Former Bank Robber Suspect Accuses BNP of Breaking the Law
Former bank robber suspect Peter Hain has falsely accused the British National Party of breaking the law — and is being served with official interested party status notices from party members over this threat to take legal action against the BBC.
According to news reports, Mr Hain has claimed that by allowing BNP leader Nick Griffin onto Question Time, the BBC was acting in contravention of the law “because the BNP has admitted that it is an illegal organisation.”
Mr Hain, who was arrested in 1974 for a bank robbery in Putney after four eyewitnesses identified him as the suspect, is of course, lying. His claim that the BNP admitted that it is currently acting contrary to the law is based on a deliberate twisting of the original settlement letter handed in to the court during last week’s case brought by the race Gestapo Commission for Equalities and Human Rights.
At no time during or in the settlement of the case, did the BNP’s representatives accept that the party was anything but a lawfully constituted organisation under the current Race Relations Act.
The BNP merely undertook to use their reasonable endeavours to ensure that the constitution of the BNP would comply with the upcoming Equality Act, which is not yet in force and which is only due for Royal Assent in Spring next year.
This means that all the BNP has done is undertake to comply with a law that is due to come into force at a future date. Nothing was agreed or conceded by the BNP concerning the current law.
Even the decision to halt membership applications was made in order to take the BNP outside the remit of the existing law and therefore make it impossible for the Commission for Equality and Human Rights to pursue its politically motivated legal action against the party.
Any legal action against the BBC which argues the BNP is and has accepted that it is an unlawful organisation, is therefore based on a complete lie and is bound to fail.
Lawyers acting for the BNP have drawn up a legal “notice of interested party status” letter, which supporters can download and send to Mr Hain directly.
A notice of interested party status letter can be sent by any person who can prove a legal interest in the matter. This automatically includes all BNP members and voters.
This letter will oblige Mr Hain to include the sender of that letter a full copy of any legal action which he might institute against the BBC. As many supporters as possible are encouraged to download a copy of the letter here (in Word format), fill out their details and send it on to Mr Hain. You can fax, email or post this letter.
The BNP’s lawyers have also advised supporters to give notice to the BBC asking for notification if they receive legal proceedings on the matter. This should be done in case Mr Hain backs down and gets someone else to bring the action against the BNP in his stead. A copy of this letter can be downloaded by clicking here and personalised.
Any notification from the BBC of legal action can then be used to send new interested party status letters to the new litigant. The original letter to Mr Hain can then have its address changed to that of the new litigant.
The letters cannot be faxed or emailed to the BBC and will have to be sent by post. All the relevant addresses are included in the letters.
The BNP’s legal team has also started compiling a claim against the legal director of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, John Wadham, for allegedly making a negligent or fraudulent misstatement in the discharge of a public duty.
The BNP lawyers argue that Mr Wadham allegedly totally misrepresented the nature of the agreement reached between the BNP officers and CEHR in his comments to the press. This was done in breach of the duties he owes the public as a public official.
* When Peter Hain was arrested for bank robbery: On Friday, 24 October 1975, Barclays Bank in Putney was robbed of £490 by a man who entered the premises and grabbed the money.
Police were given a description of the robber by the bank cashier who had been forced to hand over the money, and three schoolboys who witnessed the robbery.
The schoolboys followed the suspect who then threw the money away and climbed into a blue Volkswagen Beetle and drove away.
Based on the boys’ description of the suspect, and the vehicle’s description (which included the number plate), Mr Hain was identified by the police and arrested at his nearby home a short while later. He admitted to being out in his car at the time, but claimed he was buying a typewriter ribbon near the bank.
Mr Hain was later positively identified by the bank cashier at a police line-up.
Laughably, Mr Hain claimed that he had been “set up” with a body double by mysterious “South African intelligence agents” and pleaded not guilty in the resultant court case.
Mr Hain’s lawyers considered the defence so pathetic that they did not even enter it into the court records, and instead relied on the fact that the case had been given undue publicity which, they claimed, would have affected the reliability of the eyewitnesses.
Based on this defence alone, and disregarding the four eyewitnesses who positively identified Mr Hain as the bank robber, he was found not guilty. The judge, Alan King-Hamilton, told the jury that “Your conclusion was obviously a very difficult one.”
