Posted on by Richard Bartholomew

Blogger threatened with assault, smeared anonymously as paedophile

Boasts of role in James Ujaama conviction

Links to prominent politician explored

Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads has returned to the subject of Glen Jenvey, who appeared on the anti-Islam Obsession DVD as a supposed “Free-lance Terror Investigator“. As I’ve blogged a number of times lately, Tim has found strong circumstantial evidence that Jenvey made anonymous postings to a Muslim discussion forum as “Abuislam”, urging Muslims to “target” prominent British Jews for revenge over Israeli action in Gaza – in particular, he named Sir Alan Sugar, a businessman and star of a TV competition show. Jenvey then presented these postings to the UK Sun as evidence of Muslim extremism, and he was featured in a front-page story headlined “Terror Target Sugar”. However, once Tim publicised his concerns, the story was withdrawn, and the Sun is now fending off an investigation from the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and legal threats from Alan Sugar. Tim has now uncovered lots more – and there’s a small cameo by me in the unfolding saga.

Jenvey’s responses have been increasingly desperate. He claimed that he could prove that his computer had not been used to post to the Muslim forum – rather unconvincing given that it’s possible to own more than one computer, and to have access to more besides. Jenvey also took the predictable line that because he battles extremists, any criticism of him must be the work of extremists, and he made edits to Wikipedia accusing the PCC of supporting al-Qaeda. When the Guardian ran a short report on the PCC investigation, Jenvey then concocted a bizarre conspiracy theory about the editor of the paper, which was then promoted by his friend Jeremy Reynalds at the evangelical Christian newssite ASSIST. When that flopped, Jenvey then made a complaint to the police, accusing Tim of “hate comments”.

Tim then produced extracts from audio recording of Jenvey talking to an unknown journalist, and asked Jenvey for clarifications on some points. After prevaricating for a few days, Jenvey came up with:

Is your email a threat? to me. if so i might have to go to the police. grow up you child.tim your a waste of space who supports terrorist at ummah.com as i said for the last time i’m going to sue the Guardian newspaper. and i’m very interested in why you are so interested in certain names? maybe you are the people you keep trying to say others are. i would suggest you stop writting to me as i have past each of your emails to the police already like i have the last one.

Jenvey, it should be noted, is dyslexic, and his writing style is particularly distinctive. This was followed up with

do you not understand no one is taking any notice of you creep.but yes watch out in the dark you never know who might be around the corner.

Around the same time, a posting was made to a blog about Thailand, in exactly the same style as the above, pretending to be from the Daily Mail and accusing Tim of being a paedophile.

There is now strong reason to believe that Jenvey is a vindictive sociopath who is lashing out wildly and recklessly as the sense of self-worth he derives from his “terror investigator” status crumbles around him, and I doubt even Jeremy Reynalds will be wanting to defend his friend after these developments.

But this is not just an embarrassment for those who made and promoted Obsession or for Reynalds; as well as attempting to stir up hatred between British Jews and Muslims via the Sun, Jenvey’s antics may be a serious threat to countering extremism on both sides of the Atlantic. Tim has released more of the audio, including this:

The Abu Hamza videos led to the actual conviction and.. of… of… James Ujaama, because I uploaded them the day before he went to court. They hadn’t been shared by the FBI and the American Embassy who already had those… um… those tapes. See, it was the first time the Seattle FBI had actually had seen James Ujaama sat on a platform next to Abu Hamza, and they were struggling with the case and even struggling to keep him in prison. So if I hadn’t’ve uploaded the original page of ‘Al-Qaida Exposed’… videos.. um… basically… James Ujaama would’ve got off scot free. Probably, the snowball effect that then led to Abu Hamza extradition and case being built, which Ujaama in his plea-bargaining helped the FBI build, would never have happened… and the police in this country arrested Abu Hamza on an American extradition [“right?” iaudible] and then they tripped over… boxes of [VHS] videos similar to the ones that I uploaded. That I’d given them several years before.”

As Tim notes,

The action he describes above – releasing ‘evidence’ already rejected by authorities to the public a day before a trial – may be legal (just), but I can’t see it pleasing anyone doing the hard work of making a clean conviction stick. No, all I can see is a yappy pup who continually spooks the game because he wants so much to be in on the hunt.

Tim also gives us some more details about Jenvey’s British friends – the audio also features Jenvey boasting about how when the police don’t take him seriously he goes to a British diplomat named Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, through Cowper-Coles’ cousin, a lecturer named “Mike”. Tim has now publicly identified “Mike” as Michael Starkey, and this was where I was able to help – I found a family tree which shows they have a common ancestor in Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, who drowned when a ship he had designed capsized in 1870 – “Mike” and Sir Sherard are (I think I’ve got this right) third cousins once removed. Someone left a comment on my blog naming Michael Starkey as a possibility for “Mike” from this family tree, but I removed it due to lack of evidence. However, Tim notes that Michael Starkey’s older brother is Sir John Starkey, who sits on the executive committee for his local MP – none other than Patrick Mercer. Mercer was formerly “Shadow Minister for Homeland Security”, but he resigned from this position under a cloud after a gaffe which suggested he did not fully understand that racist name-calling in the Armed Forces should not be tolerated (although he seems generally to be moderate sort of person). Sir John is not much of a fan of Mercer, and he accused him of disloyalty when Mercer agreed to take up an advisory role with Gordon Brown. Facing what the Daily Mail called “grassroots fury“, Mercer was in a tricky situation. Over the past few years Mercer has been in the media many times to highlight specific extremist threats – but how much of his material is now tainted by association with Jenvey?

Tim has also been in contact with Sir Sherard:

Meanwhile, after weeks of radio silence, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles has finally been in touch. We’re still discussing what will or won’t be said on the record, but he’s not standing shoulder to shoulder with Jenvey by any means. (Psst! Glen! You may want to clutch your archived emails that little bit closer… they could well be the only ‘friends’ you have left.)

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