When Alex Belfield was despatched to jail for 5 and a half years final month for on-line stalking, his accusers cried with reduction. Lastly, respite from what for some had been a decade of near-constant abuse. No extra waking up in the course of the night time full of dread about what he may need mentioned about them to his then 373,000 YouTube subscribers or in bitter emails to their bosses or shoppers.
For the TV presenter Jeremy Vine, essentially the most high-profile goal of arguably Britain’s most prolific troll, it will be the primary time in a number of years that he may host a dwell phone-in with out worrying that one in every of Belfield’s acolytes would hijack the programme to confront him with Belfield’s lies.
The reduction was short-term. Inside hours, a video appeared on Belfield’s “secret” video channel, accessible to anybody prepared to pay him a pound per week. “In case you are watching this, I've been despatched to jail,” intoned Belfield in his Steve Wright meets Alan Partridge increase, standing in entrance of a skewwhiff union jack in the lounge of his Nottingham dwelling, carrying one in every of his trademark jazzy shirts. For simply over three minutes, the 42-year-old delivered a monologue during which he mentioned he was in jail for merely “defending himself”. All he had performed, he advised, was problem individuals who had mentioned “issues I believed to be unfaithful”. He had “by no means gone close to anybody”, he insisted, and was not accused of threatening any violence.
Belfield in contrast his therapy with that of a police officer who had escaped jail regardless of being convicted of possessing youngster abuse photos. “I’m clearly of extra danger to this nation than a person who's drawn to kids,” he deadpanned. He ended with one in every of his catchphrases – “I really like you, and there’s nothing you are able to do about it” – earlier than making what to his victims was a sinister promise: “We shall be again.”
It was traditional Belfield. Sanctimonious, petulant and remorseless, taking parts of truth and twisting them to go well with his personal functions whereas belittling his targets – and monetising these distortions, at the same time as he sat in a jail cell.
The royal “we” was a frequent Belfield affectation, designed to offer the impression that he sat on the prime of an anti-woke multimedia empire within the Alex Jones/Infowars mould. In courtroom, he claimed to have 9 workers, however who they're stays a thriller. When not filming himself he would deal with his digicam operator as “Tarquin”. He would invite viewers to ship in fan mail to not any registered workplace however to his native pub, whose landlady he described as his “receptionist”.
To those that had been monitoring Belfield’s output for the previous few years, it was no shock that he wished the ultimate phrase. This was a person who had not solely eschewed legal professionals to characterize himself in courtroom, however who had reported on his personal trial every night time on-line; a person who even after being discovered responsible, appeared on stage in Blackpool with controversial rightwing commentator Katie Hopkins, taking part in up his position as “The Stalker” as he awaited sentence.
The morning of his sentencing, Belfield had sat silent within the dock at Nottingham crown courtroom as barrister David Aubrey KC lastly mitigated on his behalf. Belfield, a former BBC radio presenter turned YouTube “free speech advocate”, was “deeply sorry” for the damage he had prompted, mentioned Aubrey, after Belfield was convicted of stalking Vine and three different males on-line.
It didn’t work. Decide Saini jailed Belfield for 5 years and 26 weeks, accusing him of getting “weaponised the web” to “hang-out” his targets. “On-line stalkers like you might have the flexibility to recruit a military of followers whose conduct massively expands the impact of your stalking. That's the reason I say your stalking is in lots of respects extra critical than a traditional stalker,” the decide mentioned.
4 girls, previous and former BBC DJs and executives, had additionally accused Belfield of stalking them by way of electronic mail and social media, however the jury discovered him not responsible on these fees. Regardless, the decide clearly thought-about him a risk. “Every of them suffered a marketing campaign of harassment by electronic mail and social media communications. Every of them suffered critical psychological well being issues arising from Mr Belfield’s conduct,” he mentioned, imposing indefinite restraining orders stopping Belfield from contacting the ladies.
The eight complainants hoped to by no means hear from their tormenter once more, solely to find that he had organized for that one closing, defiant video to go dwell after the decide despatched him down, goading them from past his jail partitions. Inside days, 15,000 individuals had signed a “Free Alex Belfield” petition and Hopkins was on Instagram mocking Belfield’s targets for whining about easy “hurty phrases”. Would they ever actually have the ability to escape the person Vine described as “an Olympic-level” stalker?
How a failed native radio DJ with Timmy Mallett’s gown sense ended up making probably a whole bunch of hundreds of kilos broadcasting lies about his largely obscure enemies is a narrative that begins in 2010. That’s when Rozina Breen, then the managing editor at BBC Radio Leeds, determined to take what she thought was a calculated likelihood. She was on the lookout for a brand new presenter to brighten up the mid-morning present and thought Belfield, who was working for BBC Hereford and Worcester, was the person for the job.
It was a danger. Belfield got here with sure baggage, not least an Ofcom reprimand 4 years earlier, after he had referred to a pregnant teenager on Capital Gold as a “soiled little slapper” and a “soiled little tart”. However Breen thought he would carry “character” to the station.
A couple of months in, alarm bells began to ring, remembers Liz Inexperienced, who introduced the lunchtime present that adopted Belfield’s every day. First Belfield bawled out the station’s beloved gardening correspondent for a perceived act of insubordination, prompting a surge of listener complaints. Then, throughout a broadcast at Leeds Playhouse, he requested an aged girl what color knickers she was carrying, ensuing within the theatre boycotting the station.
Someday, Inexperienced says she discovered a gifted younger producer crying within the bathrooms after being shouted at by Belfield. Inexperienced was having none of it: “I went as much as him and I mentioned: ‘You're a grade-A wanker.’” She stands by that description, however got here to remorse making an enemy of somebody who turned out to be a herculean grudge-holder. Ten months into the job, Belfield pushed his luck too far in an innuendo-laden chat with the station’s climate presenter, during which he advised he had been masturbating over her. Regardless of later popping out as “a member of the LGBT group” when defending himself towards allegations of homophobia in his trial, Belfield tried to mission a picture of rampant heterosexuality for a lot of his life, with frequent references to “breasticles” and “the present or future Mrs Belfield”.
Breen sacked him on the spot, however agreed to honour the final two months of his contract. Quickly she terminated it altogether, after he tweeted one thing that advised – albeit in veiled phrases – that Inexperienced ought to be despatched to Auschwitz, after his rival presenter fronted a extremely praised documentary in regards to the focus camp.
Then started a 10-year marketing campaign of harassment towards each Breen and Inexperienced, in addition to Helen Thomas, Breen’s line supervisor, who was head of regional and native programming for Yorkshire.
One other BBC radio presenter, a transgender lady referred to as Stephanie Hirst, grew to become Belfield’s subsequent goal after refusing him an interview after her transition. She suffered years of what the decide described as “transphobic and hateful feedback … motivated partly at the least by emotions of jealousy as to her success when his personal profession inside the BBC had foundered”.
One of many BBC targets was Bernie Keith, a veteran presenter at BBC Radio Northampton who was as soon as Belfield’s pal. Apparently jealous that Keith’s BBC profession carried on whereas his personal was stymied, Belfield set about making an attempt to smash Keith’s life utilizing his regular weapons of YouTube, Twitter and emails. It was a nine-year obsession, which noticed him make what the decide described as “the false and scandalous accusation” that Keith repeatedly had intercourse in public on homosexual seashores with strangers.
The impact on Keith’s life was profound. He instructed the jury he was seconds away from killing himself. Sentencing Belfield, the decide mentioned he had “made this extremely profitable and assured radio presenter lose all pleasure in life and turned him right into a shell … He was fearful of you.” So scared was Keith that he gave neighbours a replica of Belfield’s photograph, in case he determined to take his marketing campaign of harassment offline. Keith tried in useless to get YouTube to take away all the libellous movies, even turning up on the social community’s HQ to beg it in individual.
Belfield’s closing BBC goal was Vine, who made the error of responding after studying that Belfield had referred to as him and fellow broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire “cunts” on-line. He quickly made it to the highest of Belfield’s hitlist, that includes repeatedly as a hate determine in his movies and social media posts. Giving proof in courtroom, Vine mentioned: “I've up to now had a bodily stalker who adopted me. That could be a picnic in comparison with this man. It’s like an avalanche of hatred that you simply get hit by.”
Vine didn’t suppose he had ever even met Belfield, however one other former BBC radio presenter, James Hazell, remembers Vine delivering a masterclass to native BBC presenters in 2010. Belfield clearly resented being there, recollects Hazell – “He was sulking and had a face like thunder. He hated being instructed methods to enhance by Jeremy, and that’s the place I feel it began.”
Hazell is one in every of quite a few others who now say Belfield trolled them. In October 2020, Belfield unfold a false hearsay that he was having an affair with a fellow BBC radio presenter, utilizing it as a part of his ongoing marketing campaign towards the nationwide broadcaster. Presenter Iain Lee has since come out to say Belfield focused him for a few years, however that he was too frightened to go to courtroom to offer proof. Some consider he relied on others as media screens and had sources withinthe BBC itself: he appeared to know every little thing mentioned on every of their radio reveals every single day, together with a lot of inside issues.
After being sacked from BBC Radio Leeds, Belfield needed to transfer again to dwell together with his mom in Nottinghamshire and located it tough to get common radio work. He began his personal on-line present, Superstar Radio, bagging interviews with well-known individuals in return for promoting plugs, and tried to promote himself as a theatre and restaurant reviewer.
He quickly made enemies within the theatre world, says a director who began monitoring his on-line actions a number of years in the past (and who needs to stay nameless). “Belfield grew to become recognized throughout theatres as somebody who would throw a tantrum if he didn’t get the press tickets he wished. He would harass some theatre corporations, to the extent that his electronic mail deal with was blocked, and entrance of home employees had been warned about him.”
Belfield had a sophisticated relationship with the leisure business, the director believes. “He cherished and hated showbusiness, and if he couldn’t be you, he’d have you, and be half of you, one other manner. If that manner was by way of abuse, then that was definitely efficient in being a part of your story.He hated the factor he cherished, or hated different individuals having success inside it.”
The ultimate two victims who went to courtroom and testified towards Belfield had been each from the theatre world. Neither had ever met him. Ben Hewis is a videographer who works within the theatre and wedding ceremony industries and Philip Dehany was a rival theatre blogger. Each had come to the defence of others below assault by Belfield.
Belfield quickly grew to become obsessive about ruining Hewis’s skilled and private life. He took photographs of Hewis’s spouse and younger youngster from social media and included them in his movies, even utilizing an image of a foetal scan exhibiting Hewis’s unborn child as a part of his relentless electronic mail marketing campaign of harassment. He additionally contacted Hewis’s shoppers to undermine his enterprise and inspired his followers to affix in with the abuse.
Dehany ended up the topic of quite a few YouTube broadcasts the place Belfield advised he was mentally sick, and referred to as him a “mincer” and a “little twirly” with an “extremely tiny man sausage”. Belfield additionally phoned Dehany’s mom after which threatened to broadcast the decision – “an outrageous and merciless act”, mentioned Saini – and successfully sought to blackmail him by revealing particulars of a long-spent conviction.
By the time Belfield started tormenting Dehany in 2020 he had grow to be a profitable YouTuber who may have been incomes as much as £528,000 a 12 months, in response to Social Blade, a web site that screens social media channels. That every one stopped in February this 12 months when YouTube suspended monetisation on Belfield’s Voice of Cause for violating its “creator coverage”, after a damaging article within the Instances about high-earning conspiracy theorists.
That prompted Belfield to arrange his “secret” Voice of Cause channel, which streamed behind a paywall on his web site. Launching it on 1 March this 12 months, Belfield mentioned he wished to broadcast “away from the poisonous spectrumed trolls, lefties, fart heads & Mogadon moronic medicated mentalists & journalists”. How many individuals signed up for £1 per week is unclear, although some dwell streams attracted barely 300 viewers.
It was on that channel that he first broadcast extremely partisan “courtroom experiences” from his personal trial, later posted to YouTube and nonetheless out there to view, after persuading the decide that he was a journalist and ought to be given the identical rights because the Nottingham Put up. That he was allowed to play courtroom reporter upset many complainants, notably as Belfield determined to not give proof below oath.
Some really feel he was given an excessive amount of energy in his personal trial. Whereas by no means submitting himself to cross-examination, he was allowed to ship a pompous closing speech deriding the case as a “BBC and police witch-hunt” and describing himself as “the No 1 anti-BBC journalist”. “I'm offensive … My human proper permits me to talk phrases that aren't to everybody’s style,” he instructed the jury.
The decide did cease him from interrogating complainants, appointing David Aubrey as a proxy advocate. However when Aubrey caught Covid, Vine opted to be questioned by Belfield moderately than delay a long-booked vacation, and located himself being requested in regards to the true which means of the phrase “cunt”. Whereas most defendants on trial attempt to keep away from cameras on the best way into courtroom, Belfield gave the impression to be doing his finest to draw them, carrying an array of wacky jackets and shirts. The day he was discovered responsible he was carrying a Bermuda shirt and shorts. As a substitute of a lawyer, he was usually accompanied by James Brandon, a member of the old-school comedy duo the Grumbleweeds. Followers, largely older girls, had been usually within the public gallery to point out assist.
How a lot cash Belfield made in recent times is unclear. His final firm, Champagne Sippers, included in December 2020, has by no means filed firm accounts. He purchased his indifferent home in Mapperley, Nottingham, for £314,950 in October 2018, and it's mortgaged. After his first arrest, in June 2020, he began two crowdfunders to lift cash to sue first the BBC after which Nottinghamshire police. In line with GoFundMe, which hosted the appeals, he raised a complete of £29,446. Most of it had been withdrawn by Belfield by the point GoFundMe obtained round to banning him for inappropriate “off-platform” behaviour, aside from £5,260, which was refunded to donors.
Even after YouTube stopped him getting cash from his channel, Belfield was nonetheless moderately flush. He's being sued for libel by Vine, in addition to by the Nottinghamshire police detective answerable for the case towards him, and when ordered to pay Vine’s preliminary prices of £26,000 after failing to file a defence on time, paid up, in October 2021, inside a number of days.
It was lockdown that supplied Belfield a chance to make some correct cash. Unable to work and claiming to be on £86-a-week common credit score when the theatres shut, Belfield reinvented himself as a rightwing shockjock. At first, he grew his viewers with foolish sketches and phone-ins, railing towards authorities Covid coverage, notably the ban on care-home visits.
Steven J Miller, one other YouTuber, defined Belfield’s preliminary attraction in his personal video, recorded after Belfield was jailed: “Alex Belfield was accountable for placing smiles on hundreds and hundreds of individuals’s faces and he did that not … by slagging individuals off however … by him being him.” Folks cherished Belfield’s innuendos, mentioned Miller, giving an instance of when Belfield filmed himself on a prepare platform as a prepare whizzed by and exclaimed: “Oh, I almost obtained sucked off!”
Then in June 2020, Katie Hopkins was completely banned from Twitter, opening up a niche out there for anti-woke, anti-immigrant polemics with an English accent. Belfield began carrying Trump polo shirts and started campaigning towards small boat crossings within the Channel, utilizing a dinghy as a prop for his dwell reveals.
Shut Belfield-watchers consider his lurch to the precise was a enterprise resolution moderately than an ideological one. The Belfield Inexperienced knew at Radio Leeds in 2010 was tough however he wasn’t a “table-thumping, immigrant-hating rightwing polemicist,” she says. “I don’t suppose that stuff even bothered him.”
His anti-BBC stance quickly attracted outstanding assist: Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen appeared on his reveals and final 12 months wrote to Priti Patel, then dwelling secretary, to complain about what he referred to as a “BBC witch-hunt” towards Belfield, after one in every of his arrests. The Guardian requested Bridgen if he regretted supporting Belfield and didn't obtain a response.
Barring a profitable attraction, Belfield will serve at the least the subsequent two years and 39 weeks in jail, earlier than being launched on licence to serve the second half of his sentence. However among the complainants really feel they by no means actually obtained justice. Breen and Inexperienced each suppose the BBC failed all 4 girls who gave proof towards Belfield. Each query why the company solely actually took the abuse critically as soon as a well known man – Vine – was concerned. “The optics aren’t good,” says Breen.
For the most effective a part of 10 years they'd been complaining about Belfield’s vendetta, during which he despatched a whole bunch, if not hundreds, of emails to them and their superiors. Typically these emails included what the decide mentioned had been “extremely offensive and private feedback about their bodily look, together with sexualised feedback” in addition to “wholly false allegations” that the ladies had bullied him. “I settle for the proof that Mr Belfield successfully ‘adopted’ these girls by on-line harassment all through their careers,” mentioned the decide.
The BBC turned a blind eye to the abuse, says Inexperienced: “We weren't heard. Our fears and anxiousness had been downplayed.” Helen Thomas, now director of BBC England, instructed the jury that she was instructed to “man up” by a BBC boss when she complained about Belfield’s behaviour. Worse, in 2013, a number of years into Belfield’s marketing campaign towards her and Breen, the BBC’s HR crew selected to launch an investigation not into their harassment, however into whether or not they had been responsible of bullying Belfield. They had been exonerated.
Breen says she and others flagged Belfield’s behaviour repeatedly however had been instructed “simply not to take a look at the emails, or to delete them”. Although the BBC knew Belfield was spreading lies about them in public, “at no level did anybody from the BBC refute the allegations”, she says. “Silence was the most effective coverage within the eyes of the company. The actual fact we had been requested to disregard probably prison proof is a matter. The actual fact we had been left unsupported from the acts of somebody thought to be a prolific, now convicted, stalker is problematic. No one from the company has apologised for what I and the others confronted for greater than a decade.”
Very quickly after Vine complained, against this, the BBC appointed a QC to conduct its personal investigation into Belfield’s behaviour, which it handed to Nottinghamshire police.
Inexperienced blames the BBC for the not-guilty verdicts: “The explanation I consider the courtroom didn’t discover him responsible on our fees – although we'll by no means know what the jury was pondering – was as a result of the BBC allowed it to go on for thus lengthy. I feel the jury thought: ‘Oh, it may well’t have been that unhealthy.’” She says Belfield has “destroyed” her psychological well being, and that she was so frightened that he or his followers would flip up at her home, she spent £20,000 on safety measures. “I dwell in worry and I've performed for a very long time,” she says. “We had been the training curve for Belfield. He realised what he may do and did it with impunity. We had been the warm-up act.”
Vine mentioned it's “very, crucial that the BBC be taught classes” from what occurred to the ladies at BBC Leeds. “It was arduous to take any satisfaction from the jailing of this despicable man when he is not going to serve a single day in jail for what he did to the 4 Leeds girls,” he mentioned.
Inexperienced nonetheless works for the BBC however is making an attempt to barter a settlement to go away. Breen left this summer season to grow to be editor-in-chief on the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. She has requested the BBC to fee an unbiased investigation into what occurred. “There are classes to be taught clearly and the poisonous nature of on-line hate will solely worsen for employees. It’s not sufficient to go away us to sink and swim, as we needed to on this case,” Breen wrote in an electronic mail to Rhodri Talfan Davies, the BBC’s director of countries.
In a press release final week, the BBC mentioned: “We all know this has been very tough for these concerned and we proceed to offer assist to present and former employees. We additionally wish to be taught from this to make sure we provide the very best assist to all colleagues, who might sadly expertise the risk and dangers of on-line stalking sooner or later.”
Final Friday, the 4 BBC girls obtained an electronic mail saying the BBC had commissioned an inside evaluation to “set up what classes may be realized from the latest prison case”. The ladies had been instructed: “The purpose of the evaluation is to offer suggestions to the BBC on the way it can finest assist colleagues going through on-line stalking or important social media harassment.”
Inexperienced says she is “deeply disenchanted” that the BBC didn't fee an unbiased inquiry. “It may very well be interpreted as a reluctance to reveal systemic failings and an entire failure in obligation of care. Maybe that unbiased evaluation would expose these on the very prime (males) who left us uncovered. I can inform you now their proposed evaluation is not going to declare duty nor apologize. That’s a phrase I've by no means heard … We 4 had been left to undergo and are struggling nonetheless,” she says.
A couple of weeks after he was despatched to jail, many of the 7,000-plus movies Belfield posted on YouTube are nonetheless publicly accessible. His subscriber depend has dropped, however nonetheless stands at 354,000.
Requested why it had not banned Belfield from its platform following his conviction, YouTube didn't reply. It despatched this assertion: “Monetisation on the Voice of Cause channel stays suspended for violating our creator duty coverage. Our group tips prohibit content material that threatens people and we've got eliminated a number of movies for violating these insurance policies.”
Until there are broadcast prohibitions hooked up to his launch, there's nothing to cease Belfield firing up Voice of Cause once more when he will get out of jail. Hopkins believes he shall be again, his ego “larger than ever” after honing his act in entrance of a actually captive viewers. “He shall be much more insufferable,” she mentioned in an Instagram video, with a twinkle in her eye that advised she will hardly wait.
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