Harry Bidney And The Origins Of The 62 Group
Gerry Gable is one of the founders of Searchlight magazine; a former editor he is, at the time of writing, its publisher.
In an unsigned obituary for one Harry Bidney published in the September 1984 issue, Gable waxed lyrical over his recently departed friend’s virtues and accomplishments. (1) But who was Harry Bidney? According to documentation held at the Public Record Office, in 1965, Harold Bidney was a secretary; (2) according to his criminal record, he was born September 20, 1922. (3)
After the Second World War, Bidney became a leading member of the 43 Group, a violent gang of mostly Jewish thugs who set about the members of Oswald Mosley’s post-war Union Movement, attacking them physically, wrecking their meetings and generally raising hell. A highly imaginative and in places candidly embarrassing biography of the 43 Group was authored by former member Morris Beckman in the early 1990s. (4) The 43 Group was apparently a splinter group from AJEX, a legitimate Jewish organisation; it was wound up in 1950 under pressure from Organised Jewry, (5) who were alarmed by its gratuitous violence. (6)
In August 1962, a new such organisation, apparently exclusively Jewish, was founded in London. This became known as the 62 Group, although officially it was called the 1962 Committee. (7) As well as younger Jews, this new, and violent, organisation, included many members of the original 43 Group.
According to Gable himself, he first met Harry Bidney at an open air Mosleyite rally in London’s Stamford Hill. The rally may not have actually taken place because as the Mosleyites prepared for it “they were rushed by a large group of men and women led by the 43 Group.” (8) Gable, then a feisty twelve year old, was told to go home by Bidney, who said he was too young to be out that time of night. As Gable was born January 27, 1937, he appears to have met Bidney for the first time in 1949.
He claims to have met up with him again only in the year of the Sharpeville massacre, (1960). For the uninitiated, that was twelve years after and twenty-two years before the far more horrendous massacres of Deir Yassin and Sabra & Chatila respectively.
In July 1962, the British Nazi leader Colin Jordan organised his “Free Britain From Jewish Control” rally in Trafalgar Square, and from that day on, says Gable, Bidney fought tooth and claw against the fascist menace.
In 1965, American researcher George Thayer wrote: “The primary aim of the 62 Group, indeed its only aim of any importance, is physically to crush the Fascists in Britain...Every member of the Group, whether he be one of its leaders or one of the rank-and-file Jewish toughs, lives for the day when he can personally crack the skull of a neo-Nazi or Fascist. They do not believe simply in striking back in self-defence; in most cases, when their blood is up they go looking for a fight...on one occasion they ransacked the home of a writer who was doing some research on atrocities in war-time Germany...” (9) Thayer’s reference to ransacking the home of a writer is a slight exaggeration; there were actually three men involved in this burglary artifice, ie they bluffed their way in. The writer in question was the then respectable if maverick historian David Irving, and one of his visitors was none other than Gerry Gable! (10) The pages of the Jewish Chronicle for the era report the activities of these thugs sparsely if at all.
Who Was Harry Bidney?
According to Gable, Bidney was a dedicated anti-fascist who “had no time for party politics” and, “[although a strong supporter of the state of Israel...had friends amongst all races.” Gable said also that Bidney became “a recruiter, controller and organiser of infiltrators into the nazi groups and a recruiter of dissident fascists.” (11) However, he neglected to mention Bidney’s other career. According to the National Front magazine Vanguard, Bidney had a criminal record going back to 1950 when he was convicted of selling black market ladies’ stockings in Boston, Lincolnshire. (12)
This appears not to be quite true. Bidney’s first conviction was April 25, 1951, for being found in a common gaming house. So was his second. He had a conviction for dealing in black market cigarettes, receiving stolen alcohol, for allowing a room to be used for betting, and allowing prostitutes to use private premises. His last conviction at the time of the arsons campaign (and on which he was found guilty on ten counts) was May 6, 1965. In other words, although he was a bit of a dodgy character he wasn’t exactly a professional criminal. Of a total of six convictions, all but one – receiving stolen alcohol – is a victimless crime. All Bidney’s convictions were incurred in London, the first two as Harry Bidney, the rest as Harold Bidney. (On one his first name is misspelt Harols).
According to the Vanguard article above, Bidney also ran, or helped to run, a café in one of London’s red light districts, Soho, which became “one of the earliest centres of hard drug trafficking in London”. He appears to have lived off “immoral earnings” to a great extent. (13) In other words, he was a pimp.
In his Bidney obituary, Gable claims that his friend helped to capture a would-be assassin who appears to have been the inspiration for the book and film The Day Of The Jackal. Gable provides no documentation for this coup, and until he does we are entitled to take such claims with a pinch of salt. But there does exist in the public domain a great deal of documentation for the other claim he makes about Bidney: “His greatest success came in the mid-60s with the arrest and conviction of 13 members of Colin Jordan’s and John Tyndall’s nazi groups for a series of synagogue arsons.” Among those convicted was said to have been the wife of Colin Jordan. According to Gable, “Harry broke the gang by persuading one of its young members to give himself up to the police. At the Old Bailey the Judge at one of the three trials praised the work of Harry and his colleagues in stopping the arsonists...” One would expect synagogue arsons to have been reported in some depth in the Jewish Chronicle, as indeed they were. This is Gable’s undoing, or it should have been, because three years later he told that very newspaper a somewhat different story about how he rather than Bidney had cracked the arson gangs.
Gable Lies To The “Jewish Chronicle”
In October 1987, the self-styled Organ of British Jewry published an interview with Gable. (14) After relating the story of his encounter with a Mosleyite schoolteacher, (15) boasting about his arrest for burglary artifice at the home of David Irving, and other things, Gable claims – or it is claimed of him – that he personally tracked down the arsonists, whose campaign “had resulted in the death of a yeshiva student”. In the Searchlight obituary, Bidney was said to have tracked down the gang, with his colleagues, “something the police had been completely unable to do for over a year.” No details of the police investigation are given either in the obituary or Gable’s Jewish Chronicle interview, but here, his, ie Gable’s, “investigation” was said to have resulted in thirteen convictions. Presumably this means that thirteen people were convicted in connection with setting the fires, and, don’t forget, one of these fires killed a yeshiva student. Gable is quoted thus: “I stood in the burnt-out shell of that yeshiva at four in the morning and made a private vow to get the people who’d done that”. Leaving aside the technical detail that a yeshiva is not a synagogue, this version of events differs drastically from the story he told his gullible readers in 1984. So what are the true facts of the 1960s synagogue arsons? Here they are, and the doubting reader can verify them for himself.
The 1960s Synagogue Arsons:
Contemporaneous Press Reports
The Jewish Chronicle for March 19, 1965 reported on its front page that Brondesbury synagogue had been burned out. As it happens, this was the first and the worst of these particular synagogue arsons. One would have expected the first to have been the least professional and the damage to have grown progressively worse as the fire-raisers became more proficient, but such was not the case. In the first instance, arson was not by any means certain. The front page story was Possibility of arson in synagogue fire while page 16 reported Synagogue fire mystery. Leaving aside the perennial suspicion of anti-Semitism, synagogues are public buildings, and whenever a public building: church, warehouse, hotel, shop, etc, goes up in flames, there must always be a suspicion of arson. Especially if the building is unoccupied at the time. Damage at the synagogue was estimated provisionally at £120,000, no mean sum in 1965. The following week the paper carried a brief report which left the reader none the wiser.
(16) The Jewish Chronicle for April 30 reported that another synagogue had been burned out, this time in Liverpool. This was definitely arson, but was not related in any way to the London arsons which, 22 years later, Gable claimed personally to have solved. The burning out of the Greenbank synagogue in Liverpool was said not to have been the work of anti-Semites.
(17) This may sound a curious thing to say, but it should be pointed out that, Nazis and anti-Semites aside, synagogue burning appears to have been quite a pastime in the 1960s. Just as there are all manner of sick people who desecrate cemeteries, worship the Devil and so on, so there appears to be a certain type of person – not necessarily any sort of anti-Semite – who thinks it’s a good idea to torch synagogues and other places of worship. There had also apparently been a fire at the Greenbank synagogue six years previously.
(18) A few interesting asides here. First, an article I found while researching a related subject. The Vancouver Sun for February 22, 1985, page A6, carried the following story: Church arson not rare: all denominations suffering from attacks, statistics show, by Rick Ouston. This included the claim that arson attacks on religious premises in British Columbia had caused nearly $6 million damage since 1980. There had been an average of 12 arson attacks a year, mostly on churches, but ordinary vandalism had also been a problem. In his tome Tragedy And Hope, (widely recommended by conspiracy buffs), Carroll Quigley reports the curious and specifically Spanish practice of church-burning. According to the learned professor, there were great outbursts of this “strange custom” in 1808, 1835, 1874, 1909, 1931, and 1936, by right wing extremists as well as by
leftists. (19) Finally, as this publication was about to go to press there came in a report from the West Country that a hundred and fifty graves had been vandalised in a children’s cemetery. Headstones were ripped up, ornaments smashed, and the graveyard was trampled with flowers and soft toys. This wanton act received wide publicity and was greeted with understandable outrage. On September 11, it was revealed that the culprits were two boys who were too young to face criminal charges. A report in the Times the following day (for example) quoted a spokesman for Avon and Somerset police thus: “They have been interviewed by officers and fully admitted the crime, but they are under the age of criminality and cannot be prosecuted for the offence, so no action can be taken on this matter.” This should be a salutary lesson for those people – like Gerry Gable – who see the hidden hand of the international Nazi conspiracy behind every synagogue daubing or ostensibly anti-Semitic act. Returning to the subject at hand, it is likewise possible that arson attacks on synagogues – as on other premises – may be carried out from motives other than anti-Semitism. In July 2002, the notorious property magnate Nicholas van Hoogstraten was convicted of the manslaughter of a business rival. Amidst wide publicity, it was revealed that in 1968 he was responsible for a hand grenade being thrown through the window of the home of a Jewish former business partner in a dispute over money. In its July 26, 2002 issue, the Jewish Chronicle reported that at the time he was alleged to have boasted that he could have had all the Jews in Brighton and Hove “bumped off” for £50 a time. On the face of it, this sounds like rabid anti-Semitism, but in view of the fact that Van Hoogstraten seems to hate, loathe, detest and despise everyone else from women to ramblers to smokers to people who don’t own property, it would be far too parochial to brand him a mere anti-Semite. Returning to 1965, the November 12 issue of the Jewish Chronicle that same year reported that a synagogue in Massachusetts, USA had been attacked for the second time in three weeks.
(20) The following February, in Ireland, a 24 year old man was charged with burning down a Dublin synagogue.
(21) It was reported that when William Clynes appeared at Dublin District
Court charged with the arson he was found unfit to plead and committed to a mental hospital.
(22) Finally, in its November 19, 1965 issue, the Jewish Chronicle reported that a 39 year old company director named Aubrey Desmond Cadogan was accused of setting fire to a London synagogue.
(23) The following week, it was reported that Cadogan was gaoled for five years. As well as claiming to be of Jewish birth, he was caught in the act by a police officer and later picked out of a line-up. He also took his lover on the job with him, leaving her sitting in his car while he torched the building! Although he had most certainly read anti-Semitic literature, and was just as certainly influenced by it, Cadogan was no Nazi. He was said to have described the British Nazi leader Colin Jordan as a “great guy”. Reading between the lines, Cadogan was less evil than mentally ill, but instead of being sent to Broadmoor, he was gaoled for five years.
(24) He appealed against his sentence, but was refused leave.
(25) Returning to the Jewish Chronicle for April 30, 1965, political or religious fanatics were said to have been blamed for the Brondesbury fire, and security was stepped up.
There had been other damage to synagogues, and robberies as well as fires.
(26) On June 11 it was reported that there had been attacks on two more London synagogues: Edmonton & Tottenham, and a hall in Bayswater.
Two incendiary bombs had been used at the former, and one had been thrown through a window in the Bayswater attack. The latter was not discovered until the following morning.
(27) At page 44, the Jewish Chronicle for July 9th reported that a fire at Maida Vale synagogue on the morning of the 8th had caused slight damage. The cause was unknown but “incendiarism” was not suspected. This appears to have been a misdiagnosis as Maida Vale was one synagagogues targetted. The Jewish Chronicle for August 20, 1965 reported at page 15 that a fire had severely damaged an Orthodox synagogue in Vienna, but this was said to have been caused by an electrical fault. Returning to the domestic fires, in its July 30 issue at page 11, the paper reported an attempt to set fire to the Finchley Road synagogue. This was said to have involved two bottles of inflammable liquid and a telephone directory. This might best be described as a half-hearted attempt. An interesting article appeared on the same page. ANTISEMITIC OUTBREAKS IN SOUTH LONDON reported a bomb scare at Brixton synagogue, threats to burn down Croydon synagogue and threatening phone calls to the local rabbi. Anti-Jewish graffiti was plastered around Tooting, South West London, and the famous Norwood home for Jewish children was burgled – thieves stole silverware from the children’s synagogue. This latter appears to have been an ordinary if particularly despicable burglary, but the other incidents have all the ingredients of copycat attacks. This is a well known phenomenon which relates not only to crime but to sightings of flying saucers and indeed to anything out of the ordinary. In August, the paper reported fires at two more London synagogues. At Clapton synagogue, a door was set alight, while a proper job had been done at Ilford. Slogans had been daubed on the walls, such as “We shall free Britain from Jewish control”, and in both cases the fire brigade had been called anonymously.
(28) One thing which should be noted about these fires is that they were reported unhysterically and for the most part in small articles. The burning out of Brondesbury synagogue was obviously a major event, but there was no suggestion in the Jewish Chronicle that the smell of pogroms was in the air. This is totally out of character with Organised Jewry, who whine and wail at the slightest excuse or with the slightest provocation, so it suggests that whatever political connections were suspected, and in spite of the seriousness of these offences, ordinary Jews, and indeed Jewish leaders, didn’t consider they were under siege by Gerry Gable’s all-pervasive international Nazi conspiracy, but reasoned, correctly as it happens, that a bunch of head cases had taken it upon themselves to torch a few synagogues. In November, it was reported that six young men were accused of an attack on the Lea Bridge Road synagogue, Clapton, North London. One of these was 19 year old Paul William Dukes.
(29) On November 26, the Jewish Chronicle reported that an attempt had been made to implicate National Socialist Movement leader Colin Jordan in the arson conspiracy.
By Dukes. (30) The significance of this will be revealed later. All such claims about Mr Jordan were investigated thoroughly at the time, and there was never any serious suggestion that he was in any way involved or that he had incited the fires. When the current writer spoke to Mr Jordan in connection with these fires he said that he had always strongly disapproved of such behaviour, and that he regarded it as silly, (which was hardly the word I’d have used). The damage to Clapton synagogue was put at £1,000, and to Ilford synagogue, £130.
(31) Bearing in mind that a thousand pounds went a lot further in 1965 than it does now, this was still a far cry from Kristallnacht. On December 3, the Jewish Chronicle reported that all six men were sent for trial and that all six had pleaded not guilty and had reserved their defences.
(32) Dukes pleaded not guilty even though he had confessed, but they were all remanded in custody – none was ever granted bail – and in February they appeared at the Central Criminal Court, (Old Bailey). On February 9, 1966, it was reported that the appropriately named Malcolm
Sparks, (33) Paul Dukes, and the four others had appeared in court charged with setting two of the synagogue fires. Sparks, Hughes and Gordon pleaded not guilty; the other three
pleaded guilty. (34) Three days later, Sparks appeared to
have changed his plea. (35) The same week, the Jewish Chronicle reported in its February 11 issue at page 44: Nazi uniforms at Old Bailey trial: THREE PLEAD GUILTY TO ARSON. The six accused were listed as follows: Hugh Hughes, 27; Alex Gordon, 23; Malcolm Sparks, 19; (all three pleaded not guilty). Paul Dukes, Graham Chant and Colin Rainbird (all pleaded guilty). The ages of the latter three were not given but they were 19, 18
and 20 respectively. (36) An article on the same page, Third man sought, reported that two other men, 20 year old David Thorne and 23 year old Michael Trowbridge, were remanded in connection with the Brondesbury and Bayswater fires. A third man was said to be abroad. On February 16, the Times reported the sentencing of the first gang; the Jewish Chronicle in its February 18 issue naturally covered the story in greater depth. The Times reported that Hugh Hughes was gaoled for five years and Dukes for a mere six months. Sparks got four years; the others were each gaoled for
three years. (37) The walls of the synagogues were said also to have been defaced. The judge said he was passing a deterrent sentence for the two fires at
Ilford and Clapton. (38) Dukes was said to have had previous convictions for larceny and possessing an offensive weapon. He had apparently confessed following “a talk with Mr. Harry Bidney, of the 62
Group.” (39) As previously stated, Dukes tried to implicate the charismatic if sorely misguided Colin Jordan in the plot, but the police would have none of it. So, the first gang was sent down, although there was more to come. One would have expected the Board of Deputies to have been extremely grateful that the gang had been tracked down, especially to Mr Harry Bidney and the 62 Group. Such was not the case, however, for the following week the Jewish Chronicle reported that the “defence committee’s” Mr David Silk had said of the 62 Group, “Its members had in the past been described as hot-headed and
irresponsible.” (40) For this reason, the Board said it did not want the Group to be a part of its “defence” organisation. Councillor A. Super referred to occasions “when activities of the 62 Group had hindered rather than assisted the cause of Jewish
defence.” (41) The capture of the gang was said to have been the work of one individual. This claim was hotly denied by the 62 Group in the March 4
issue. (42) This same article made the curious claim that the Board had turned down the services of the 62 Group “on cost grounds” after the Brondesbury fire. This it will be recalled was the only really serious blaze set by the arson gangs; the final bill for repairs appears to have been
about £80,000. (43) This raises several serious questions: in what connection did the 62 Group offer to sell its services to the Board of Deputies? To track down the perpetrators of the Brondesbury fire? To track down a gang of suspected arsonists who had more jobs planned? As the synagogue was completely burned out, why would the Board turn down a reasonable offer from a group which, allegedly, had extremely good intelligence on the operation of anti-Semitic and fascist groups operating in London and probably throughout the country? Perhaps the 62 Group’s offer was not reasonable? As stated, after the first serious fire the damage to synagogues was considerably less, at Bayswater it amounted to only £30.
(44) It is difficult not to speculate here that the purpose of the first fire was to announce the arrival of the gang, while the subsequent fires were acts of psychological terror rather than of nemesis for the Jewish conspiracy or whatever. It is tempting also to speculate that the fires were in some way the work of Zionist agents provocateurs; certainly Zionist mischief-makers and hatemongers have been involved in such
incidents. (45) One has only to ask who benefits? However, tempting as this speculation is, the known facts of this case reveal it as a cut and dried case of anti-Jewish madness; there was indeed an agent provocateur, but her antecedents were impeccably anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic. The Jewish Chronicle had earlier reported that John Evans and Raymond Hemsworth were charged in relation to the fire at
Bayswater synagogue, (46) while Michael Trowbridge and David Thorne were remanded in connection with the Brondesbury fire. Thorne was also charged in connection with the Bayswater
incident. (47) On March 4, 1966, the paper reported that (now) five men were remanded in custody in connection with the
London arsons. (48) The April 8 issue reported that four men (including 17 year old Raymond Francis Hemsworth) were convicted of starting fires at seven synagogues. A fifth defendant, 19 year old Gordon Parker, was acquitted. The other three were 20 year old David Thorne, 23 year old Michael Trowbridge, and 24 year old John William Evans. Two of the men were said to have blamed Colin Jordan and Françoise Jordan for encouraging them, but they would say that, wouldn’t they? Surprisingly, but probably in view of their young age, all four would be
freed by Easter. (49) The Jewish Chronicle did not give the sentences but the judge was said, with justification, to have been lenient. In view of the destruction of Brondesbury synagogue, this was certainly the case. The Times of two days earlier reported the story under the heading ‘PENITENTS’ TO BE SET FREE TOMORROW...Thorne, Trowbridge, Evans and Hemsworth were said to have made a total of seven arson attempts on synagogues.
(50) After the sentences were announced, both Organised Jewry and the public were said to have been astonished at the judge’s
leniency. (51) When one considers that this was an organised gang, and that the maximum penalty for arson is life imprisonment, this is a reasonable point to make. Even though the first gang had received stiffer sentences. Although the “penitent” arsonists were in custody, albeit temporarily, this didn’t stop attacks on synagogues. A couple of weeks previously, a home-made bomb was said to have scorched the door of Borehamwood
synagogue. (52) And another curious article on the subject of Jewish “self-defence” appeared in the Jewish Chronicle. The Chairman of the Board of Deputies, John Dight, very sensibly put the synagogue outrages down to a small number of crackpots, and condemned panic-mongers and those with political axes to grind, while another member, Mr Morris attacked militant groups, whom he said were sincere but exaggerated their own achievements. He was clearly referring specifically to the 62 Group, and was just as clearly unhappy
with them. (53) The Role Of Françoise Dior/Jordan
The story of the synagogue arsons according to contemporary press reports does not end here. Although all the actual arsonists were caught, one major player remained at large. Françoise Dior, French heiress – the niece of Christian Dior – appears first to have heard about Colin Jordan when he held his ill-fated 1962 rally and to have been immediately impressed by him, although she was at one time engaged to John Tyndall, who went on to head both the National Front and the New National Front (which was later to become the British National Party). Unlike the charismatic CJ, who has always been an ideological anti-Semite, Françoise Dior was an out and out Jew-hater who said that she would like to see synagogues burnt by an
Act of Parliament! (54) After becoming engaged to Jordan 14,000 feet above the English Channel, she married him in a bizarre ceremony in
October 1963. (55) Three months later she was to tell the Daily Mirror, “I thought I was marrying a hero...Instead I found I had married a middle-class nobody who wanted only to live in a house in
the country.” (56) Mrs Jordan fled the country for her native France while wanted for questioning in connection with
the London arsons. (57) She took her paramour with her, a certain Mr Cooper. Cooper, another member of the National Socialist Movement, was expelled from the party, as
was Mrs Jordan. (58) When she returned, she was arrested and remanded in custody. She was charged with conspiracy to set fire to synagogues. A charge of incitement was later withdrawn. (59) By this
time she and her husband Colin had long since separated. Mr Jordan obtained a decree nisi on
October 27, 1967. (60) His then wife’s arrest was reported in the Jewish Chronicle the previous August when she was said to have conspired with and incited Evans
and Thorn [sic]. (61) Two weeks later the paper reported that an arson attempt had been made on a Brighton synagogue. The second
in three days! (62) Françoise Jordan pleaded not guilty but was convicted on Wednesday January 17, 1968 and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for conspiring to set fire to
synagogues. (63) She left the dock with a Nazi salute and a cry of “Heil
Hitler!” (64) Seven synagogues were referred to: Bayswater, Borehamwood, Brondesbury, Ilford, Leytonstone, Maida Vale and Stanmore. When Thorne and Evans turned up at Stanmore synagogue a dance was in progress, so they decided not to burn it down
after all. (65) [This is about the only thing that can be said in their favour]. The jury were unable to agree on her complicity in this instance so the charge was
left on file. (66) Four of the young men she had obviously seduced (67) were
called to give evidence against her: Thorne, Evans, Hemsworth
and Rainbird. (68) As the first three were convicted in the second trial, and Rainbird in the first, it seems reasonable to postulate that the hateful Mrs Jordan was the driving force behind the synagogue arsons. A reading of the press reports leaves one with the impression that she incited these young men rather than conspired with them, but that is a technicality not worth quibbling over. This then is the complete and factually accurate story of the 1960s synagogue arsons according to the comtemporaneous press reports. Now let us just mention one more unrelated case of arson before we examine the alleged role of Harry Bidney, and take another look at the lies of Gerry Gable.
Short Story
The July 1982 issue of Searchlight ran a story on alleged Nazi Satanist, Joe Short. Short was said to have been a student in the late sixties and to have attended a Colin Jordan meeting in or around Sheffield at this time. At an unspecified time after this meeting, he and some others “attempted to burn down a
local synagogue”. (69) No further details are given, except that Short, probably on account of his youth, got away with a suspended sentence. If half the things Searchlight claims about Short are true – and they may not be – he is a weird character indeed. He was not a member of Colin Jordan’s British Movement at the time, although subsequently he appears to have been in just about every far right group going, along with Eddie Morrison. If Short is anything like Morrison, then he is a “card collector” rather than any sort of professional anti-Semite, although he may genuinely hate Jews as well. Whatever the truth about Short, the fact that he once attended a Colin Jordan meeting hardly makes Jordan or Jordan’s Nazi ideology responsible for any of his subsequent brushes with the law. And in this connection it is as well to bear in mind that a member of the Searchlight team was once accused of conspiring to assault and rob the staff of an Indian
restaurant, (70) another boasted that he had once desecrated a
synagogue, (71) and a third was actually convicted of arson, albeit on a print
works. (72) Harry Bidney: Hero Or Lowlife?
As previously stated, in his glowing obituary of this sordid pimp and thug, Gerry Gable claims that the trial judge at one of the three trials “praised the work of Harry and his colleagues”. The February 1966 trial made the front page of the
local press, (73) but the report was entirely unsensational, and contained no mention of Bidney. Nor did any issue of the Times or the Jewish Chronicle report any judge, court official or police officer praising Bidney, or anyone else for that matter. A short obituary for Bidney (written by Martin Savitt) was published in the August 17, 1984 edition of the Jewish Chronicle. According to this, Bidney “was thanked by a judge at the Old Bailey for his part in bringing to justice a gang of synagogue arsonists.” It may sound like nitpicking, but in this case there is a world of difference between the words thanked and praised. It took no great courage or special effort for a Jew to turn over a repentant Nazi (or mixed up youth) to the police under such circumstances. If anyone is to be praised here it is Paul Dukes for seeing the error of his ways, and for turning in both himself and the arson gangs before somebody was killed. Gable’s reference to “Harry and his colleagues [their role] in stopping the arsonists” is not borne out by either the claims of the Board of Deputies or by the tone of the Jewish Chronicle articles. This is strange to say the least. Anyone who has ever read the Jewish Chronicle, or indeed any Jewish publication, will find an abundance of testimony to the roles played by Jews in the media, the arts, science...you name it, and, like a proud Jewish mother, the achievements of the latest rising stars will be trumpeted. Yet all we find here is that Dukes confessed following “a talk with Mr. Harry Bidney, of
the 62 Group.” (74) This “talk” led to the arrest of the first six defendants, and even then the Board of Deputies were grudging in their praise, insisting that this was the work of one man and one man alone. According to Gable, Bidney cracked the gang after the police had been totally unable to make any headway with their enquiries for over a year. Yet the first synagogue fire, Brondesbury, was set in mid-March 1965, and the first arrests were reported at the beginning of November, less than eight
months later. (75) The officer in charge of the case, Detective
Inspector Wickstead, (76) told the court that Dukes had confessed three months after the fires because the matter had been “burdening
his conscience”. (77) This clearly refers to the attacks on Clapton and Ilford; Dukes was not implicated in the only major fire, Brondesbury. So, by this account, Bidney’s “detective work” is even less impressive, especially if Dukes sought him out. The claim that the police were totally unable to make any headway – ie incompetent – does not have the ring of truth. Slogans were daubed on the walls of Clapton and Ilford synagogues, including “We shall free Britain from Jewish control”. (78) That phrase is instantly recognisable as being inspired by Colin Jordan; “Free Britain from Jewish control” was of course the slogan of his July 1962 Trafalgar Square rally. It is inconceivable that the team investigating the arsons were not aware of this, or were not made aware of it almost immediately by Jews, other police officers, the press, or members of the general public. Fortunately, we now have hard evidence of how the synagogue arsonists were actually brought to book. In the CRIM series at the Public Record Office are two files relating to two of the three synagogue arsons trials: the trial of Paul Dukes & Others, and the trial of Mrs
Jordan. (79) Together with three files in the DPP series they enable us to build up an accurate picture of
what really happened, how the perpetrators were brought to justice, and the actual roles if any of Harry Bidney, Gerry Gable and other members of the 62 Group. Before examining these files however, let us examine an incident
which gives an insight into the reason Mrs Jordan initiated the arsons campaign, notwithstanding her rabid anti-Semitism.
The Tale Of The Taxi
In its WEST END FINAL CLOSING PRICES edition for January 8, 1965, the London Evening Standard reported that a taxi driver had appeared in court after an
altercation with a potential passenger. A photograph of the would-be passenger concerned appeared under the legend TAXI-DRIVER TORE SWASTIKA NECKLACE OFF MRS. JORDAN. Wolfe Busell was said to have recognised Mrs Jordan when she flagged down his taxi; he refused her fare saying: “I don’t want you. I’m a Jew. You stinking Nazi.” She is said to have replied “Well if you are a Jew what are you doing out of the ovens?”
This undiplomatic riposte led to him snatching the chain from her neck. His angry outburst earned him a £3 fine and an order to pay compensation of twenty shillings. He was also bound over in the sum of £10 for twelve months. The reader may recall that in a report of one of the synagogue arsons trials, Hugh Hughes was said to have pushed burning rags through the letter box of a Jewish taxi driver’s home. (67) It seems most likely that the arson campaign started as an act of revenge, spite or whatever, and mushroomed out of control. Now let us probe the contents of the Public Record Office files concerning the campaign.
The Synagogue Arsons In Official Files
In DPP 2/4078, we find that according to Bidney himself, on October 25, 1965, just before 10am, Paul Dukes came up to him “outside the Court” and said he was “fed up with the Nazi movement after he’d been arrested the previous night”. This court appearance was where Dukes picked up his conviction for possessing an
offensive weapon. (80) Bidney arranged to meet him later, but Dukes didn’t turn up, so he sent a friend to his home, and subsequently met Dukes in the West End. In his lengthy report to his superior, copies of which can be found in both DPP 2/4078 and DPP 2/4079, Wickstead gives a somewhat different version of how Bidney met Dukes. Dukes had been friendly with a mysterious Jew named Issy Rondell – from this reading there is nothing to indicate that Dukes did not know that Rondell was Jewish. Dukes made his first confession to Rondell, who told Bidney, who then managed to bump into Dukes by chance. Of Rondell, Wickstead writes he was “a mysterious personage” and that “to date he has not been traced. Whether he will ever be traced is a matter for conjecture.” [According to Keith Thompson, who describes himself as “an old Mosleyite”, Rondell was far from the ectoplasmic entity that Wickstead appears to have believed him to be. In a recent telephone conversation, Thompson told the current writer that ‘Izzy’ Rondell was a well-known 62 Group mischief-maker]. Bidney accompanied Dukes to Stoke Newington Police Station where he was arrested. According to the 18 page typed witness statement of Detective Sergeant Dennis Williams, he asked Dukes: “Would you like to make a written statement?” To which Dukes replied: “Yes, that’s why I’m here”. He continued “I want to clear my conscience and finish with that mob for good.” (81) From reading these papers, it is clear that an attempt was made to implicate Colin Jordan in the arsons campaign. Certainly Jordan himself is of that opinion.
In the 90s he forwarded the current writer photocopies of two documents, one signed by A.R. Thompson, the other by G.R. Lawman. The first was dated 13th February, 1965, the second 16th April 1966; the deponents claimed that they were offered £200 and £250 respectively to implicate Colin Jordan in the fire at Wolfe Busell’s home (in the case of Thompson), and Mrs Jordan in the synagogue arsons campaign (in the case of Lawman). The bribes in both cases were said to have been offered by Harry Bidney. Whatever the truth of the above, there can be little doubt that Dukes was well rewarded for his confession, and no doubt at all that it was he who approached Bidney rather than
Bidney who tracked him down. Dukes received the lightest sentence of all the arsonists, six months. And he too tried, unsuccessfully, to implicate Colin Jordan.
This was almost certainly the reason the Board of Deputies were reluctant to endorse either Bidney or the 62 Group; they realised that Dukes’ confession, though genuine, had been tainted,
probably with the promise of Jewish money, in order to frame a totally innocent man. Mrs Jordan’s later testimony in no way implicated her estranged husband, and it might well have done as she certainly had an axe to grind,
having both cuckholded him and been expelled from his party. A police report from “G” Division, Stoke Newington, dated 11th September 1967 written by Detective Sergeant Colin Ashdown says that Mrs Jordan was living at 13 Joan Gardens, Dagenham with a Mr Terence Cooper in a
council house, “a dirty working-class home”. (82) Paul Dukes was reviled for betraying his comrades. In CRIM 1/4469 PART 1 there is a birthday card
enclosed, apparently to Dukes; it is signed “Colin
with Contempt.” (83) It includes some doggerel: MY MATE BIDNEY
and ROSES ARE REDDISH
IF IT WAS’NT FOR CHRISTMAS
The card continues:
MANY UNHAPPY RETURNS OF
After a decoration of a Star of David it concludes:
STARS IN YOUR EYES,
Dukes received considerably less than ten years inside, of course. The following information (some of which has already been cited from press reports) is again extracted from CRIM 1/4469. PART 1. There were two charges under the Malicious Damage Act, 1861 – ie arson. They were related to the torchings of Sha’are Shomayin Synagogue at 47
Leabridge (85) Road, London E5 and the Ilford District Synagogue at Beehive Lane, Ilford, both on July 31, 1965. The witness list includes Harry Bidney, but not Gable. The trial was before Mr Justice Phillimore. Paul William Dukes aged 19 pleaded guilty and was gaoled for 6 months. Graham Adrian Chant was 18; he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years. Colin William Rainbird aged 20 pleaded guilty and received 3 years. Hugh Llewellyn Hughes aged 27 pleaded not guilty; he received five years concurrent on both charges. Malcolm Robert Sparks aged 19 pleaded not guilty; he was gaoled for four years. Alex Gordon, aged 23, was found guilty on the second count only and was gaoled for three years. Dukes, Chant and Rainbird were in court on 7 & 15 February, 1966 only. Hughes, Sparks and Gordon were tried 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 & 15. (Sparks is not listed for the 11th or 14th but this is almost certainly a typo.) Sparks had previous convictions for storebreaking and setting fire to a caravan. Chant had a very minor conviction for theft, and one for shopbreaking. Hughes had a conviction for assaulting a police officer and for a number of driving offences, apparently all stemming from the same incident. His wife Anna was a fellow traveller according to Wickstead’s bail objection.
More About Harry Bidney
In August 1977, after a ten week series of trials, Harry Bidney was convicted of eight charges of living off immoral earnings, and
fined £1,600. (86) But, far more relevant, Bidney’s employer was gaoled for 18 months and fined £4,000. He was said to have attempted “to procure a 16-year-old youth for his employee,
Harold Bidney.” (87) The December 1986 issue of the National Front magazine Vanguard (already cited), claims that Bidney was a homosexual rapist who had a penchant for 13 year old boys of Nordic appearance whom he liked to sodomise to the tune of Nazi
marching music. (88) This allegation may be unfounded, but the general charge of paedophilia appears to have more substance. Gable makes yet another claim about his pimp friend and hero: “The earliest insight into the infiltration of the Tory Party and Monday Club in 1970 came via one of Harry’s contacts.” Is this, one wonders, a tacit admission that it was Bidney who was behind the scurrilous, anonymous pamphlet attacking the Monday Club that
appeared in 1972? (89) Gable’s claim that there were sides to Harry that many people never saw or appreciated is thus exposed in its full glory, and a disgusting sight it is too: pimp, pederast, paedophile, small time wheeler dealer and mischief-maker as well as thug.
The Truth About The Yeshiva Fire
Having trudged this far, the reader may be asking himself: what about the yeshiva fire? What indeed? Recall, in his 1987 Jewish Chronicle interview, Gable claims that he stood in the burnt out ruins of a yeshiva “and made a private vow to get the people who’d done that”. A synagogue is not a yeshiva, and none of the synagogue arsonists was ever charged with murder or manslaughter, so where does the fire come in? In November 1964, a good four months before the Brondesbury fire (the first of the arsonists’ campaign), the Jewish Chronicle reported that 15 year old
Wolf Katz (90) had died in a fire at the Mesifta College, Cazenove Road, Stamford
Hill. (91) Another youth was seriously hurt. The cause of the fire was uncertain but a spokesman for the London Fire Service said there was no evidence of an incendiary device. Neither the police nor the fire
service suspected arson. (92) The following week, an appeal was launched to rebuild the college, again, there was no suggestion
of arson. (93) There were three reports in the Jewish Chronicle the following month, and again, there was no evidence of arson, although there were
rumours. (94) It was reported though that there was evidence of substandard wiring. It was also claimed that the older students were allowed to smoke, but that the blaze was still
a mystery. (95) In the Christmas Day issue of the paper, it was again stated that there was no evidence of
arson. (96) The authorities appear to have gone to some lengths to quash these totally unfounded rumours, statements to this effect were made by both the local MP and an Assistant Commissioner at New
Scotland Yard. (97) The question of the yeshiva fire was actually raised during the course of the synagogue arsons investigation. Wickstead asked Trowbridge about it, and Trowbridge is said to have replied: “I swear to you, I know nothing of that fire. I would not set fire to anywhere where
anyone was living.” (98) Wickstead was obviously fishing or trying to put pressure on his suspect. Just as obviously he knew damn well that there was no evidence of arson at Cazenove Road, and, if he’d seriously suspected there was, he, or one of his junior officers, may well have induced one or more “confessions” from the suspects in Birmingham Six or Winston
Silcott fashion. (99) But what about the rumours of the yeshiva fire being arson? They were totally unfounded. The reality is that rumours often are. The Protocols Of Zion, one of the greatest literary frauds in history, has absolutely no basis in fact, as even arch-liar Gable will readily admit. Rumours start for all manner of reasons, including genuine misunderstandings and misinterpretations. Nevertheless, it goes without saying that in the case of the yeshiva fire, and in many cases of alleged anti-Semitic incidents, evil men and women, both Jew-haters and those who pose as friends of the Jewish people, start or wilfully endorse wild rumours with the intention of promoting mistrust and hatred between Jew and Gentile in the case of the former, and, in the latter, often as not, for financial gain. Anti-Semites are often sorely misguided people rather than evil ones; the youths who set these fires were, one would like to think, the former, along with their Führer Colin Jordan. Françoise Dior/Jordan on the other hand was a wicked if sad woman. But those people, Jews included, who pose as friends of the Jewish people for their own financial or political gain, are vile and contemptible beyond belief. And Gerry Gable is the vilest of the vile and the lowest of the low. The bottom line is that Gable quite cynically manufactured a “hate crime”. The first mention in print of this non-existent arson attack appears to be in Gable’s glowing obituary of Harry Bidney, nearly twenty years down the line, and at a safe enough distance to be fed to Searchlight’s uncritical readership. The next mention appears to be the October 1987 interview in the Jewish Chronicle, by which time he had grown bold enough to take the credit for himself. Another point about the version that appeared in the Jewish Chronicle; Gable recalls: “I stood in the burnt-out shell...at four in the morning...” According to the contemporaneous report in the same paper, the alarm wasn’t
raised until after 4am! (100) One final point, the 1965 arsons get precious little mention in the 1966 issue of the Jewish Year Book; there are a few mentions in the chronology of the past year, but sadly, the death of Woolf Katz in the yeshiva fire doesn’t even warrant a mention.
The Synagogue Arsons: Further Comments
The 1960s arsons are mentioned briefly in Ray Hill’s lie-ridden autobiography The Other Face Of Terror. This book, allegedly co-written with Andrew Bell, contains large tranches which are obviously the work of Gable. Indeed, in the Acknowledgments Hill thanks Gable and co for the help [sic] they gave him from their “unique” archives. They certainly must be! On page 33, Hill writes of Colin Jordan: “His members had been organizing a campaign of arson attacks against Jewish synagogues. Dozens, mainly in London, were destroyed in an orgy of fire-raising, and NSM members later received hefty gaol sentences for their part in it.” One wonders why it was necessary to specify “Jewish synagogues”; are there any other kind? Dozens of synagogues were not destroyed. A national press report of the second trial referred to attacks on the following synagogues (in this order): Elstree, [ie Borehamwood], Finchley, Stoke Newington, Ilford, Bayswater, Brondesbury, Stanmore and Maida Vale. That is a
total of eight. (101) The Stanmore synagogue was not burned to the ground because – as stated above – on the first occasion the would-be arsonists turned up to torch it, a dance was in progress. Obviously they didn’t hate Jews so much that they were prepared to burn occupied buildings, though doubtless they had many opportunities. In some bizarre way that can be said to be to their credit. The synagogues that were attacked were not mainly in London, they were all in London, or at least the Greater London area. In the second edition of this short monograph, I wrote here that “The reference to Borehamwood is curious because I could find no reference to this synagogue being attacked until the first
gang had been convicted.” (102) However, when I was finishing off the text for this edition I consulted some local newspapers in addition to the Jewish Chronicle, and more by good luck than good judgment I found a reference to the attack in the Boreham Wood, Elstree and Radlett edition of the Herts Advertiser. A story entitled Youths throw petrol bomb at synagogue graced the front page of the July 2, 1965 issue. The perpetrators were said to have been seen fleeing the scene, and the crime itself to have resulted in some damage to the synagogue door. A detective was quoted thus: “I see nothing sinister in this. It’s obviously the work of some irresponsible kids.” No comment! An aside here, Boreham Wood can be spelt as two words, thus, or as one, ie Borehamwood. It appears that in the 1960s the former spelling was more usual. I have listed the actual attacks in Appendix C. The reader should bear in mind that the two arson gangs were not responsible for every single such attack at this time; the fire at the Liverpool synagogue was not related to the London attacks in any way, nor obviously were the fires in Dublin or Massachusetts. The unpleasant fact is that the world is full of bigots, and nutters. And liars, as both Hill and Gable well know. As to the NSM members receiving hefty gaol sentences, the stiffest sentence handed out was five years. In criminal parlance, the perpetrators “got a result”. This is especially true for Sparks because as stated he had a previous conviction for arson. There were not thirteen convictions, as Gable claimed. There were eleven alleged members of the two gangs, one of them was acquitted. Dior/Jordan was also convicted. Eleven minus one plus one equals eleven. And John Tyndall was in no way connected with the National Socialist Movement at the time of these arsons, as implied by Gable in the Bidney obituary. Finally, this is a lie Searchlight has told before. In the May 1976 issue at page 2, it was claimed that Hugh Hughes was sentenced to six years for his role in the fires; he was actually sentenced to five years. Hughes was said to have been a serving member of the Welsh Guards at the time of the arsons. And “Jordan’s Nazis” were said to have burned over 30 synagogues in the London area. Clearly this is not true, as we have demonstrated emphatically. In retrospect, considering the frequency, magnitude and sheer brazenness of Searchlight’s and Gable’s lies, it is a miracle that no one else appears to have commented on them. Perhaps, unlike the current writer, they are terrified of being branded “anti-Semitic”.
The Rest Of Gable’s Poison
We won’t waste too much time on this. First, in the Harry Bidney obituary, Gable claims that after the war, fascists in the East End of London were permitted by the police to make highly inflammatory speeches, and that they attacked Jewish children on the streets. The question of exactly what constitutes an inflammatory speech is obviously subjective, but not so the alleged attacks by fascists on Jews. Any such attacks would surely have been recorded, especially if they were on children. So where is the documentation? Gable provides none, for the obvious reason that he is lying through his
teeth again. (103) The October 1987 Jewish Chronicle article/interview claims that Gable’s predecessor Maurice Ludmer was once stabbed with a poison hat-pin! This is the first reference the current writer has ever found to such an attack on Ludmer, there was certainly no reference to any such incident in the July 1981 issue of Searchlight, which contained a lengthy
obituary. (104) This story has all the hallmarks of pure Gable-esque fiction. Gable also reports that he has been assaulted in his career as an “anti-fascist” – which is undoubtedly true – and subjected to death threats – which again is true. One of these death threats came from “a member of the Conservative Party, he says.” Why don’t you name him, Gerry? For a very good reason, because if you do accuse Gerald Howarth of plotting to murder you, he’ll hit you with a libel writ so fast your feet won’t touch the floor. Gable’s malicious and totally spurious allegations against this Conservative MP led to the satirical magazine Private Eye paying out substantial damages
to several parties. (105) On the subject of Private Eye, in March 1991, this magazine published a letter from Michael Sherman of Western Goals Institute which claimed that Harry Bidney had convictions for pimping and the homosexual rape of under-age boys, and that Gable had a conviction for
burglary. (106) Gable responded indignantly that he had no conviction for burglary and the reason Bidney’s Searchlight obituary had made no reference to sex crimes against young men was because Bidney had “no
such convictions”. (107) Both these claims are technically correct. Gable’s 1964 conviction would today be called burglary artifice, and Bidney wasn’t convicted of buggery, but he was convicted of pimping, and his employer was convicted of attempting to procure a youth for him. When Gable doesn’t lie by the letter of the truth he lies by the spirit of it. Finally, in the Bidney obituary, Gable says that his pimp friend was “hated yet respected by the enemy”. No, Gerry, he was not respected, he was simply hated, the same way you are hated, and for the same reason. People like Bidney, and like you, deserve to be hated, Jew or Gentile. The great pity is that the Bidneys and the Gables of this world appear not to be hated by the Jews, because these poor, gullible people don’t realise how you and your kind exploit and manipulate them. They are actually so stupid as to believe you are on their side, that you are part of the cure, rather than the disease itself. In his now notorious Jewish Chronicle interview, it is claimed that Gable and his gang obtain and publish the truth “at great personal risk and with meticulous and painstaking research”. The reality is that Gerry Gable and his magazine revere the truth so much that they reserve its use for very special occasions.
Update: The Further Lies Of Gerry Gable
Although the despicable attempts of Bidney and company to fit up the totally innocent Colin Jordan for these fires was an ignominious failure, that didn’t stop them (and Gable) branding Jordan an arsonist anyway. In 1973, a pamphlet was published by the (non-existent) Circle for Democratic Studies. Written by Julian Radcliffe and Leslie Wooler, the Guide To Extremism In Britain was said to have been the first in a series of booklets aimed at preserving Parliamentary democracy from those who
would destroy it. (108) To the best of my knowledge, this was the only publication this “organisation” ever published. I have no further information about Julian Radcliffe, but Leslie Wooler, who was a member of the Conservative Party, was also a Searchlight Organisation’s mole, perhaps its very first, before even Dave Roberts, (he of Column 88 “Nazi Underground” fame). In 1973, Wooler (aka Cooper) bluffed his way into the Monday Club, and about this time an anonymous, scurrilous pamphlet was published called THE MONDAY CLUB A danger to British
Democracy, (89) The innuendo behind this pamphlet – which is clearly recognisable as Searchlight’s style – is that everyone on the right or who wants an end to immigration is a neo-Nazi/genocidal maniac. In the Guide To Extremism In Britain, page 13, it is inferred that (the unnamed) Joe Short was incited by Mr Jordan to set fire to the aforementioned Sheffield synagogue, while on the following page it is stated that “...plans to bomb and attack the Jewish community were hatched by Jordan, his wife and their SS Groups.” The same libels were published in the 1974 smear pamphlet A Well-Oiled
Nazi Machine, (109) and in the April 1975 issue of Searchlight. It is of course no coincidence that precisely the same words were used as in the earlier Wooler pamphlet. Naturally, the principled Jordan took umbrage and instituted legal proceedings to clear his
name. (110) If he had sued for libel, he would have won hands down. Instead, he applied to the court for two writs of criminal libel, claiming, with no little justification, that these spurious allegations may have led to a breach of the peace – and thereby an assault on him. A claim that is eminently plausible. The judgment was delivered December 30, 1976; Birmingham stipendiary magistrate John Milward ruled that the case should not be prosecuted, stating that people who engage in extremist politics ought to have thicker skins. However, he did say that the words were prima facie libellous, and ruled that both A Well-Oiled Nazi Machine and Searchlight were scurrilous and disreputable. In the April 1993 issue of Searchlight at page 10, Gable repeated the fantasy that his gang – “Searchlight intelligence officers” – were responsible for solving the 1960s arsons. Here it was claimed that a total of 34 arson attacks had been perpetrated and that one of these had led to the death of a theological student – said to have been 19 years old – and the crippling of another. Again, the yeshiva fire was not arson but simply a tragic accident. Members of the National Socialist Movement and the Greater Britain Movement were said to have been involved and to have been gaoled for up to six years. Again, the maximum sentence handed out was five years, and the people involved were all members and former members of the National Socialist Movement. There were, as stated, a number of minor copycat arson attacks, but the only substantial damage caused was at the synagogues as detailed, and no loss of life was involved. The arson attacks were further described in this article as centrally organised violence, and the “three commando units” responsible were said to have used stolen military equipment for their operations. Again, this is all fantasy, as is the reference to “Searchlight intelligence officers”; the real role of Harry Bidney was to attempt to frame Colin Jordan, and Gable didn’t come into the picture at all. In March 1994, the current writer published the first edition of this pamphlet. With as much stupidity as arrogance, Gable continued to repeat these libels against Colin Jordan and his fellow travellers. I say as much stupidity as arrogance because Gable has denounced my work as pure, unbridled anti-Semitica on many occasions. Clearly he hasn’t bothered to read what I actually wrote! This repetition occurred in the August 1994 issue of Searchlight. This was prompted by reports in the mainstream press that a postman had complained to an industrial tribunal of racial abuse. But, rather than being called a black b****** or some such unpleasant epithet, he had been branded a “Welsh sheepshagger” by his fellow workers! The postman in question turned out to be Hugh Hughes, he of the 1960s arsons fame! According to Searchlight, the American Nazi publication New Order had run a feature on Hughes a few months earlier in which he’d claimed that he’d had his confession beaten out of him by a senior police officer, whom he referred to as a “fat Jew”. Hughes was said to have claimed also that Paul Dukes (named by Gable as Paul Duke), had been paid to give perjured evidence. Gable pointed out, correctly, that the officer concerned, Bert Wickstead, was neither Jewish nor in any way sympathetic to fascism. He also stated that the claim Dukes had been bribed was nonsense; he had given evidence against Hughes because he saw this as “a chance to rejoin the human race”. Leaving aside the fact that Gable obviously regards all Aryan goyim as little more than animals, this claim is probably spurious. Although there is no documentation available, it is almost certain that Dukes was offered some financial inducement to perjure himself in order to implicate the innocent Colin Jordan. Why else would he have done so? In the same article,
Gable (111) claims that “Searchlight investigators brought these criminals to justice after the police and Special Branch totally failed to get a result.” You’re lying again Gerry, I saw your lips move. Not only that but, “More than ayear later, Searchlight also caught the person who inspired the attacks...” More lies, Mrs Jordan was “grassed up” by the young men she had seduced. And, “A young theological student was killed in one attack in north London and another crippled leaping from a blazing building. Hughes led these actions.” Although his character probably isn’t worth much, Mr Hughes could equally probably sue Gable for libel. The implication is that the youth who died, Woolf Katz, and the survivor, Judah Gottesman, were the victims of separate fires. Again, this fire at the Mesifta College was not arson. And nor was the survivor crippled, because I spoke to
him recently. (112) He works as a shochet (ritual slaughterer) in Manchester, and although he told me he spent some weeks in hospital, and thirty years on his injured leg still gives him some trouble in the cold weather, he is in every other respect able-bodied. Yet another libel against Colin Jordan appears in this issue. On the front cover, Jordan, his wife and a number of other “Nazis” are seen giving the Nazi salute; this photograph is said to have been taken in 1966. It is captioned: NAZI TERRORIST DUPES THE MEDIA, an obvious reference to Hughes. It is claimed on page 2 that “Jordan failed in an attempt to bring a criminal libel action against the late Maurice Ludmer, Searchlight’s former editor, for publishing this photo of the nazi gang...” No Gerry, you damned liar. How would such a photograph be libellous? Possibly by implying that Colin Jordan is a Nazi, but since Jordan has always shouted his Nazism from the rooftops – and still does to this day – that would hardly be likely. No Gerry, Jordan did issue a writ for criminal libel, but not in connection with this photograph; he issued it because Maurice Ludmer accused him of being involved in an arson campaign, and what you would now have us believe was also a murder campaign.
To Appendix A
Return To Site Index
DOESN’T HAVE ANY KIDNEY
HE SITS DOWN AND SHIRKS
WHILE I DO HIS WORKS.
VIOLETS ARE BLUISH
WE’D ALL BE JEWISH. (84)
YOUR
GRASSING!
THIS IS ONE OF THEM; MAY
THERE BE MANY MORE TO COME
TEN YEARS INSIDE.
To Appendix B
To Appendix C
To Appendix D
To Appendix E
To Appendix F
To Notes And References
Return To Foreword
Return To Back Cover Blurb
Return To Dedication
Return To Front Cover