarding Lloyds, again the evidence was laid out in mitigation at DG and BM’s sentencing and is a matter of public record. Letters from Lloyds’ agents to DG’s parents were even adduced dating back to 1983 (and could easily be published on line).

    The idea that Lloyds or the police had their suspicions about the New York robbery is again typical of Risdon’s stupidity. Lloyds would never have paid and the loss adjusters would never have written that the police were convinced of the autenticity of the robbery – and certainly not within 6 weeks of it occurring!

    Once again, the evidence:

    Exhibits 55 & 57 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Risdon’s libels against a man (Tom McLaine) who has been dead several years is again, typical of the man’s cowardice and backed up as usual by zero evidence. Anyone can write anything about anyone on the internet without evidence as is Risdon’s speciality – let’s see his evidence, please. It would have been far braver of ‘Freeborn John’ to libel the man at the time and to his face. But he didn’t. And why not? Because he would have been knocked unconscious within 2 seconds!

    And the circumstances of Risdon’s arrest on an attempted insurance fraud and the circumstances of his grassing are again very, very clear

    See, for example, exhibits 1, 8, 9, and 10 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Returning to Risdon’s posting as ‘factchecker’:

    In many ways we’re actually very privileged, Tim, because in Peter Risdon we witness idiocy which is simply world class.

    Just look at the man’s hypocrisy:

    Talk about being “obsessed” as Risdon does, Tim, see his truly tragic site with his numerous references to DG.

    Or see the comments sections at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/darius-guppy-if-we-go-to-war-with-iran-im-in-trouble-2296479.html or http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/darius-guppy-growth–it-aint-happening-2295967.html

    Alan G, Jim 2509, Johnny Singapore – he’s such a weakling isn’t he, Tim?

    Again, we’ve been here before haven’t we? See Exhibits 58 & 59 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com, for example.
    Even his own business partner describes Risdon’s tendency to become obsessed with certain types of individual (See Exhibit 2). In fact it was Risdon’s obsessiveness that landed him in hot water and enabled DG to sue him successfully for libel (See Exhibit 53 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com).

    As for chronological incompetence, this is Peter Risdon’s speciality. See the nobodylikesagrass.com website for numerous examples.

    To take only one: Exhibit 48 where Risdon writes a review for the Daily Express claiming that he handed DG in to the authorities a mere one month after a gemstone robbery in New York and having undergone “much soul searching.” Not quite – he grassed DG and his colleagues up a full year after the events in question when he was busted for attempting the most incompetent fraud imaginable involving a large uncut diamond!

    And, on the subject of “psychic powers”, Risdon’s very own police handlers predicted that he’d end up a lonely “zero” living on his own “in a little flat somewhere” (to quote one of them directly).

    Actually, no, that one didn’t need psychic powers. It was pretty obvious from the outset that this was his destiny.

  14. Having re-read Risdon’s post, we’ve noted Risdon’s allegation regarding “armoured cars to Iraq.”

    Refer, Tim, to Exhibit 53, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Here Risdon accused DG of trashing his car with paint stripper. He claimed to possess “evidence” in the form of a Police Investigation and a British Telecom phone call trace that proved DG’s guilt but was proven as a liar.

    He provided not one jot of evidence and was forced to pay out damages as well as withdrawing the libellous posts from his website.

    Risdon should therefore be very careful because he is opening himself up to a claim for aggravated damages having already been succesfully sued for defamation in similar circumstances.

    So we challenge him:

    Provide one ayota of evidence in respect of this allegation.

  15. You’re lying again, Guppy. The only thing I’d written that would have been hard to stand up in court was the definite statement you hired people to throw paint stripper over the car. I can’t prove that, it’s just an assumption, however reasonable. So I paid £500 to a charity, not in damages, to make you piss off. No retraction, no apology. I was not sued and invited you to take me to court on every other ground you complained about. The only reason I caved in on that point was the obvious difficulty recovering costs from you would present. You have been reported as having all your assets hidden in ways not normally associated with honest activity.

    Now, dickhead: in what way would an allegation that you had talked about selling armoured cars to Iraq be defamatory in your case? Only this year you went out of your way to drop hints in a media interview that you are engaged in illegal supplies to Iran, supplies that have greater importance in the context of warfare.

    (PS: It’s ‘iota’)

  16. A couple of further questions for Guppy:

    Are you aware that harassment of a prosecution witness is a serious criminal offence?

    What syndicates was your father a member of and when, exactly, was he notified of any losses?

    Where’s your perfect crime now? You seem unable to answer my points above.

    Why are you repeating libels committed by a pedophile?

  17. Incidentally, Tom the lying pedophile was one of the thugs Guppy tried to hire to beat up that News of the World reporter. He had an obvious grudge against me because when I found out his true colours I ejected him from a business we were both involved in. He also had a track record of taking money from Guppy for criminal activities.

  18. Yep, he’s angry.

    It did not require psychic powers to predict that as usual Peter Risdon would come up with not one jot of evidence for his ludicrous claims.
    He has a history of this after all.

    See exhibit 52 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com where he is challenged repeatedly to provide evidence for a variety of allegations too numerous to outline here. Not once did he did do so. But the evidence against him – much of it coming out of his own mouth – is simply overwhelming. There is, moreover, further material on its way, but unlike with Risdon, it is only posted when there is sufficient corroborating evidence to back it up.
    Readers can judge for themselves at the above website.

    Exhibit 53 represents the legal correspondence regarding an action that was brought against Risdon for defamation.

    In that correspondence it is clear that Risdon claimed to possess evidence that DG had trashed his car in the form of

    a) A police investigation into the matter
    b) A “successful trace” by British Telecom proving DG’s guilt.

    Both allegations were patent lies and were proved as such. This is incontrovertible from a reading of the above exhibit and no amount of spin on Risdon’s part can change it. It just makes him look even more dishonest and even more stupid.

    Other ludicrous allegations included that he possessed a secret photograph taken of DG by means of a long range camera emerging from his home on the day of his arrest wearing sunglasses, despite the fact that this had occurred in the early hours of the morning when it was still dark! And that he had secret recordings of DG and BM conversing with each other in French from their cells while they were in police custody! And that DG had bugged the prosecution’s rooms at Snaresbrook Crown Court during his trial!

    All of which Risdon was forced to take down from his website and undertake not to repeat.

    It’s very simple Tim – if he had had a shred of evidence to substantiate these claims he would never have rolled over. At the very least, the man who is hardly shy about publishing things on the net, would have posted his evidence – especially having thundered so defiantly on his website “the allegations remain!” at the beginning of the libel proceedings.

    But he didn’t. He was caught lying and capitulated.

    Don’t take our word for it. See the Exhibit (53) for yourself.

    Risdon has done his best to introduce a series of diversions from the original subject of this thread – how he was caught red-handed and through his typical stupidity – planting the lie that he was “responsible for breaking the optician’s monopoly.”

    To deal therefore with these diversions before returning to the original subject.

    Regarding Lloyds.

    The fact that Risdon asks to which syndicates DG’s father belonged proves that he has done zero research on the matter!

    1) The original loss incurred by DG’s father took place in 1983 and losses re-occurred throughout the 1980s (and into the early 90s). Evidence to this effect including letters from DGs’ father’s Lloyds agent were put forward to lawyers acting to the publishers’ of DGs autobiography as part of the vetting procedure since that book made serious allegations against Lloyds

    2) Nowhere did either DG or his co-defendants ever state that this fact was the SOLE reason for their heist in New York. They couldn’t have as a matter of logic – because none of DG’s co-conspirators were either names at Lloyds or had relatives who were Names at Lloyds!

    3) Instead the Lloyds matter was simply put forward as one of several motivating factors, specific only to DG, factors which included the fact that DG and BM’s company was in financial difficulty and that their coup was intended to get that company – of which DG and BM were only small shareholders – out of difficulty. This argument was consistent with the view formed by the chief investigating officer for the case which he makes clear during his interview of DG under caution. See for example Exhibit 57 or http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com and comments thereon.

    4) This version of events was put forward by BM in mitigation during sentencing and was accepted as entirely truthful by both the Crown and Appeal Courts.

    5) All of this is a matter of public record and was extensively reported upon by the media at the time of the trial. There is a wealth of material on the subject and any reader can research it for himself.

    6) In fact, it is Peter Risdon who is the person who has come up with excuses for his behaviour that are a mixture of patently untruthful and downright hilarious. We have already pointed to Exhibit 48 where Risdon is caught lying about having handed DG over to the police a mere month after the New York robbery occurred and after “much soul searching” when in fact he squealed a whole year later when he was caught attempting the most asinine diamond insurance fraud.

    7) See Exhibit 1, where the New York chief investigating officer’s words are clear and very problematic indeed for Risdon: “Approximately a year later I was sitting in my office. I was telephoned by Scotland Yard and they explained to me that they had Peter Risdon in custody and that he was giving evidence against DG and BM. Apparently he had been caught, as most cases are solved, doing something else and rather than go to jail he was going to give up somebody else.”

    8) Risdon’s ludicrous excuses which began with the claim that he had participated in the gems heist in New York because he considered it part of a “25,000 book-keeping exercise” (!) and evolved into “I woz framed!” can be seen in Exhibits 48 & 49 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com. If he seriously believes that anyone would fall for these excuses then he is an even sadder character than everyone thinks.

    Regarding Risdon’s allegation about “armoured vehicles to Iraq.”

    We have already outlined some of the more ludicrous assertions he has made in the past and which he was forced to retract – retractions which would never have occurred had he had the slightest evidence to back them up.
    Now refer, Tim, to Exhibit 56 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com, Risdon’s story which he sold to the News of the World and appeared the day after DG and BM’s conviction.

    The reader will note Risdon’s style and can judge for himself whether his typically idiotic claims are plausible. One such claim was that DG planned to hijack an oil tanker and sell its contents to Iran! Had Risdon, who used to lie continuously about being “University educated” – had even the remotest grasp of elementary geography he would have realised that oil is the one commodity on the planet of which Iran has absolutely no need! And if his latest claim regarding armoured cars to Iraq were true then this is precisely the place he would have made it. Instead, no mention whatsoever.

    Likewise, when The Independent published an article written by DG on the subject of Iran (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/darius-guppy-here-in-iran-we-look-with-horror-at-the-country-that-britain-has-become-1769001.html) and Risdon responded with a typically obsessive post (http://freebornjohn.blogspot.com/2009/08/guppy-on-iran.html ), did he make any mention of this allegation at this point, where he would most certainly have made it had there been any truth in it?

    You’ve guessed it, Tim.

    Not one hint.

    Instead, 20 years after the events in New York, out of the blue, this absurd claim.

    So, as he has been challenged so many times in the past, we challenge him yet again:

    Can we please see the evidence?

    Actually, this exhibit, number 56, is highly problematic for Risdon because it tends to corroborate the Affidavit sworn by his business partner, Tom McLaine, reproduced in Exhibit 2. Thus, the reader will note the remarkable similarity between Risdon’s allegations and the picture that is painted of him by his former partner.

    But one big problem for Risdon. His business partner’s affidavit was sworn 3 months before Risdon sold his story to the News of the World.
    Was his business partner telepathic? Could he see into the future and read this article and tailor his own affidavit accordingly?

    Of course not.

    It’s perfectly obvious what happened here. McLaine painted a perfectly truthful picture of Risdon because he knew him so well and Risdon simply projects his own fantasies onto others in the News of the World article. Even the News of the World’s sister newspaper, the Sun, spoke of him as a man who would sell his own mother.

    Regarding the allegation of paedophilia against Risdon’s former business partner.

    Again, Risdon is simply telling himself stories if he thinks that people won’t be able to see through this immediately and won’t take it as yet further evidence of what a low-life coward we are dealing with here.

    The facts:

    1) If Risdon, the man described by The Sunday Times as “the rangy Australian with a penchant for self-publicity” and who has never been shy about grassing people up or posting things on the internet had had the slightest piece of evidence to back up his claim, we would have seen it years ago.

    2) Instead he waits until his business partner is either too old to do anything about it – “getting on a bit” to use Risdon’s own words – or dead and therefore unable to defend himself. And this coming from the man who posts comments to himself on his website such as “you’re so brave, Peter” using female aliases!

    3) The first inkling that Risdon’s business partner has produced an affidavit about Risdon’s less than salubrious history comes in a blog on your website, Tim, some five years ago. The relevant passage can be seen in Exhibit 52, of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com . Is Risdon’s reaction that of an outraged former associate of McLaine’s who has distanced himself from him as soon as he has discovered something untoward about him? Judge for yourself, Tim. Risdon’s own words:
    “Tom, when we were on speaking terms, was a contradictory character. Despite the bad points and almost no formal education, he’d still quote Shakespeare from memory. I remember one evening when, over a brandy, he started the sonnet ‘those that have power to hurt and do none.’ It’s a good sonnet.”
    Elsewhere, when he realises that his sucking-up hasn’t worked, Risdon describes him as “an old armed robber.” Why not describe him as a “paedo” at this point? Is any of this really consistent with his libellous and uncorroborated claims? Again, we’ll leave it to the reader to judge.

    4) Instead, and in complete contrast to Risdon, McLaine comes across as a far more attractive personality than Risdon for precisely the reason that he appears more honest. In his affidavit (See Exhibit 2) he is searingly honest about himself and his criminal past. No “I was framed!” No “I thought it was a book-keeping exercise!” Moreover, he produces a wealth of evidence in the form of exhibits referred to in his affidavit and a level of detail which ring entirely true, including a contract signed by Risdon confirming that Risdon owed him 150,000 pounds after ripping him off and bankrupting the company for which McLaine had provided the capital –an agreement Risdon would never have signed if he had simply broken with McLaine in moral disgust. On the contrary, he would just have said “I owe you nothing and don’t push it or I’ll expose you.” He is a grass, after all.

    5) This allegation against McLaine is also consistent with a pattern of behaviour which we see repeated throughout his glittering entrepreneurial career. Thus, we find him several years later driving two further companies into bankruptcy. See exhibits 50 & 51 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com where he is prosecuted by the DTI and disqualified as a company director for ripping off the Revenue some 300,000 pounds. And, just as with McLaine, what does he do when he is challenged about this further success story? He blames it on his business partner!

    6) His exact words in Exhibit 52: “The DTI’s solicitors … then accepted ANOTHER DIRECTOR was responsible for financial admin.” (Have you noticed, Tim, how it’s always somebody else’s fault?)

    7) And again, what happens when ‘factchecker’s’ ‘facts’ are ‘checked?’ – an affidavit signed by RISDON emerges in which he admits that HE was the one responsible for driving his companies into bankruptcy and ripping off the Revenue some 300,000 pounds! (See Exhibit 51, of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

    As stated, it is perfectly clear what has happened here.

    Risdon has found his business partner’s evidence devastating. At first he tries to suck up to him. But that fails. Then, 20 years after the events in New York he comes up with this patently untrue claim about an individual who was far more of a man than Risdon could ever be. McLaine fell out with Risdon because Risdon ripped him off and betrayed him as he has betrayed every one he has ever done business with and after his companies, as with everything the man touches, went belly-up. McLaine did not like the fact that Risdon had grassed on DG and BM to save his own skin and, despite loathing officialdom of any kind, went to a firm of City lawyers and swore an affidavit in which he was brutally honest about his business partner but also about himself. (See Exhibit 2, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)
    We therefore challenge Risdon to come up with one jot of evidence to substantiate his typically libellous and cowardly claim.

    Moreover, if McLaine had been so loathesome then why, when he had a lot of information about DG and BM did he not attempt to blackmail them as Risdon did? Why didn’t he sell his own story to The News of the World as Risdon did? Why didn’t he have a history of betraying his colleagues and grassing on them as Risdon did?

    Likewise, why didn’t DG, who was far better connected than Risdon and could have made far more money than Risdon, sell his high-profile friends and colleagues out to the newspapers?

    Why was it that DG and BM didn’t rat on each other in the manner of Risdon but stood throughout, in the words of the Prosecution, “shoulder to shoulder?”

    And why didn’t they grass on others despite the suspicion that there had been others involved in the heist?

    And why is it that not one person who has ever had dealings with DG or BM, no ex-girlfriend, no estranged wife, no business colleague, no associate has ever complained about them or sold them out or grassed them up?

    Whereas, why is it that everyone who has had dealings with Risdon considers him a low-life, weak, cowardly, envious fantasist?

    Coincidence?

    The truth is that only one person involved in the affair consistently betrayed, grassed up and lied about the others – Peter Risdon. It’s simply his nature.

    Returning now to the actual subject matter of this thread which Risdon has been at such pains to avoid because he finds it so embarrassing.

    The facts:

    1) In one of your blogs, Tim, Risdon wrote these words: “I have two convictions – one for BREAKING THE OPTICIANS’ MONOPOLY in 1983/4 of which I’m very proud.” (See Exhibit 52, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

    2) This is a patent and typically absurd Risdon lie

    3) And it was proven that it was Risdon who planted this lie, despite doing so anonymously, on Patrick Trevor-Roper’s page on Wikipedia. See: – https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/

    4) Moreover, Risdon was caught planting this lie in circumstances that were very embarrassing for him precisely because he fell into the very trap which he had warned others not to fall into: a “pillock” posting “from the same I.P address” to use his own words.

    5) Just as occurs with McLaine, he also planted this lie conveniently enough after Trevor-Roper dies and is therefore unable to challenge it!

    6) In fact Patrick Trevor-Roper had been the one responsible for challenging the opticians’ monopoly and he had made no mention whatsoever of Risdon’s purported role in the affair.

    7) Peter Risdon was then caught out, yet again, attempting to justify this lie, this time using the pseudonym ‘Anthony’ on this very page. (As stated above, what are the chances that some random member of the public, a few hours after you create a web page, on a Sunday morning, coincidentally the very morning that the Sunday Independent publish an article written by DG on which you comment, will have trawled through some old Hansards dating back decades about a total nonentity like Risdon? A million to one?)

    The truth is, Tim, that Risdon has been exposed. He doesn’t like it and is deeply ashamed, though too cowardly to take a long look at himself in the mirror.

    The man is an embarrassment to everyone who has known him.

    At the end of the day, we can all talk as much as we want: people have to judge for themselves and they will do so on the basis of hard evidence, not uncorroborated and patently absurd allegations from a man who has a long history of lying.

    The evidence against Risdon and the circumstances of his grassing and of his life of petty criminality are plain for everyone to see.

    By contrast, Risdon has produced not one atom’s worth of material to corroborate his claims.

    Perhaps people are not quite as stupid as he imagines.

  19. The same old balls from Guppy, at the usual exhausting and tedious length.

    When faced with a man who swears blind, for example, I had nothing to do with the Opticians’ monopoly busting, when my involvement is in the Parliamentary record and major news libraries – to which he has been directed – what can you say? He’s apparently gone stark staring mad.

    Anyway, I’ve been wrapped up with work this year but maybe now’s a time to release some more material. The American policeman Guppy refers to is called Ray Berke. Ray’s a friend of mine now. He certainly did say what Guppy attributes to him in an interview. He certainly was told that by the UK police, so he wasn’t to know it was false. I made a series of video interviews with Ray a couple of years ago. You’ll find them interesting.

    Last thing here for now: the grass/deal allegation can’t be true. It’s impossible. Here’s why. To make a deal, you plead guilty to a charge and get a reduced sentence. You must plead guilty. I entered a plea of not guilty in the case Guppy refers to. There can’t have been a deal. And, since I was acquitted without even having to enter a defence, because the judge held I had no case to answer (it set a precedent), I had no need to do a deal.

    Guppy of course knows this. His solicitors had an observer at my trial, a nice young student intern. We took to having coffee together during the intervals. She was physically disgusted with her client. I can’t blame her for that.

  20. I missed the university bit. I have no idea why Guppy says these things. I won a scholarship to St Andrews University, which was accompanied by a small bursary, the Taylour Thomson. Contemporaries of mine like the FT’s James Blitz or the actress Siobhan Redmond would be happy to confirm that.

  21. The more I think about it, the more I feel Guppy really has gone mad. I don’t think he’s levelled one single truthful allegation against me, and he’s so far off beam, his wild allegations are so easily disproved, it’s absolutely bizarre.

    Poor chap. He had so much promise as a young man. Maybe that’s why he’s twisted now. He’s achieved absolutely nothing in his life. Even his autobiography was ghost-written by a hack.

    I have tried to ignore this crap as much as possible, but I suppose I do need to respond properly. I told Worstall in an email years ago, when this started, that Tom has a seriously dodgy personality that I didn’t want to have to bring out. But this is now his fault, and yours, Guppy. You wouldn’t let it drop.

  22. As always, when challenged for evidence, the square root of nothing.

    Peter Risdon is going to have to wake up and smell the coffee.

    No right-thinking person is ever going to take the word of a petty criminal, police informer and proven liar without some very compelling material to back up his assertions.

    Regarding the ‘opticians monopoly’ claim:

    It has already been proven that it was Risdon who planted this lie and that he did so anonymously. See: https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/

    If he had been so confident of this ludicrous claim, he’d have made it in person. He’s hardly shy about posting things on the net after all. Moreover, he was caught out by falling into the very same trap that he had warned others not to fall into – posting from the same I.P addresses.

    Furthermore, he would have had no need to shore up his claim by posting as a sock puppet under the pseudonym ‘Anthony.’ (See above).

    The parliamentarian links that he refers to in fact paint a very different picture to the one Risdon puts forward.

    In those links he is referred to as an “out-of-work actor” who was an EMPLOYEE of a company which owned 7 shops that sold spectacles and a mere “FRONTMAN” for that company!!! (Not quite what Risdon had in mind).

    No-one is denying that he sold some spectacles illegally, as a “frontman.” In fact this was mentioned in the very first sentence of paragraph 1 of the Narrative of nobody likes a grass.com (see: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com/html/the_fantasy.html).

    But there is a world of difference between being fined a small amount for selling some spectacles illegally as a “frontman” and single-handedly ‘BREAKING THE OPTICIANS’ MONOPOLY’ – a typical fantasist claim on the part of Peter Risdon. (Remember in your blog, Tim, how he used to write that he’d exchanged letters with Lord Harris of High Cross?! And that he’d even once met Robert de Niro! See Exhibit 52. Truly sad).

    Trevor-Roper was the man who led this campaign against the opticians and his obituaries make clear the circumstances of that campaign. Absolutely no-where is there any mention of Risdon’s name, something that is a little unusual considering Risdon’s claim that HE was the one responsible for it.

    In short, we have yet to see one piece of evidence that Risdon “Broke the optician’s monopoly.”

    So it’s very simple, isn’t it Tim?

    Risdon will have a copy of the Judgement made against him in respect of the Fine he received. Likewise he will have letters from Trevor-Roper congratulating him on his splendid role in the matter, or correspondence with solicitors, for example.

    Let’s see them.

    Moreover, when recounting this tale, no mention was made of other milestones in his glittering entrepreneurial career – the bankruptcy of every company he has had anything to do with and specifically the bankruptcy of two companies in respect of which he was prosecuted by the DTI for ripping off the Revenue some 300,000 pounds. (See Exhibits 50 and 51).

    Why not?

    Regarding the grass/deal allegation:

    Tell any barrister in the land that ‘deals’ are not made with grasses in criminal prosecutions every day – despite there being no formal plea bargaining system as in the USA – and he will laugh at you.

    The only reason the case against Risdon regarding his attempted diamond fraud was never even put before a jury for consideration was that unlike with him, his partners in that particular venture were not prepared to grass on him.

    See Exhibit 12.

    But the circumstances of Risdon’s attempted insurance fraud are very clear. Readers can refer to http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com and draw their own conclusions. The police themselves, not being stupid, make clear their own views from the outset and repeatedly – that Risdon was attempting an insurance fraud and anyone reading the material will work that out for themselves within seconds (See for example Exhibits 8 – 12, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com).

    Does Risdon think people are stupid?

    Was it sheer coincidence that one year after participating in a gems heist in New York involving a large insurance claim, he happens to find himself in the Midland bank attempting to withdraw a heavily insured uncut diamond with a forged passport in the name of an individual who had attempted just such a fraud a few months before at a different branch of the same bank?

    Let readers judge for themselves.

    Moreover, the excuses he has made for his involvement in these various matters are ludicrously funny. They can be seen in Exhibits 48 and 49. Briefly:

    1) They begin with his claim that he thought he was participating in a 25,000 pound “book keeping exercise!”
    2) After DG and BM’s sentencing and Risdon’s selling of his story to the News of the World the excuse then evolves into Risdon having done his civic duty by protecting the public from DG’s increasingly dangerous schemes (See Exhibit 56)
    3) Later, when he writes a review for the Express (See Exhibit 48), he claims that he had handed DG in to the police a mere month after the New York robbery and after much “soul-searching”: a patent and stupid lie. In fact he handed them in a full year after the events in question having been caught red-handed attempting an insurance fraud. Coincidence?
    4) Then it becomes a question of having been ‘framed’ by DG and BM! (See his review on Amazon.com in which he uses the pseudonym ‘Unforgiven’ in Exhibit 49).

    And his excuse for his presence in the Midland bank with the forged passport attempting to withdraw a heavily-insured diamond a year after being the gunman in the New York heist?

    That he was simply helping some charming chaps obtain their property because they were too busy on the other side of the world in South Africa do so themselves! (See Exhibit 52)

    Regarding the Ray Berke matter:

    Risdon is now even accusing the British Police of lying to the American police!

    Regarding the student intern allegation:

    As always with Risdon, an allegation with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

    At DG’s trial Risdon brought along his pet Chihuahua to comfort him. DG’s solicitors had coffee with it during intervals and they became friends. The Chihuahua confided secretly in DG’s solicitors that he was disgusted with Risdon who used to rape him every night.

    This sort of allegation is typical of Risdon. Confused, desperate, ill thought-out and without the slightest shred of evidence in support.

    We’ve been here before. See Exhibit 53. Risdon claimed to possess evidence:

    1) That DG had trashed his car in the form of a police investigation
    2) And a successful British Telecom Trace.
    3) That DG had bugged the prosecution’s rooms during his trial
    4) That he had a secret photo of DG emerging from his house on the morning of his arrest wearing sunglasses
    5) That he had secret recordings of DG and BM conversing with each other in French from their cells whilst in custody

    What happened when he was challenged to produce this evidence?

    You’ve guessed it Tim. Nothing.

    Instead he was sued for defamation, caved in very quickly and was humiliated.

    All of this is crystal clear and can be seen in Exhibit 53.

    And what happens when Risdon is challenged to produce his evidence in respect of his disgusting claims against his business partner (McLaine)?

    Again, you’ve guessed it Tim. Nothing.

    By contrast, every single one of the allegations made against Risdon has been backed up by rock solid evidence.

    See: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Regarding Risdon’s “Grade 2 Listed thatched cottage:”

    Readers can visit it for themselves at:

    3 Townsend, Soham, Ely, Cambridgeshire, CB7 5DD, UK

    But don’t go inside. Risdon – like his mind – was never tidy.

    Regarding Risdon’s claims about his University career:

    Another success story.

    Putting it in its best light, by Risdon’s own admission he “dropped out.” He couldn’t hack it because, as his own business partner confirms, Risdon found focussing on any project intensely difficult. But, as his business partner also confirms, Risdon used to place great store about being “University Educated” and would lie about this to his colleagues at work, failing to mention the fact that he had flunked.

    Again, it’s very simple isn’t it, Tim?

    Risdon can post his degree certificate and any other material regarding his brilliant academic career. Let’s see this please.

    Regarding Risdon’s parting words:

    You can imagine how little sting coming from Risdon, an individual who has failed in absolutely everything he has put his hands to, this particular handbag swipe will have.

    If Risdon seriously imagines that he has embarrassed anyone but himself in this latest exchange then it really is time for him to check into some euthanasia clinic in Switzerland and put himself out of his misery.

    In fact nothing he could have written could have been better designed to confirm that DG, BM, McLaine and anyone who has had any dealings with him, are 100% correct in their assessment of him as a squalid low-life.

    To come up such a patently baseless and vile accusation as he does against his former business partner, when that man is dead and unable to defend himself, and on the back of the usual zero evidence, is low even by the standards this particular piece of scum.

    So, regarding McLaine, let us re-cap on the evidence:

    1) Risdon has provided not ONE JOT of material to substantiate his cowardly calumny – a habit of his for which there is a long history
    2) When first aware that McLaine has sworn an affidavit against him, Risdon makes no mention of his allegation. In fact the best he can come with, having at first tried to suck up to him, is that McLaine is an “unreliable witness” and “an old armed robber” (See Risdon’s own words in Exhibit 52). It is only years later and more than two decades after last seeing the man that he comes up with this slur out of the blue.
    3) In fact, at the relevant time, Risdon signs a contract with McLaine admitting that he owes him 150,000 pounds. If he had had such devastating evidence against McLaine he would never have done such a thing. The man whose blackmailing even one of the police officers mentioned in an interview with a magazine shortly after DG and BM’s convictions, would simply have blackmailed McLaine and would certainly never have signed such an agreement.
    4) Moreover, this notorious police informer and supergrass would have published his evidence against McLaine years ago.
    5) In particular, McLaine would never have sworn his affidavit against Risdon. (See Exhibit 2, nobodylikesagrass.com). He’d have said to himself: “Let’s be careful here. Risdon is a grass and police informer and he’s just grassed up DG and BM. He’ll grass me up too. Better not go there.”
    6) Instead, so disgusted is he by Risdon that he does something completely out of character for someone who hates lawyers, the police and officialdom of any description. He contacts DG’s and BM’s solicitors to give his version of events and the only thing that bothers him is that Risdon, who has made it a habit to bug his clients’ premises in the hope of being able to blackmail them afterwards, might have some tapes of him. But he isn’t bothered precisely because he knows that there was nothing on him which Risdon could possess. (See Exhibit 2).
    7) Leaving aside Risdon’s disgusting and patently invented allegation regarding his business partner, Risdon also argues that we shouldn’t accept McLaine’s word because he’s “an unreliable witness” (See Exhibit 52) and because, as Risdon claims above, DG has paid him in the past for ‘criminal activities.’ The ‘activities’ to which Risdon refers is of course the episode in which DG is heard on tape asking Boris Johnson for the address of a journalist from the News of the World. As we all know, in the end nothing transpired and as Risdon has admitted elsewhere, no money changed hands. But, Risdon’s cannabis –befuddled memory has let him down. Because there was indeed someone else who willingly took money from DG and BM for ‘criminal’ activities. Someone who took money to forge invoices in respect of gold smuggling operations to India, someone who took money to fly to New York, buy a gun, tie up two young men, shoot at them, disappear with 2 million pounds worth of gems and who was so impressed that he tried to have a go himself one year later himself but was arrested red-handed at the first stage because he was so incompetent. And the name of that person? Peter Risdon! By which argument we shouldn’t believe a word Risdon says!

    (Examples of Risdon slipping on his own banana skins in this way are simply too numerous to go through here, Tim, but can be seen over and over again at: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

    But this can go on forever, so why don’t we leave it like this, Tim?

    Let us hope that a relative of Tom McLaine, perhaps a son, or a cousin or a nephew, reads this post. If so, they can contact the email address on the Home Page of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com ([email protected]).

    We’ll promise to pay all their transport costs, whatever part of the world they may be in, to meet Risdon. Or we can do it the other way round – we’ll pay for Risdon’s costs to meet them. We’ll even pay for a cameraman to film the meeting and at that meeting they can ask Risdon to repeat his allegations to their face.

    Then we can see for ourselves just how ‘Freeborn John’, Risdon the Brave, ‘Voltaire’, performs.

    In the meantime, so sublimely confident are we that anyone reading through this post will immediately work out the truth for themselves, that we’ll copy this post and make it a further exhibit in Risdon’s favourite website: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    In this way let us put our trust in the intelligence of the reader and allow them to judge for themselves.

    Fair enough, Tim?

  23. It would save time, if you were to organise a camera, to use Tom’s son – I met him when they were re-united, all those years ago. And he met one of the girls in question.

    Speaking of tapes, we might as well put it in the public domain that Tom was the guy you tried to hire to beat up a News of the World reporter and he had had a corrupt relationship with you for years, as your paid heavy, before ‘volunteering’ the allegations you mention.

    These are completely unfounded, like the other lies that even you acknowledge have started to unravel. You now admit lying about St Andrews, for example. What was it you were trying to persuade people of before? That I went to a college in Edinburgh or something? Pillock.

    You now say that diamond case didn’t make it in front of a jury. It did, and the prosecution case was delivered in full, because I had pleaded not guilty, something incompatible with doing a deal with police. The judge held, after this and after legal argument, that I had no case to answer. Your lies about this are now colliding with each other.

    You are hiding behind internet anonymity because your sole intention here and elsewhere is to defame, to do material harm to me by the propagation of these untruths and to avoid the legal repercussions of this deliberate and malicious campaign of harassment.

  24. He’s such a slow learner, isn’t he Tim?

    This man has been humiliated so many times and all he ever achieves is to prove to the rest of us just how embarrassed of himself he is.

    So, tedious as it may be, let’s nail some more of his lies.

    His VERY FIRST WORDS posting in his own name – that he never uses pseudonyms – are a lie. Only a few lines further up he has posted as ‘Anthony!’

    And it’s something he does all the time. See, for example, Exhibits 49, 52 and 58 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com where he uses aliases such as ‘unforgiven’, ‘two zero’, ‘cerebellum’ etc.

    As with any dialogue relating to these matters – see for example Exhibit 52 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com – readers will notice a consistent pattern. Risdon makes an allegation, is challenged to produce evidence to back up that allegation and comes up with nothing.

    He claims for example that DG trashed his car and that he has evidence to prove this allegation. He is challenged to produce that evidence, produces nothing, is sued for defamation and capitulates, having been caught out lying yet again.

    See exhibit 53, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    And the pattern is repeated here.

    Regarding his allegation against McLaine, absolutely ZERO evidence, despite having been challenged numerous times to produce it. And, typically, Risdon the Brave waits until the man is long dead to come up with his calumny.

    Regarding his ludicrous claim to have “broken the opticians’ monopoly” – again, NOTHING, save a reference which he himself points to about him being an ‘employee’ or ‘frontman’ of a company that owned a handful of shops which sold some spectacles illegally and in respect of which he was merely fined a few quid! (It has already been proven that he posted this lie on a Wikipedia page relating to Patrick Trevor Roper. See: https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/)

    Moreover, when recounting this tale, no mention of other milestones in his glittering entrepreneurial career – the bankruptcy of every company he has had anything to do with and specifically the bankruptcy of two companies in respect of which he was prosecuted by the DTI for ripping off the Revenue some 300,000 pounds and disqualified from being a company director (See Exhibits 50 and 51).

    Wonder why.

    Regarding his claims about St. Andrew’s, again NOTHING – except for his own admission that he flunked.

    See, for example: http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/01/the-normblog-profile-278-peter-risdon.html

    And there is NO record of Risdon having obtained a degree from St. Andrews University during the period 1978-85. (From his age Risdon should have graduated around 1982).

    Again, it’s perfectly clear what’s happened here. Risdon has gone around claiming to his friends and colleagues that he was “University educated” as he put it because this was something which for whatever reason he considered very important. But this claim implies that he completed a course at a University and obtained a degree. As always, and as any News of the World reporter or government propagandist will tell you, the starting point of the big lie is always a small truth.

    He may well have started a course at a university but he certainly never graduated. It is entirely academic whether he started that course at St. Andrew’s, Edinburgh, Oxford or Ackrington Stanley Polytechnic – the point is that he couldn’t hack it because he finds focussing on any project intensely difficult and so he failed as with every other endeavour he has put his hand to. What is more, he dishonestly attempted to twist yet another clear failure to make it seem a success.

    End of story.

    The truth is, Tim, that Risdon is deeply embarrassed by his grassing and his exposure as a failed petty criminal. He is ashamed of a life of treachery, cowardice, snitching and failure. And rightly so. But no amount of wriggling will ever change certain immutable, very inconvenient facts which he can never get around:

    FACT: Risdon participated in a sting involving a staged armed robbery in a New York hotel. He accepted money for his role as an accomplice which required him procuring a gun, discharging it, tying up two young men and making off with 2 million pounds worth of gemstones. What was he doing in that room? Playing tiddlywinks? And the police themselves are unambiguous about his role – referring to him as an “accomplice”, not some ‘innocent dupe.’ (See, for example, Exhibit 57). Absolutely NO-ONE is going to believe Risdon’s excuse for his role in the affair as given in his police statement, namely that he had been duped into participating in what he had thought was a mere 25,000 pound “book-keeping exercise” as he put it. And even if they did believe this ridiculous explanation, would it really help him? For it would mean that he had been the biggest imbecile on the planet. (A hypothesis which, one is bound to concede, does have a certain plausibility).

    FACT: Risdon, a registered and paid police informant, had no moral qualms about his role in the affair and kept quiet about it for a full year, a year in which he continued to supply false-bottomed crates designed to conceal gold destined for India and false airway bills to assist in that operation. A year also, in he which he fantasised about creating, as he put it, a “criminal Empire with branches as far away as … Greece!”

    FACT: Moreover, during this year, so racked with guilt was he by his involvement in DG and BM’s New York heist that he then hatched his own attempted insurance fraud involving the large uncut diamond mentioned above. (See http://www.nobodylikesagrass for dozens of exhibits). He had been impressed with what BM and DG had pulled off and it is obvious that he tried to mimic certain aspects of their modus operandi (See Exhibit 57). The police themselves were also very clear about Risdon’s plans (See Exhibits 8-12). And, if Risdon seriously imagines that readers will not be able to judge within seconds of reviewing the evidence what his ludicrously inept scheme had been then he is utterly deluded. In fact Risdon HIMSELF admits the facts at the end of one particular police interview where he states to the police: “I’m not going to insult your intelligence.” (See Exhibit 10).

    FACT: When Risdon was first arrested for his attempted diamond fraud he made it very clear in his taped police interviews that he was looking to trade information about the events in New York in return for leniency but wished to do so in “informal” context, away from the tape recorder (See Exhibit 9).

    FACT: By his own admission, Risdon did indeed speak to police officers in ‘informal’ context at a number of meetings held in a pub on the Embankment. It was only AFTER these meetings and a FULL YEAR after the events in New York that Risdon gave a formal statement to the police, a statement in which he explained away his role in the matter as him having thought that he was participating in a 25,000 pound “book-keeping exercise!”

    FACT: Risdon tried to alter these embarrassing details by writing a review of DG’s book in the Express in which he claimed to have handed DG and BM in to the police a mere month after the robbery after much “soul searching” – a clear and stupid lie. (See Exhibit 48).

    FACT: A matter of days after giving his statement to the police in May 1991 all charges against him in respect of his attempted diamond fraud were dropped by the CPS (See Exhibit 7). They were re-introduced in November 1991 on the advice of Prosecuting counsel precisely because to have laid no charges against Risdon would have looked a little too unsubtle even by the standards of the Regional Crime Squad 9 but only AFTER it was clear that no-one was going to testify and grass Risdon up (See Exhibit 12). In such circumstances any charges were never going to go very far. Indeed, had no witnesses turned up at the trial of DG and BM then that trial wouldn’t have gone very far either! But what would that prove?

    FACT: Risdon attempted to blackmail DG and BM at various stages in the process, something which, consistent with what his own business partner confirms in a sworn affidavit (See Exhibit 2), even one of the investigating police officers alluded to in an interview given to a glossy magazine shortly after DG and BM’s convictions.

    FACT: Risdon knocked on every door in Fleet Street in an attempt to maximise his profits from the affair, eventually selling his story to the News of the World (See Exhibit 56). Here he dealt with Clive Goodman. He felt comfortable in this world. It was a world of bugging and hacking peoples’ phones, a world of betrayal and selling friends, associates and colleagues down the river. And when Goodman was eventually sent to jail for doing no more than Risdon had done to his own clients, Risdon’s reaction was naturally enough to diss the man who had paid him thousands of pounds for his collaboration, referring to him in typically hypocritical terms as “the now disgraced Clive Goodman.” What a nice fellow.

    FACT: Risdon did NOT grass up ONLY a single individual (DG). He grassed up a whole raft of individuals in this matter as in others. By contrast, DG and BM and everyone else connected with the affair kept their nerve and kept their mouths shut and remained loyal to each other.

    As far as McLaine’s relatives and the cameraman are concerned, we repeat our offer which will soon be posted on Risdon’s favourite website. Let McLaine’s relatives contact the website and we’ll see what happens.

    To conclude, despite his usual girly whinging about a campaign of “harassment” , his sense of victimhood and feeling sorry for himself, the truth is that the only individual to have made wholly false and unsubstantiated allegations is Risdon himself and that he has been his own worst enemy.

    By contrast, the evidence against Risdon is simply overwhelming.

    And, particularly problematic for Risdon is that only ONE exhibit out of that evidence emanates from DG himself – Exhibit 46, where, unlike Risdon, DG gives a statement which, far from implicating Risdon in any wrongdoing, if anything exonerates him. The contrast with Risdon’s cowardly grassing could not be greater. ALL the other pieces of evidence emanate from independent and unconnected third parties – which is of course precisely why that evidence is so devastating as far as Risdon is concerned.

    We don’t expect readers to take anyone’s word for it.

    Let them judge for themselves.

    See: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

  25. You really are a boring obsessive, Darius. Statements made by your paid thugs aren’t proof of anything. You have conceded that you’ve lied about me in every respect – now you try to shift to claim I exaggerated. I haven’t.

    I have only sockpuppetted the once, as stated above. The rest were other people, some of who must be bemused to see your claims they were me.

    I did that because I thought I might be able to point out your deep incompetence without the personal stuff, but forgot your extraordinary paranoia. If you see me in every comment, you’ll see me in that one too.

    But you were incompetent. You’d have been arrested and imprisoned without my evidence. There were 60 prosecution witnesses against you. You’d sold emeralds back to the chap you bought them from, and he knew you had reported them stolen. That’s just one example of your stupidity, more are coming in some interesting video clips.

    You were busted THREE times for gold smuggling and were on bail for that when arrested for the fraud.

    Total complete and utter incompetence.

  26. Sorry, Tim.

    It isn’t working for Risdon, is it?

    Readers can search above. No where has anyone “conceded” that they’ve “lied” in any respect – except for Risdon.

    He ‘s been caught bang to rights lying over even the stupidest things – ranging from his supposed University degree, to “breaking the opticians’ monopoly” , even to the time at which he is supposed to have handed DG and BM in to the police (See Exhibit 48 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

    And the charge of ‘incompetence’ coming from the man known as “Norman Risdon” even to his own work colleagues is simply hilarious.

    The evidence for Risdon’s total Keystone Cops stupidity is there for all to see.

    Refer to http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com for endless examples.

    (A couple of minor details: by the Prosecution’s own admission, not one milligram of gold belonging to DG was ever intercepted. Risdon is referring to his grassing up of yet other individuals and some small shipments of gold belonging to a certain ID. More details are in http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com – see for Example the comments on Exhibit 49. Perhaps more amusingly, Risdon was a willing participant in this particular operation, providing false-bottomed crates and fake airway bills at precisely the time he was supposed to have suffered a crisis of conscience and to have gone to the police after “much soul-searching” as he put it! See Exhibit 48. Likewise, no emeralds could have been “sold” to someone who “knew” they “had been reported stolen”. If that person had bought them back then he’d have been prosecuted for handling stolen goods and conspiracy to defraud! And as was widely reported in the media at the time and by the prosecution’s admission, not one gemstone was ever recovered!)

    There’s an old saying: the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

    See Exhibit 55, where DG and BM are paid out within 6 weeks of the events in New York.

    By contrast, Risdon cannot re-but one of the FACTS referred to above – because they’re true!

    In sum, Risdon has made allegation after allegation without one jot of evidence in support. And that is not going to convince anyone – even in the sad blogosphere he inhabits.

    By contrast, the evidence against him is overwhelming.

    See Exhibit 52 where you summed it up yourself so well, Tim.

    To use your words, Peter Risdon should “put up or shut up.”

    If he has any evidence whatsoever against McLaine then he should “put up or shut up.”

    (As promised, this blog, together with another one where he was caught out making the ridiculous claim that he “broke the opticians’ monopoly” have now been posted on his favourite website. Readers can judge for themselves. See: http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com)

  27. First, this isn’t historic, this comment thread has been active since before Christmas but the most recent comment, above, was dated January 21st 2012.

    If you’ve come here via the link, scroll up. There are 41 hyperlinks to his website in just this one comment thread, four links in the last comment alone.

    This illustrates my points:
    – deliberate and consistent harassment,
    – deliberate ‘google-bombing’ to maximise the effect of the harassment,
    – reliance on the ‘affadavit’ of a hired thug
    – deliberate falsehood as detailed in my mail

  28. See http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com, Tim

    You will note that reliance in made on far more than one single “affidavit” as Risdon mentions.

    He seems to have forgotten some 60 other exhibits including his own police interviews! And much of the most damning evidence comes from his OWN words!

    (See for example Exhibit 48, where Risdon is caught out lying in the most patent but above all stupid manner)

    It’s boring, we know, which is why you’ll note, Tim, the rarity with which we drop in on this particular page. Nevertheless, every time Risdon writes a lie, we’ll nail it so he’d better get used to it.

    Risdon can’t have it both ways.

    Either

    – he knew exactly what he was doing when he procured a gun in New York , took it to a hotel, discharged it at two young men and made off with 2 million pounds worth of gems
    – and he knew exactly what he was doing one year later when he walked into a bank with a fake passport to withdraw a heavily insured diamond
    – just as he had known exactly what he was doing some years earlier when he had partaken in an armed robbery in Scotland
    – just as he knew exactly what he was doing when he supplied fake airway bills and false bottomed crates for a gold smuggling operation to India
    – just as he knew perfectly well that he was ripping off the Revenue of some 300,000 pounds in respect of two companies which he drove into bankruptcy and in respect of which he was prosecuted by the DTI
    – and so on and so forth

    Or he was an innocent dupe in a series of criminal ventures throughout his life, a patsy who happened time and time again to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, a blunderer who cannot help putting his foot in it.

    – In which case, talk about “incompetent!”

    Little wonder he was known as “Norman Risdon.”

    Talk of “60 witnesses” at DG and BM’s trial (see above) is typical of Risdon’s dishonesty. In any large trial there will always be dozens of tangential witnesses whose testimony is neither here nor there. Four police officers turn up with a warrant to search DG’s house. Another four to search BM’s. Another officer makes a custody record. Another witnesses the fingerprinting. That’s ten “witnesses” for a start. Then someone else confirms that British Airways sold two tickets to DG and BM. A waiter confirms that champagne was delivered to their hotel room at 1.30 pm. And so on and so forth. Such “witnesses” are not contested by either the prosecution or the defence and the great majority of the time don’t even turn up to the trial. Their evidence is simply “read into the record.”

    Risdon knows this perfectly well of course but it makes him feel less ashamed to argue that he was simply one of dozens of people who grassed on DG and BM.

    It’s an argument he’s used before, writing for example as a sock puppet – “Unforgiven” – which can be read at Exhibit 49 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    But it’s simply not true.

    Apart from one individual – a certain BH, whose testimony was not particularly relevant since he was not party to the events in New York but was only involved in certain gold smuggling activities, and who was in fact also grassed up by Risdon – only two individuals were of crucial importance to the Prosecution: Risdon and a certain ID. Which is why in the media reporting of the trial at the time it is only on these two witnesses that attention is focussed, as Risdon knows perfectly well.

    But even here, the contrast between these two individuals could not be greater. That contrast is dealt with extensively in the Comments to Exhibit 56 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com

    Briefly, ID had to be dragged kicking and screaming into court. He was in virtual tears throughout much of his testimony and it was perfectly obvious that he was there only under duress. He had previously escaped from the jurisdiction in order not to give evidence at Committal proceedings and by the end of it some commentators even wondered if he had not been giving evidence for the Defence rather than the Prosecution. After the trial, no question of selling his story to the News of the World or of making up ridiculous excuses on blogs about how he’d thought he had been partaking in a “book-keeping exercise” or that he “woz framed” as Risdon would later claim. Instead a dignified silence and a palpable regret.

    Enter Risdon.

    He’d arrived! Fame at last! The mother of all gamma males was centre stage! “I’m still really rather fond of him (DG)”, he gushed. (Yuk). And prior to the trial a knocking on every single door in Fleet Street in order to maximise his profits from the affair. So much so that the press recognised him very quickly as the low-life he is – “The rangy Australian with a penchant for self-publicity” as the Sunday Times called him. And another journalist summing up DG and BM’s fatal mistake in hiring him as their gunman: “if you lie with dogs, you catch fleas.”

    Moreover, this desperate need for validation is consistent with his entire life story: his invented and absurd claim that he single-handedly “broke the opticians’ monopoly” as he put it (See: Exhibit 52 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com and https://www.timworstall.com/2010/12/11/well-actually-it-was-peter-risdon/), how he graduated from St. Andrew’s University and so on.

    Or what about this truly excrutiating statement on another one of your blogs, Tim?:

    “All you’ll achieve… is to continue to raise my profile. Carry on, though. It’s working well for me.”

    (See Exhibit 52, http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com).

    Perhaps these words, more than any others that have been written regarding these matters, sum up the man’s psychology and tell us so much about his motivations.

    Yes, Tim. His profile has been raised!

    Far from considering DG and BM incompetent, moreover, Risdon was so impressed by what they pulled off that he set about trying to imitate their sting over the next year – which is of course precisely why he didn’t grass them up during that year but waited until he was busted owing to his utterly asinine plans.

    If you refer to Exhibit 57 of http://www.nobodylikesagrass.com and the comments thereon, you will note the investigating officer’s remarks. What is more, if you compare certain of those remarks with the Exhibits in Risdon’s trial (See in particular Exhibits 1-45) it is perfectly clear that Risdon attempted to replicate features of DG and BM’s modus operandi.

    And if Risdon seriously believes that people will consider it pure coincidence that almost exactly one year after he has partaken in a jewellery heist in New York, he happens to find himself in a bank trying to withdraw a heavily insured uncut diamond with a false passport in the name of an individual who had attempted an almost identical fraud in a different branch of the same bank only sometime previously, then he is simply living in a fantasy world.

    There is of course another fundamental point.

    If you refer to Risdon’s obsessive posting regarding DG and Iran mentioned above you will notice a comment from a certain ‘Paul Johnson.’ Somehow, one doubts whether the historian and well known journalist Paul Johnson would read Risdon’s blogs.

    Nevertheless, this particular blogger advances an obvious argument:

    “Your obsession with Guppy is tedious. Making him look bad does not in anyway make you and your antics look less bad.”

    In short, it matters not remotely whether DG is Al Capone or whether charges of competence or otherwise are applicable. None of that gets Risdon off the hook. And none of it addresses any of the FACTS outlined in our previous post.

    Naturally enough, Risdon doesn’t like inconvenient details being pointed out to him and so he throws dolly out of the pram and abuses Mr Johnson with a four letter term, but the blogger’s point is well made and sums up one of debating’s golden rules:

    The culpability of others does not prove one’s own innocence.

    The truth is that Risdon’s strategy is obvious and asinine and is designed to assuage his justified sense of shame: to maintain that he has only ever grassed once in his life, that he was among dozens of others who did so and that he did so against only a single individual who had somehow deserved it.

    Not quite. Risdon has grassed people up all his life. And not just DG. Moreover, if indeed there were “60 other witnesses” queueing round the block to testify against DG and BM then how come not one of them knocked on every door in Fleet Street, eventually selling their story to the News of the World? How come not one of them is a paid police informant? How come not one of them blackmailed the Defendants as Risdon did? And how come none of the accused grassed each other up in the manner of Risdon but remained loyal to each other throughout? And how come people like McLaine, if they knew so much about DG and BM, didn’t grass them up either? How come none of these people sold their stories? And how come DG and BM, who were far better connected than Risdon, didn’t betray any of their high profile friends to the newspapers as he did?

    Only one individual betrayed the others, grassed them up, blackmailed them, sold his story for money and subsequently came up with ridiculous excuses to justify his cowardice, envy and treachery – Peter Risdon.

    We imagine DG and BM quietly chuckling as they behold the fate of this depressing character. A fate predicted by even his own police handlers.

    Risdon’s is a salutary tale.

    So, anyone reading this blog who is thinking of becoming a grass: our advice to you is don’t go down that road, because if you do, well …

    You might end up like Peter Risdon.

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