Talk:Michael Shrimpton

Old version

The old version of the page is here on a mirror. It was deleted at AfD but was quite different (a resume, probably an autobio) and so is not eligible for speedy deletion. User:Psychonaut, you may find some of the biographical details useful. Fences&Windows 21:53, 23 June 2016 (UTC)

I am the subject of this biography. It is largely sourced to an anonymous contributor 'Psychonaut'. He or she has made no attempt to verify the information in the article with me, although I am a Wikipedia user. It is biased and clearly an attack piece, containing serious factual errors. Until August 9 the article erroneously stated that I was a "former barrister", e.g., an error which even basic fact-checking would have identified, with respect to Psychonaut. Another Wikipedia user has tried to make changes, but Psychonaut has a policy of restoring all or most of the original. Either the article should be lifted until it can be replaced with an objective biography, 'Psychonaut' should be restrained by editorial intervention or have his editorial privileges withdrawn.

In relation to the criminal convictions, each is under active investigation by the UK's Criminal Cases Review Commission, following the emergence of fresh evidence, some of it supplied by Britain's MI5 intelligence agency. A balanced piece would summarise the fresh evidence and state that the convictions have been questioned and are under review. Mr Justice Wilkie has ruled that the reference to the CCRC was on "legitimate" grounds Michael Shrimpton (talk) 11:05, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

I have deactivated the helpme template for several reasons. Firstly, it does not specifically require the attention of administrators - any editor could make the changes. Secondly, as the discussion has been moved to the biographies of living persons noticeboard, any comment should be moved there. I will make subsequent comment there.--Launchballer 19:23, 10 August 2016 (UTC)

There still has been no effective editorial intervention. This is clearly an attack piece, mostly authored by 'Psychonaut', hiding under the cover of anonymity. He has got basic facts wrong, such as the name of the Secretary of State for Defence. He has not put the defence case and is deleting attempts by those trying to make this page more balanced to refer to the Criminal Cases Review Commission inquiries into my two convictions. The description "conspiracy theorist" is both offensive and misleading. His aggressive reversion tactics are making it impossible to correct the errors and make this a serious biographical entry. Michael Shrimpton (talk) 09:22, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello, Michael. I'm sorry you feel the article is attacking you. It was written using all available, arguably reliable sources that I could find. Since the vast majority of these sources are concerned with your Bar Standards Board suspension, your multiple criminal convictions, and your conspiracy theories (and yes, that's the term they use), it is only expected (and quite in line with our NPOV policy) that this "negative" information will dominate the article. If you know of further published information that covers other aspects of your life, please list the sources here. Note, however, that the information will need to come from reliable sources as determined by our policy and its consensus-driven interpretation. Simply making unreferenced claims, as you (and an anonymous IP account that I assume is also you or acting at your direction) have done here, is not sufficient. Unreferenced or insufficiently referenced information can and will be removed from the article, and you should not interpret this as a sign that anyone is trying to attack you. —Psychonaut (talk) 12:18, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Michael, I note you have once again inserted unsourced material into the article, some of which directly contradicts claims made by the cited sources. Please do not do this again; repeated insertion of unsourced or improperly cited material can be considered vandalism, and you can be blocked for this. We are of course concerned that this article presents verifiably correct information and so any reliable sources you can provide to support your claims will be greatly appreciated. But given your obvious conflict of interest, it would be better for you to list these sources here on the talk page for the community to examine and incorporate into the article, rather than changing the article yourself. —Psychonaut (talk) 12:02, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

previously deleted as an attack page

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Michael_Shrimpton_(barrister_and_terror_expert)&action=edit&redlink=1 - not sure what is going on here ?? Govindaharihari (talk) 20:10, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, there have been three previous articles (or fake articles) on Michael Shrimpton:

1. Michael Shrimpton (barrister and terror expert), speedy-deleted on 25 January 2010
2. User:Michael Shrimpton, deleted on 11 August 2012 via Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Michael Shrimpton
3. Michael Shrimpton, deleted on 17 August 2012 via Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michael Shrimpton

I wasn't involved in the creation or deletion of any of these three previous articles, and never saw their contents here. (Though as User:Fences and windows reports above, there exists a WikiFolks mirror (sans editing history) of the third article.)

Based on my reading of the deletion discussions and logs, it seems the first of these articles was (at least in part) an attack page. I don't know whether Shrimpton himself ever edited it. The second article was created by User:BlueFive, a single-purpose account, but was taken over by Shrimpton and turned into an unreferenced autobiography. It's not clear who created the third article, but it also was or became an unreferenced autobiography.

After these deletions, Shrimpton became notable by virtue of his moderately publicized criminal convictions for child pornography and a bomb-threat hoax at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and also because some of his conspiracy theories were covered in the press and in The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories. I therefore created a new Michael Shrimpton article from scratch based on all available reliable sources. Unfortunately, it seems that Shrimpton is once again turning the article into an unreferenced or poorly referenced autobiography. He's complained about the article several times on this talk page and on the BLP noticeboard already, but he has never participated in the resulting discussions. He seems oblivious to all attempts at drawing his attention to our policies on reliable sourcing and verifiability. Any suggestions? —Psychonaut (talk) 10:10, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi User:Psychonaut. Well, I would delete it myself, he's a nobody really and it is basically with the criminal convictions thrown in looking like an attack article, sadly as wiki's general notability guideline is set so low I imagine deletion is unlikely to happen, I will remove it from my watchlist so I don't become further involved. Govindaharihari (talk) 14:31, 18 September 2016 (UTC)

Further reliable sources

I've discovered some further reliable sources that can be used to supplement and support information on Shrimpton's bomb-threat and Madeleine McCann hoaxes and his involvement with the metric martyrs. These include several articles in The Daily Telegraph (e.g., Barrister sparked security scare by 'claiming Nazis wanted to blow up the Queen at the 2012 Olympics', Trying to keep the scales of justice imperial), The Scotsman (e.g., Barrister jailed for Nazi Olympics bomb hoax call) and Court News UK (e.g., Nuclear bomb hoax barrister facing jail, Barrister claims missing Maddie held on boat). A Legal Futures article could serve as an independent source for the Bar Standards Board suspension.

There are also a number of tabloid articles from the Daily Mail, Daily Express, and Daily Mirror. I had previously used some of these as sources in the article, as my understanding of past discussions at WP:RS/N was that they were sometimes acceptable when they were not used as sole sources (e.g., if they are used to corroborate material from undeniably reliable sources). If I'm mistaken about this then I suppose these sources should be disregarded.

I will hold off on making any changes until the COI issues are resolved. Does anyone have secondary sources for any of the material Shrimpton himself has recently added to the article? —Psychonaut (talk) 09:05, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Minor edit request

"Gray's Inn" should be Wikilinked, as should "child pornography" and "barrister". "EU" should be expanded to "European Union" and Wikilinked. "Conspiracy theories" in the lede should be Wikilinked to "conspiracy theory". There could be some other copyedits as well, but those are what I picked up after a quick read.

Obviously, no great rush. Beyond My Ken (talk) 18:48, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 19 September 2016

--Christopher Earl Strunk (talk) 20:24, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Extended content

Professional and political career[edit] Shrimpton was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in November 1983,[1] and practised law as a barrister from 1984 until 2010 and again from 2012 until 2014. He also held judicial office in the Immigration Appellate Authority, at both first instance and appellate level. He was the first British immigration judge to refer questions of law to the Court of Justice of the European Communities.[2] .[3] As a result of his child pornography charges (see below), in April 2013 he gave a voluntary undertaking to theBar Standards Board not to participate in cases involving the welfare of children. Following his November 2014 conviction the Board suspended him from practice pending the conclusion of professional misconduct proceedings.[4], which have been postponed on the order of a High Court judge pending the completion by the Criminal Cases Review Commission of their inquiries into the convictions. An attempt by the Board to suspend Shrimpton on an interim basis for the child pornography charges, described in open court by Her Honour Judge Holt during Shrimpton's appeal as "not particularly serious",[5] failed on appeal in January 2015, after the learned judge's remarks were drawn to the appeal panel's attention. From 1981 to 1997, Shrimpton was a member of the Labour Party and contested the 1987 general election in Horsham and the 1989 European Parliament election in West Sussex. In 1997 he defected to the Conservative Party over the issue of EU membership.[6][7]. In 2000 he was briefly Co-Chairman of the Bruges Group. Shrimpton is a member of Mensa. Intelligence Theories[edit] Shrimpton is noted primarily for his claims concerning the penetration of British politics and Civil Service by German intelligence. According to Shrimpton, Germany re-established its intelligence apparatus in 1945, and has since used it to wreak economic and political chaos on the West. This apparatus is supposedly responsible for the assassinations (sometimes using weaponized cancer) of Hugh Gaitskell, Ross McWhirter, Airey Neave, Ian Gow, John Smith, James Goldsmith, Christopher Story, Anna Lindh, Jo Cox, Mohandas Gandhi, and John F. Kennedy. Shrimpton further claims that German intelligence controlled Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the British prime ministers Clement Attlee, Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson, and Edward Heath.[7][8][9] These claims were summarised in his book Spyhunter:The Secret History of German Intelligence.[10]. Shrimpton has also published in legal journals [11] and the Journal of International Security Affairs,[12], and authored the chapter on immigration in AIDS And The Law. [13] In addition to his theories concerning the continuation of covert German intelligence activity after 1945 , Shrimpton is an outspoken campaigner on issues such as Euroscepticism, weights and measures, organized paedophilia, the disappearance ofMadeleine McCann, global warming, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, and coproxamol and its role in the death of David Kelly.[14][9][3]. His analysis of the death of Dr Kelly CMG is summarised in Spyhunter.[15] Shrimpton theorised that the constituent active drugs in coproxamol, dextropropoxythene and paracetamol metabolise in the body at approximately the same rate and should therefore be present in the blood in roughly the same ratio (1:10) as in coproxamol. There were in fact present in a ratio of 1:97,000 [16]. Shrimpton also alighted on the comparative lack of the inactive ingredients of coproxamol in the stomach contents and the lack of any reported case in the medical literature of a successful suicide by transection of a single ulnar artery, without any means of keeping the body warm, noting that transected arteries normally retract. In relation to global warming Shrimpton is known to share the opinion of the late British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore that planetary climate variations are primarily a function of solar output and orbital mechanics. In Spyhunter[17] he gives figures of approximately 3.3% for human contribution to CO2 and 5% for CO2's contribution to the greenhouse effect. Shrimpton also rejects the Royal Aircraft Establishment's explanation for the loss of BOAC De Havilland Comets Yoke Peter and Yoke Yoke in 1954, noting that the figures given for the testing of the Yoke Uncle test fuselage cannot be reconciled with the published start and end dates of the test, that the wing fractured first, as would be expected, as it experienced greater cyclic stresses in flight, but that no wing cracks had been observed on any airframe in the BOAC fleet, and that no fatigue problems had been experienced on the French Comet 1A fleets.[18] Notable Cases at Bar[edit] In Webb v. Emo Air Cargo (UK) Ltd[19] Shrimpton argued at the Industrial Tribunal that community law outlawed discrimination on the basis of pregnancy. At the Employment Appeal Tribunal Shrimpton, unusually, argued the community law point even though his leader, the late John Melville Williams QC, had declined to argue it. Shrimpton's arguments anticipated the eventual ruling by the European Court of Justice and in 1999 he was instructed by the appellant, Carole Louise Webb, to appear as her counsel at the compensation hearing, more than 11 years after he drafted her application. The case was one of the longest running in post-war British legal history. In R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Muboyayi[20] Shrimpton obtained a Writ of Habeas Corpus on behalf of a Zairean asylum-seeker who was to be deported within hours and argued that Habeas Corpus could be used as a form of Judicial Review. The case was removed from the list in the House of Lords after Muboyayi escaped. In R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte Rahman[21] Shrimpton again used Habeas Corpus on behalf of a detained immigrant, adopting the argument of Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone in a case 30 years before against the use of hearsay evidence. Shrimpton's most famous case was arguably Thoburn & ors v. Sunderland City Council & ors[22], popularly known as the 'Metric Martyrs Case', where he argued that the constitutional doctrine of Implied Repeal protected the sovereignty of Parliament from encroachment by community law. Intelligence Conferences[edit] Shrimpton was a speaker at the Intelligence Conference (Intelcon) held at Crystal City VA in 2005 and the Intelligence Summit, also at Crystal City, in 2006. He also spoke at the Gregynnog Intelligence Conference, organised by the University of Aberystwyth in 2013. He was a member of the Adjunct Faculty of the American Military University (AMU) from 2007 until 2010, where he taught on the Masters in Strategic Intelligence course. In February 2006 he participated in the United States Navy's Distinguished Visitor Program, being flown onto and off the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise(CVN-65). Criminal convictions[edit] On 19 April 2012, Shrimpton was contacted by the Private Secretary to [Defence Secretary]] Philip Hammond and on 20 April 2012 he rang the political agent of Foreign Office minister David Lidington MP to warn of an impending nuclear attack against London, passing on intelligence published online in Tokyo by commentator Benjamin Fulford. According to Fulford and Shrimpton, a German intelligence agency, the DVD, had stolen four SS-N-19 nuclear warheads from the sunken Russian submarineRFS Kursk and inserted it into East London. The agency was supposedly planning to detonate the warhead during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Hammond's office referred the reports to the Olympic Security Authority. Shrimpton was asserted by Leicestershire and Thames Valley Police to be "an intelligence nuisance" and the reporting was not seriously investigated, for example by the deployment of specialist radiation detection devices. Shrimpton was arrested at his home inWendover on 20 April 2012 charges of communicating false information with intent. The case went to trial, with Shrimpton representing himself. He was convicted by a majority only on two counts in 2014, and in February 2015 was sentenced to a twelve-month term of imprisonment.[23] While investigating the bomb hoax case, police claim to have discovered Shrimpton to be in possession of a memory stick containing forty indecent images of male teenagers. This resulted in a summary prosecution, with Shrimpton being convicted and sentenced to a three-year supervision order and a five-year sexual offences prevention order. He was also required to sign the Violent and Sex Offender Register. Shrimpton unsuccessfully appealed against the conviction, claiming that Thames Valley Police Special Branch officers had planted the pornographic images on a second, identical memory stick after his arrest in order to discredit him.[3] During the proceedings a Thames Valley Police officer, Mottau, confirmed that fingerprint checks on the memory stick and a laptop computer were negative for Shrimpton's prints. In breach of UK disclosure requirements this negative fingerprint report was not disclosed to Shrimpton before the trial. Neither the Magistrates' Court nor the Crown Court on appeal sought to explain the absence of Shrimpton's fingerprints on computer equipment said to be his. In February 2015 a computer expert concluded that Shrimpton could have not committed the offences. It was later revealed that the hard drive relied upon by the prosecution was an aftermarket item made by Western Digital Corporation and not that originally fitted to Shrimpton's laptop computer, which still had its original hard drive fitted when seized by police. The pornography conviction was referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) in September 2015. The bomb hoax conviction was referred to the CCRC in March 2016. The "intelligence nuisance" claim was undermined by the release to Shrimpton in March 2016 by the Security Service of copies of correspondence to Shrimpton from the Service the existence of which had been denied by the Crown Prosecution Service and Thames Valley Police in each prosecution. References[edit] 1. Jump up^ "Michael Shrimpton". Bar Standards Board. Retrieved 2016-06-22. 2. Jump up^ El-Yassini v. Secretary of State for the Home Department Case C-416/96 [1999] ECR 1-1209 [1999] All ER (D) 217, see commentary by Melin, Barbara at (1999) 36 CMLR 357-364 3. ^ Jump up to:a b c O'Keeffe, Hayley (2014-10-20). "Ex-judge: 'Secret service framed me over child porn'". Bucks Herald. Retrieved 2016-06-22. 4. Jump up^ "BSB Statement following the conviction of barrister for "bomb hoax"". Bar Standards Board. 2014-11-26. Retrieved 2016-06-22. 5. Jump up^ Amersham Crown Court, July 28 2014. 6. Jump up^ "Labour Activist Defects in Uxbridge". BBC. 1997. Retrieved 2016-06-22. 7. ^ Jump up to:a b Shrimpton, Michael (2016-06-18). "On the assassination of Jo Cox MP". UKIP Daily. Retrieved 2016-06-22. 8. Jump up^ Shrimpton, Michael (2014). Spyhunter. June Press. 9. ^ Jump up to:a b McConnachie, James; Tudge, Robin (2013). The Rough Guide to Conspiracy Theories. Rough Guides. 10. Jump up^ Totnes, Devon, June Press, 2014 11. Jump up^ E.g. In Defence of Habeas Corpus [1993] PL 24 12. Jump up^ The Law of War, Number 2, Winter 2002, p.59 13. Jump up^ London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1990. 14. Jump up^ "Metric martyrs lose battle for pounds and ounces". The Telegraph. 2002-02-18. Retrieved 2016-06-24. 15. Jump up^ 2nd ed., pp 601-604. Gordon Thomas states in the second edition of Gideon's Spies (page 516) that part of Shrimpton's analysis on the death of David Kelly features in the training syllabus of the Mossad. 16. Jump up^ Report of Lord Hutton's Inquiry,paragraph 149 17. Jump up^ 2nd ed., pp 566-570. 18. Jump up^ Spyhunter, Chapter 21. 19. Jump up^ Case C-32/93 (ECJ) [1992] 1 All ER 43 (EAT)[1994] QB 718 (CA)[1993] 1 WLR 49 [1993] ICR 175 [1993] IRLR 27 (HL, No 1) [1995] 1 WLR 1454 [1996] 2 CMLR 970 [1995] 4 All ER 577 [1995] IRLR 645(HL, No 2) 20. Jump up^ [1992] 1 QB 244 [1991] 1 WLR 442 [1991] 4 All ER 72 21. Jump up^ [1998] QB 136 (CA) 22. Jump up^ [2003] QB 151 [2002] 3 WLR 247 [2002] 4 All ER 158 23. Jump up^ O'Keeffe, Hayley (2015-02-06). "Jail for pervert barrister who said nuclear bomb would blow up the Queen at the London Olympics". Bucks Herald. Retrieved 2016-06-22. External links[edit] • Official website • Shrimpton's columns at Veterans Today

Christopher Earl Strunk (talk) 20:24, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

•  Not done You have made no concrete suggestions (in the form of 'change 'X' to 'Y'), and in any case since this is this account's second edit in nearly ten years, such a wall of text will probably not be taken seriously. _Muffled ^Pocketed 20:42, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

While I have not (and don't intend to) edit this particular page I see a lot of white washing and leading credence to theories as well as an autobiographical spin to your suggestions. Wikipedia is not a place for biographies, it I a place to report what the mainstream view of a subject, regardless of positive or negative coverage (we don't make people look worse or better.) I believe this suggestion is a non starter but I could be wrong. Tivanir2 (talk) 11:01, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

The paragraph headed "Intelligence Conferences" in Mr. Strunk's proposed text is taken verbatim from an affidavit signed by Mr. Shrimpton himself in a legal action brought by Mr. Strunk, with only the change being from the first to the third person. [1] So yes, it is autobiographical in that part. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kwdavids (talk • contribs) 00:47, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Shrimpton as birther

Shrimpton, based on the CIA refusing to tell him anything, concluded that they had conducted DNA tests on President Obama and his mother, and failed to find a match. Without resorting to Mr. Shrimpton's own statements in court documents, or fringe blogs favorable to him, I'm having a problem sourcing Shrimpton as a birther. Can I use WorldNetDaily? [http://www.wnd.com/2014/04/obamas-origins-resurface-at-intel-experts-trial/] Dr. Conspiracy (talk) 01:15, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

WND is not a reliable source for reporting. If Shrimpton, however, wrote a column for WND and in it called himself a birther, that was be acceptable. --Weazie (talk) 17:11, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

Agreed that WND is not a source that meets our reliability criteria. I would even go so far as to say that no material on Shrimpton's views should be sourced solely to primary sources (such as books and articles authored by Shrimpton) as this may give undue weight to Shrimpton's association with those views. That is to say, birtherism is indeed a notable theory, and Shrimpton himself may be connected with it, but if we cannot find an independent, third-party source that mentions this connection, then it shouldn't be covered in the article. Not everyone who advocates birtherism is famous for being a birther. If we can find a reliable third-party source that mention's Shrimptons views on the matter, then I think we can mention these views, and it would be fine to add a second reference to one of his writings where these views are expounded. —Psychonaut (talk) 18:55, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

@Kwdavids: I've located an article by Ben Dimiero of Media Matters for America that discusses Shrimpton's views on Obama's parentage. This source is probably acceptable per our WP:NEWSBLOG policy. —Psychonaut (talk) 13:20, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Protected edit request on 25 September 2016

Please replace the entire contents of the article with the draft at User:Psychonaut/Michael Shrimpton (first removing the leading colons from the Category links at the bottom). This draft significantly expands the article with new information and new sources for existing information. (You can see a diff between the current version of the article and the proposed draft.)

Psychonaut (talk) 14:34, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

• Support Excellent new article- well done and thank you, Psychonaut. _Muffled ^Pocketed 14:39, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Done — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:47, 25 September 2016 (UTC)