Abusive behaviour

It’s coming to something when even our elected representatives get in on the act!

One female MP, who asked to remain anonymous, said she had last weekend reported to the police an online rape threat linked to her support for asylum seekers.

Shipley’s Labour member, Anna Dixon, said she had received death threats after the Conservative MP for Keighley and Ilkley, Robbie Moore, shared “misleading” information about her stance on grooming gangs.

“The lambasting we are all getting on social media and in the inbox is grim, from both sides”, said her political colleague Tonia Antoniazzi, Labour’s MP for Gower.

“It’s like we can’t do right for doing wrong and everything has become frighteningly polarised.”

Sad to say, I know how they feel because I get online abuse all the time when people (presumably) don’t like the stories I write.

In the old days they used to have to stop and think, put pen to paper, find a stamp, before sending in a letter of complaint (they often seemed to use green ink!).

Now with Facebook (FB), X (formerly Twitter), or in the comments sections of media outlets, this can be done almost instantaneously.

Another reason could be that these awful comments are published with the authors often using a pseudonym, so they are anonymous.

It is probably easier to say these terrible things if people don’t know who you are.

Comments about me have also had to be referred to the police for investigation (as with those hurled at our MPs over asylum-seekers).

A Marc Winchester said on Twitter/X, in a tweet which has since been deleted:  “I’ll whack him (me)“, and the definition of the verb ‘to whack’ in the Urban Dictionary is:  “to murder someone”.

He had links to the failed company No Debt Ltd and when it was wound up the liquidator said: “At the date of liquidation the Company’s draft accounts for the year ended 30 June 2015 suggested that the former director… of the Company… Mr Winchester (owed) the Company… a collective amount totalling £317,406 … Mr Winchester was declared bankrupt on 23 May 2017”.

This Mr Winchester is a family member, although it appears he is another part of the Winchester ‘club’.

But there is a connection with Mr Winchester, too, through another crashed business which also hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons – Falcon and Pointer Ltd. The BBC reported that the licence to practice was taken away after more than 40 million nuisance calls had been made. The item said:  “Falcon and Pointer Ltd used automatic dialing technology to make the calls about mis-sold payment protection insurance (PPI). The Claims Management Regulator (CMR)… (said)… The firm set out to ‘plague the public and rip off consumers’…”

If anything, the torrent of insults is increasing!

Attempts have been (thankfully unsuccessful!) to close down my website, The Eye, because people didn’t like what was said there.

My Wikipedia entry has been vandalised several times, and in one instance the words ‘tool’ and ‘knob head’ were inserted. I have also been compared on Twitter/X to the comedy broadcaster Alan Partridge.

The Wikepedia entry has now been restored to its original form, after officials removed the abusive words.

The Alan Partridge comment was by a Sion Tomos Owen whose blog describes him as: “…a bilingual TV and Radio presenter, illustrator, writer and creative workshop tutor…”.

Mr Owen said in Welsh: “There’s no way that this website (The Eye) is for real?! It’s as if a Take a Break (light magazine) story has been edited by Alan Partridge” (laughing emoji).

Another remark which concerned a television ‘reporter’ who had posted pictures of herself on FB or Twitter in skimpy clothes, is sadly typical of the insults I constantly receive: “Your article on Ellie Pitt was bordering on mysogynistic bullying, a really pathetic article written by a bitter individual who was a complete failiure as a BBC correspondent and also loved bashing the Catholic Church with your disgraceful Panorama programme”.

Indeed accusations of being ‘misogynistic’ (which is the correct spelling) or ‘misogynist’, are a constant refrain among those who hurl offensive comments (including from a person who has now been jailed because of his pedophilia), if factual stories are published with the targets happening to be women, yet these are potentially libellous words and the description is also provably wrong.

I have been subjected to a torrent of abuse on social media from a conman, called Howard Williams, as well as from his supporters, following discoveries by The Eye’s journalists. My friends, wife and children, have been too.

In one tirade he said to me on FB:  “You write total lies about people (The Eye – we only report facts), bully to the point of harassment and suicide, and will not answer a direct email? This is not journalism this is a mixture of Phil Parry (The ex journalist) and (others) you are pure scum!!!!! Let it be publicly known that The Eye does NOT care about people it just lies to make fictitious stories up. BULLYING, LIES, MENTAL HEALTH ABUSE TO NAME BUT A FEW!!!!!”.

In another he said: “I am have contacted you (sic) numerous times before asking why you consistently, stalk, bully and harass me? … You so far have asked the following for comments:
Thief
Abuser (The Eye have never said Williams is an abuser). 
Liar
Sex Offender (The Eye have never said Williams is a sex offender).
Drug user (The Eye have never said Williams is a drug user, just that he has dealt in illegal drugs).

In the past I have also been accused online (incorrectly) of being a “bastard” (many times), an “anti-devolutionist wanker”, “pure scum”, a “liar” (also many times) a “little git”, and (correctly) a “nosey git”, “irritating”, or a “nuisance”. But these remarks come amid many others. Too many, in fact, to mention.

I rarely sue (although I do sometimes) unless the online message is particularly outrageous, and contains a libel (which most of them do).

Some can be rebutted in court using an “honest comment” defence (formerly known as “fair comment”), however most cannot, which means that any libel case is likely to be successful.

Perpetrators of this abuse appear to be unaware of the legal ramifications of their statements, and say the most appalling things online (which, of course, have been PUBLISHED to a third party so the RULES APPLY!).

You have to develop a thick skin knowing you are going to be the subject of these insults, but are still determined to pursue journalistic investigations.

It seems that high-profile politicians must develop one too, if they speak out on asylum-seekers, or ‘misleading’ information is shared about their stance on grooming gangs…

The memories of Phil’s decades long award-winning career in journalism (when abuse was fairly rare at the beginning) as he was gripped by the incurable neurological condition, Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now!