- Shown the door - 11th April 2025
- Opposition party - 10th April 2025
- Charging down… - 9th April 2025
During 23 years with the BBC, and a 41 year journalistic career (when he was trained to use clear and simple language, avoiding jargon), our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry, has always confronted crooks as well as organisations in the wrong, and this is now highlighted by news that a stand up comedian challenged a heckler in one of his shows.
Paul Chowdhry used words, but I would ‘doorstep’ them.
Mr Chowdhry challenged a heckler at his show in Essex by shouting: “I’m gonna take a picture to make sure you’re never gonna get back in”, before a fight broke out in the audience and police had to be called.
The altercation happened at the end of Mr Chowdhry’s performance of his Englandia tour at the Cliffs Pavilion in Westcliff-on-Sea, Southend.
Theatre management said a “small number of customers expressed their frustration” towards another customer who had been heckling the act throughout the evening.
The effect though was the same as what I have always done. An individual was exposed for misdeeds.
During my long career as well as calling out wrong-doers, I have knocked on the doors of dodgy businessmen, and corrupt police (or EX police) officers.
When I was in television I learned to take a step back after delivering the knock, in case the person came out swinging.
Thankfully they would invariably go for the camera, not me!
As with Mr Chowdhry the abuse I have suffered has been incredible, and, too, the police have sometimes had to intervene.
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’.
Attempts have been made (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 by my supporters, 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 social media 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 feel for Mr Chowdhry in dealing with this abusive heckler because in the past I have 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.
But Mr Chowdhry showed ANOTHER form of bravery to my doorstepping of people.
He confronted a heckler in front of everybody!
The memories of Phil’s astonishing, decades long award-winning career in journalism (when ‘doorstepping’ people often happened) as he was gripped by the rare neurological disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in the book ‘A Good Story’. Order it now.
