Up Barking Creek

Sonia Gable | Wednesday, 7 March 2007 Source: Searchlight

Searchlight has always maintained that Richard Barnbrook, the leader of the BNP's group of 12 councillors in Barking and Dagenham, does not really live at the rundown rented flat where he put himself on the Electoral Register to qualify to stand for election last May.

The lack of interest shown by the council's returning officer in Barnbrook's falsification seems to have made him cocky. Barking and Dagenham BNP's website includes two downloadable petitions, though the site illiterately calls them "partitions", Both of them are to be returned after completion to "Councillor R Barnbrook" at, you've guessed it, his Lewisham address.

At present, however, Barnbrook has something more urgent on his mind. He has tuberculosis, a serious illness that can kill if untreated. It is commonly very infectious. No prizes for guessing the reaction of his nazi friends. A frequent contributor to the nazi Stormfront website expressed the hope that "the immigrant scum who infected him will be one of those deported when we come to power, along with all the other disease infested scum who come to the UK".

Elsewhere on the Barking and Dagenham BNP website are photographs of the BNP's councillors, all smartly dressed. But all is not quite what it seems. There are certainly 12 pictures, but where is Sandra Doncaster? Her place has been taken by a smirking James Webb, the one BNP candidate in Barking and Dagenham last May who failed to get elected.

Is the photo Webb's consolation prize or is Barnbrook not quite sure who his councillors are? Did Doncaster refuse to join her colleagues on the website or is Barnbrook so ashamed of her deeds before and after her election that he does not want her to sully his photo gallery?

To remind readers, Doncaster is the one who was taken to court for not paying her council tax for two years, running up a debt of £2,170.34. Before becoming a councillor she was twice hauled before the courts for nuisance caused by her dogs, including killing pet cats.

The website boasts that it is "Proudly powered by NoisyDinosaur webhosting and design". This is just another name for Vidronic Online, the internet business run by Lambertus Nieuwhof, the BNP's South African pro-apartheid terrorist and one of the subjects of Searchlight's special investigation this month.

Meanwhile, Searchlight hears that Councillor Robert Bailey, the BNP's deputy group leader on Barking and Dagenham council, has been living in a caravan. But it was not in a caravan park on the coast or in one of Britain's many beautiful countryside areas where people commonly go on holiday. Nor was it on a recognised site for Gypsies and travellers, which is hardly surprising because the BNP opposes such facilities.

No it was in sunny Barking, in the East Street shopping centre, just two minutes' walk from the flat where he and Barnbrook make out they are living. Council officers thought the caravan had been dumped but when they looked inside they found evidence of Bailey's residence. Local people report that his appearance is dishevelled and he looks like he is living rough.