Notes And References

 

(1) To date I have already published a great deal of bibliographical material concerning Searchlight, much of which is available on-line.
(2) The third edition.
(3) The reader is referred to the following footnote concerning the Lobster dispute but briefly the magazine was published initially by Robin Ramsay and edited by Ramsay and Stephen Dorril, although it was Ramsay who always did most of the work. In 1992, there was a dispute in which Dorril walked off and started his own Lobster. Although I have had some contact with Stephen Dorril (regarding other matters) most of my contact over the years has been with Robin Ramsay. I am not prepared to take sides in this dispute between former friends but I will say that I regard Ramsay’s publication as the real Lobster. At any rate, Ramsay’s Lobster is still going, Dorril having moved on to other things.
(4) An E-mail from Robin Ramsay dated March 23, 2002 reads as follows:

Al,

I cannot remember if I sent Morris your piece but I think it extremely likely, verging on certain, that he had a copy. I ditched Dorril at Lobster 24 in 1992. He then produced five issues, I think 26.7.8.9.30 - unless there are others I haven't heard of. Some were called Lobster and some The Original Dorril Lobster.

**********

For the record, this magazine is referred to in both editions of the book Philby: The Hidden Years as The Lobster, and the name Ramsay is misspelt Ramsey.
(5) When I refer to Searchlight I am speaking generically of the Searchlight Organisation, which at the time of writing – June 2002 – has three tentacles as it were: Searchlight Magazine Limited, Searchlight Information Services Limited, and the Searchlight Educational Trust. When I refer to Searchlight (ie italicised) I am referring specifically to the magazine.
(6) Published in Lobster, December 1992, issue 24, pages 15-21.
(7) A LIE TOO FAR -- SEARCHLIGHT, HEPPLE & THE LEFT, by Larry O’Hara and Tim Scargill, produced by Mina Enterprises, GA Mail Order, Camberley, (1993).
According to the September 1997 Whitaker microfiche, A Lie Too Far was published in September 1993 by Green Anarchist Books. No address was given.
(8) AT WAR WITH THE TRUTH
THE TRUE STORY OF SEARCHLIGHT AGENT TIM HEPPLE
, by Larry O’Hara, Produced by Mina Enterprises, Camberley, Surrey, (1993).
(9) The Greater London Council is now long defunct. On page 2 of the August 1985 issue is an acknowledgment that the magazine is (financially) supported by the GLC.
(10) London Grant News: THE VOICE OF THE LONDON BOROUGHS GRANTS COMMITTEE, Spring 1996, page 6, reports that Gable’s post as head honcho of Searchlight Information Services is funded by this organisation.
(11) Searchlight lottery prize, by Karen Glaser, published in the Jewish Chronicle, January 22, 1999, page 9.
(12) SPY TRIAL BY TELEVISION, by Duncan Campbell, Patrick Forbes and Jolyon Jenkins, published in the New Statesman, July 25, 1986, pages 10-11.
(13) Destabilising the “decent people”, by Duncan Campbell, Bruce Page and Nick Anning, published in the New Statesman, February 15, 1980, pages 234-6.
(14) ALEXANDER BARON v GERRY GABLE AND OTHERS: Summary Of One Of The Libel Actions Of The Decade (And Related Legal Actions), by Alexander Baron, published by InƒoText Manuscripts, London, (December 1997). This A4 pamphlet was later published on-line.
(15) The foregoing paragraph is the introductory blurb. Hill’s photograph appears above the column.
(16) The reason I sued Gable for libel was that following the November 1993 issue, I was seriously assaulted by three thugs on my own doorstep in what was clearly a politically motivated attack. They had obviously been hired (or put up to it) by a certain magazine editor. Later, other people were attacked in similar fashion after their names appeared in the pages of Searchlight; the most outrageous such attack was on Mark Cotterill, who could have been killed had he not managed to beat off his attackers.
(17) The full credits for this hardback book are PHILBY: THE HIDDEN YEARS, by Morris Riley, published by United Writers, Penzance, (1990).
(18) When I was first introduced to Goodman he was working for a firm of city solicitors, Hilleary’s. Shortly afterwards he moved to the Desmond Pye Partnership opposite New Cross Gate station. This (now defunct) firm was best described as a toilet. He stopped there a fair while, then moved to another and even more primitive firm outside Norwood Junction station. Later he moved to Croydon; McGoldricks is a modern and quite impressive firm which deals mostly with insurance and similar claims.
(19) Either to the High Court or to the Post Office, probably the former.
(20) Morris had made inquiries and had ascertained that he could issue the writ in the High Court in Sheffield or even in Chesterfield, where he lived, but as the case would be heard in London and as a London solicitor (Goodman) would be coming on the record anyway there was nothing to be gained by this.
(21) Contrary to what he’d said the previous day.
(22) If you don’t have an address for a defendant you can serve on the party’s solicitor, bank, last known address, etc. As Hill had (ostensibly) contributed to Searchlight magazine for a number of years, as far as Morris was concerned this was his last known (business) address.
(23) From my own experience of Master Hodgson this was typical; he is a somewhat officious type but not unhelpful, and gave Morris precise instructions.
(24) When we went to see Hodgson the first time, the phone went off. He turned it off, or thought he had, then it went off again! Hodgson gave him a right bollocking. After that, Morris always made sure that his phone was switched off whenever he was in the High Court.
(25) The writ was later amended after a request for further and better particulars.
(26) On October 13, 1996, Gable wrote to Morris acknowledging receipt of the order for substituted service and reiterating that “Mr Hill is not in our employment and I do not know his address.”
(27) One such report was Man cleared after threat to kill claims, published in the South London Press, Edition No. 10,553, Friday, May 9th, 1997, page 25. Among other things it claimed that I was 44 years old – at the time I was 40 – and that the trial took place at the Old Bailey. It was actually at Southwark Crown Court.
(28) I have recorded all of this although to date most of it has not been published, and as things stand I have no plans to publish it either in the immediate or near future, but the reader is referred in the first instance to An Open Letter To All My Friends And Supporters In The Wake Of Regina Versus Baron And My Spectacular Acquittal At Southwark Crown Court, April 22nd To May 1st 1997. This is a seven page letter dated May 16, 1997 which was mailed out from May 27 onwards to various people.
(29) Gable was clearly devastated by my acquittal and settled my consolidated actions against him a short time later on terms that I considered most favourable, though for some reason he decided not to settle with Taha.
(30) This was probably brought out of ignorance as much as malice. Morris was on a government scheme at the time and was claiming benefit while working, which looked like benefit fraud, but not only was Morris as straight as a die he was also an accountant and would obviously not have been so stupid as to do anything illegal. I don’t have the details to hand but he did explain to me at the time that he was allowed to earn so much.
(31) Gable was born January 27, 1937.
(32) See for example the Observer, March 10, 2002, page 22. This newspaper is a well-known Searchlight conduit.
(33) Such politically motivated attacks are largely the work of the extreme left. In September 1996, the Uckfield premises of Anthony Hancock, who does most of the printing for the extreme right in Britain, were firebombed. The chief suspect was former Searchlight operative Manny Carpel, who was gaoled for a previous arson attack on Hancock’s premises in April 1981. Carpel though had the perfect alibi; according to Hancock, he was on remand in Lewes Prison at the time charged with some sort of antiques fraud.
(34) In his reply, Goodman suggested that these attacks were imaginary; my own belief is that such claims may contain a grain of truth but if they’d had any real substance then they would at the very least have been reported in Searchlight at the time.
(35) Hill served a two year gaol sentence as a young man as a result of a vicious attack on a police officer in the course of stealing cigarettes. He has two other, albeit lesser, convictions for violence. The reader is referred to the current writer’s aforementioned Liars Ought To Have Good Memories for the full sordid story of Hill’s duplicitous and violent career.
(36) When I first met Orme back in the mid-90s he was still not fully qualified. He had previously been an MP in the Tynwald. His Cambridge PhD thesis (D13035/75) is listed in the INDEX TO THESES, Volume XXV, Part 2, as Gas flow through an engine exhaust system containing a catalytic converter. Not quite what you’d expect from a barrister.
(37) On July 2, 1997, following a written inquiry, I received a phone call from Syracuse University; the caller – whose name I didn’t note – informed me that Gable had indeed lectured at the London campus, on journalism for several years and said he was “absolutely wonderful”. He also confirmed his American Professorship but not his MA in Criminology.
(38) I was able to confirm this sometime later when I contacted Middlesex University. I wrote to the University asking if I might read his dissertation. Subsequently I received a phone call from a departmental head who told me that if I wished to do that I would have to contact Searchlight. I had the impression that he had contacted Gable prior to phoning me, and that Gable had told him in no uncertain terms what he thought of me.
(39) According to his witness statement in Riley v Gable, he was so informed by the University.
(40) On his business card Morris appended the letters FCI., MIAM, which he was entitled to use.
(41) A press cutting Morris gave me of an article/review published at the time of the publication of the first edition of the Philby book * reported erroneously that “Former Government employee Riley...spent a year in Government service in the 60s, seven years in the armed forces and five years working on the book”.
* UNDERCOVER STORY OF SPY RING Author’s new Philby claims, by Martin Mammatt, published in the Derbyshire Times, October 26, 1990. [Press cutting supplied by Morris Riley].
(42) The reader should beware, there are two publishers named Janus; one is a publisher of sexually explicit “literature”. This was not Morris Riley’s publisher!
(43) On another occasion, he phoned me and said “Alexander, Margaret’s left me.” It turned out she’d gone away for the weekend.
(44) Spy book finally beats ban was published in the July 17, 1999 issue. It was a short article rather than a review, but it did give the book a plug.
(45) The summons for directions was heard on December 14, 1998 wherein it was ordered that witness statements should be served by March 25, 1999 and that the case should be set down “not before April 1, 1999 and not after April 22, 1999”.
(46) A brief explanatory note is in order. For years, ordinary people who have needed recourse to the courts have complained that litigation is interminably slow – especially in medical cases – that it is extremely expensive, and that it is incomprehensible, especially to the large and increasing number of us who act in person, usually for financial reasons.
   In 1994, Lord Woolf, then Master of the Rolls, was appointed to head an inquiry into the civil justice system. The resulting “Access To Justice” proposals brought about the Civil Procedure Act, 1997, known as the Civil Procedure Rules. If you bring an action you are no longer a plaintiff but a claimant. There are now three “tracks” for actions: the small claims, the fast track, and the multi-track; the third for more complex cases, including libel actions. In addition to this there are all sorts of designated protocols, including letters before action. Judges are to be case managers, and the courts are to control the course of the litigation rather than the litigants themselves. According to Goodman, penalties – including strike outs – are both frequent and Draconian, for both claimants and defendants.
(47) Pronounced Lang, as in hang.
(48) The point of these notices is that they gave the defence a foretaste of what they would experience in cross-examination. We doubted very much Hill would have relished answering questions about his admission that he had once defaced a synagogue or that he had fabricated large tranches of his autobiography!
(49) Bell had co-authored Hill’s lie-ridden autobiography. If he had any journalistic skills or integrity at all he would have expunged the more obvious and demonstrable lies at the manuscript stage.
(50) For the prosaic truth about Column 88 the reader is referred to In Serving The Wicked Expect No Reward: A Belated Obituary For The Forgotten Hero Of British “Anti-Fascism” Richard David (Dave) Roberts (1949-82), “Searchlight” Agent Provocateur And Instigator Of The Column 88 Nazi Underground Hoax, published by Anglo-Hebrew Publishing, London, (March 1994). This uncredited pamphlet was written by the current writer and is available on-line.
(51) In addition to the money I extracted from his co-defendants, which included one judgment!
(52) See Aftermath below.
(53) TRAGEDY AND HOPE A History of THE WORLD in Our Time, by Carroll Quigley, Second printing, published by Wm. Morrison, Hollywood, (1974), page 923.
(54) Such as Ray Hill!
(55) Kerr’s letter was dated July 31, 1996 and was copied to a number of parties including the current writer (misspelt A Barron). Morris Riley’s response was dated 19 August 1996; both letters are now available on-line.
(56) My costs in this connection were somewhere between negligible and non-existent!
(57) The relevant question here is surely not could Mr Riley afford to sue for libel but could Gable and his lie-ridden magazine afford to pay him – or anyone else – damages. Over the years Gable has libelled no end of people, but for the most part they have been ordinary working people who could not afford to sue for libel, as he well knew. Now that the worm had turned he was whining about his opponent’s alleged lack of finances.
(58) See The Nazis Are Out To Get Me, above.
(59) Both Gable and his wife have been subjected to low level harassment over the years, and on one occasion he received a letter bomb through the post, although the provenance of this latter is highly suspect.
(60) I have written about this elsewhere so will not go into any great detail here but basically when the bent Filth who tried to destroy me in 1996-7 failed miserably they sought revenge by lower level harassment. I was subsequently dragged into court three times; the second time I was convicted of making a “menacing” phone call which on appeal I was able to prove conclusively not only that I hadn’t made but I couldn’t have made. The third time they brought absurd charges over a pamphlet and then dropped the case when they realised they’d overstepped the mark. I have since then obtained one out-of-court settlement against the Metropolitan Police and I haven’t finished with them yet. Watch this space.
(61) He wanted me gaoled for criminal contempt.
(62) On December 5, 2001, the Daily Mail reported that Robin Lewis was fined £7,000 by a disciplinary tribunal for breaching client confidentiality.
(63) This nonsense started when the newspaper Red Action (which is run by Gable’s former pro-IRA friends) issued a thinly veiled warning to him. I wrote a gloating letter telling Gable to watch his back, and Gable tried to palm this off on the court as a direct threat.
(64) Presumably their barrister.
(65) See The Trial – Day 1, below.
(66) The bent Filth in question was a colleague of Julian Nemeth.
(67) Louise Kamill was also a recorder.
(68) It is probably no exaggeration to say that I humiliated him in the witness box; more than once my cross-examination of him drew laughter from the jury. I realise that self-praise is no praise but I have since been vindicated again. On July 1-2, 2002 my libel action against Housmans Bookshop Limited was heard at the High Court. The case had been listed for two days, but before it commenced the defence barrister indicated that it would probably last three and more likely four days, obviously indicating that he would subject me to an intense cross-examination. I was actually out of the witness box the first afternoon when his loaded questions backfired. I won the case although the jury awarded me only token damages. Morris though had an impeccable reputation. Unlike me!
(69) Mishcon de Reya, a name which I interpreted as More Scum Oy Vayer; Orme settled for More Scum or More Scum de Reya. It was these shysters who ripped off the Princess Diana fund, and later Anthony Julius ran off with a client’s wife. He was sacked and is now a solicitor-advocate, although he still acts for them.
(70) Not Hill’s unauthorised biographer, surely?
(71) I have been on pain-killers since 1988, and am a truly wretched creature!
(72) William Hickey (1787-1875) was an Irish curate and magazine editor. A column appears under his name in an English tabloid to this day.
(73) Ley is the head of chambers, somewhat older than Orme, and vastly more experienced. He is the author of a standard work on driving cases and more recently of an excellent treatise on false imprisonment.
(74) Known as a walkaway agreement.
(75) As stated, Morris was eventually awarded £5,000 damages, but the total paid into court was £5,751. If he had beaten that payment he would have been awarded his costs for the entire action, and the remaining defendants would have had to pay for the trial. But sadly, as things turned out, he would not have lived to spend it. I don’t think this would have made much if any financial difference to his widow either because he had life assurance.
(76) See Russell Press Throws In The Towel, above.
(77) At one point, anticipating what Orme would do, I asked Morris to put in writing that he would call me as a witness. We drafted an agreement but for some reason we never got round to making him sign it.
(78) I can’t say this about all judges by a long way, that old cunt Watts who tried my 1997 case for example. I couldn’t believe what a bastard he was.
(79) In Baron v Gable his list of documents was littered with scurrilous, and for the most part anonymous, anti-Semitica, which he obviously intended to put before the jury as my handiwork on the grounds that if you throw enough mud, some of it will stick.
(80) The standard work on libel.
(81) An anti-Soviet group.
(82) A standard procedure when a witness has not finished in the box.
(83) Orme in particular thought this was a splendid answer.
(84) His handwriting has been described as looking like the work of a spider on speed!
(85) Ruth Levin, who was then director of the misnamed Searchlight Educational Trust.
(86) I know from my joustings in cyber-space with a couple of feisty American Jews that Gable had long known the identity of Rabbi Cohen (probably from one of his bent copper friends, DS Chainey); he must also have known the very personal reason this Rabbi wanted to remain anonymous. And he certainly knew of my association with Rabbi Goldstein because the latter had made a witness statement for me in Baron v Gable.
(87) In the event, no order was made to that effect.
(88) For which he invoiced Morris seven hundred pounds!
(89) Actually Peter Jordan, see Was Morris A Spy? below.
(90) I had earlier asked Orme if we could still accept the payment into court; he had been unsure, but thought if we could, it would be a good idea. In retrospect though Morris would never have agreed to it.
(91) Which is now available on-line on my searchlightarchive website.
(92) I didn’t make a note on this but if I recall, Ley said he believed Hill would stand pat while Gable would take the stand.
(93) One such publication was distributed anonymously c1972. THE MONDAY CLUB A danger to British Democracy was a 30 page scurrilous pamphlet said to have been “Published in the Public interest”. Although there is no direct evidence that it was produced by the Searchlight team * a careful reading indicates that it was probably authored or co-authored by Maurice Ludmer, Gable’s co-racialist and partner-in-crime until his death in 1981.
* Searchlight magazine did not appear until 1975, although four issues of a broadsheet called Searchlight were published in the mid-60s, and if Gable is to be believed, Searchlight operated as a news agency from then until the magazine commenced publication.
(94) Which for a lifelong atheist is no comfort at all.
(95) In fact this was something I’d gone over with many times with Morris.
(96) 14.39 by my watch to be precise!
(97) And never let it be forgotten that Morris was discharged with an exemplary record.
(98) I think this was the other point I had suggested Ley stress in his closing speech.
(99) This is not quite true. Morris had worked intermittently, and also had a working wife.
(100) Oh no it wasn’t! I remember Morris telling me about the time he was burgled and the fact that he had tracked down the stolen goods, principally his computer. He wasn’t particularly blazé about this; Chesterfield is not a large place, and unlike London there are not that many outlets where stolen goods of this nature can be fenced. I recall that Morris had found his computer offered for sale in a second hand shop.
(101) I was told an anecdote about this by a barrister who belongs to my chess club. He was prosecuting an Asian shopkeeper for some sort of tax fraud. In the witness box, the guy said he had some exculpatory accounts at home and was told to bring them in the next day. When he did they had obviously been fabricated especially for the trial if not the previous night. My friend totally humiliated this poor little sap exposing lie after lie after lie, but when the jury returned they found him not guilty. He was told later that he had “over-prosecuted”. A more obvious (and frequent) example is a rape trial where improper questioning of an alleged victim by the defence barrister may alienate a jury.
(102) As things happened he did manage to screw me again, in the Divisional Court, but this time he was not acting against instructions, and although I could have vetoed him I doubt that would have done any good on account of the forces we found ourselves up against, but that’s another story!
(103) We certainly weren’t informed of the payment into court until shortly before the trial.
(104) A habit of mine, almost every time I attend Goodman at his office or Orme at his chambers (with or without an appointment) I manage to get something out of them.
(105) See under After The Issue Of The Writ – 1, above.
(106) See under The Background To Riley v Gable & Others, above.
(107) Long before the Rehabilitation Of Offenders Act, in fact!
(108) Lobster is anything but a right wing magazine; Robin Ramsay is a traditional Labour Party supporter.
(109) The full credits are:
AN INTERVIEW WITH MORRIS RILEY:
THE MAN WHO TOOK “SEARCHLIGHT” TO COURT
...AND WON!
, published in Final Conflict, issue 26, pages 12-3.
The magazine was actually published in May 2001; the interview was dated 25th January 2001 and was carried out by E-mail.
(110) I call this column Jews from the sewers on account of its being written by a rat.
(111) And my websites, of course!
(112) Morris actually died shortly after midnight, ie the same day, July 17, 2001.
(113) A complication caused by poor circulation.
(114) I couldn’t remember if I’d ever seen him smoking a cigarette but Mrs Riley confirmed that her late husband had smoked only cigars.
(115) In Britain you don’t have to consume much alcohol to be over the legal limit.
(116) A fact of which Mrs Riley was entirely ignorant.
(117) This contained a couple of minor errors. It reported that Morris died June 16, instead of in the small hours of June 17. The title of his book was also given as Philby: The Missing Years.
(118) The full credits are OBITUARY MORRIS RILEY (1945-2001), published in Identity MAGAZINE OF THE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY, Issue 14, October 2001, page 10.
(119) Quoted verbatim.
(120) Here, if not at their lunatic anti-Islam campaign in the wake of September 11.
(121) At the time of writing, Griffin and company are riding high on the May 2002 local election results in which they won three seats on Burnley Council, so I doubt very much they will lose any sleep over me.
(122) Mrs Riley confirmed that she had met Jordan at their home, and although she is not at all a political animal she was obviously none too impressed with him either.
(123) According to the Times, January 2, 1985, page 2, Peter Jordan age 60, and two Irishmen were arrested in Liverpool on Christmas Eve, 1984. They appeared in court on January 1, 1985.
(124) According to Bombing plot appeal refused, published in the Times, July 29, 1986, page 3, Jordan, age 62, was refused leave to appeal against a 14 year sentence. He was said to be a retired schoolmaster and an “intelligence officer” in a car bomb plot. The phrase “intelligence officer” sounds both grand and sinister; the INLA may be the latter, but Jordan is neither.
(125) Hill my foot!
(126) Sniper shines the searchlight on Gerry Gable and illuminates some disturbing facts..., published in the Sniper column in the magazine Anarchy, 2nd series, Summer 1983, pages 23-5.
(127) Although the paranoid ravings of Larry O’Hara (now Dr Larry O’Hara!) are not to be trusted, he is basically sound on facts and has some excellent sources.


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