The Madness That Never Ends

I wouldn't have believed this, but apparently the conspiracy theorists who believe that terror attacks are staged or faked, have a strong foothold in the UK as well as the USA.

Richard D Hall - Conspiracy Theory Promoter

A BBC survey found that nearly one in five people in the UK think terror survivors are not telling the truth about what happened to them, while a survey of more than 4,000 people, weighted to be representative of the UK population, carried out by King's College London, suggests that 14 per cent of the population believe the 2017 Manchester Arena attack probably involved "crisis actors" who pretended to be injured.

Now if this 14 per cent comprised largely or solely of one section of the population, I wouldn't be totally surprised, as I know that they are often imbued with the idea that they and their religion are always the victim, even when they are the aggressors, but apparently many, if not the majority of these conspiracy theorists are Western white males.

Some, such as Richard D Hall, a conspiracy theorist based in Wales (a former engineer and website designer), who now make his living from peddling these theories, have large followings amongst the tin foil helmets brigade. With public speaking tours, on-line channels, and merchandise sales. 

Mr Hall Has Theories On Everything

These conspiracists will often espouse many conspiracy theories, on subjects such as UFO's, well known murder cases, missing children, and of course alleged false flag attacks, staged they claim by our own governments e.g. 9/11, and the Manchester Arena Bombing etc

Mr Hall, who claims that he is a legitimate researcher, media producer/director/presenter goes further than many, as he has physically tracked down survivors of terrorist outrages, or even the victims families, such as those in the Manchester Arena bombing - in which 22 people were killed and more than 100 injured - to determine whether it was faked, by secretly filming them, to confirm if they are really injured or maimed. 

This is in support of his claims that those who were allegedly killed or injured in the attack, are possibly in reality alive, and well, and living abroad, or were even dead before the attacks allegedly took place. Although why they would fake these attack deaths or injuries, then go abroad is not made entirely clear. This theory of crisis actors was later ruled as "absurd and fantastical" by a high court judge.

Mr Hall Had Posted Many Videos

Mr Hall also promotes the idea that other UK terror attacks were probably staged, in books and DVDs sold on-line, as well as speaking at events and posting videos online. Apparently he has had more than 16 million views on-line, and had 80,000 subscribers on YouTube until his YouTube channel, and one other also promoting this content, were taken down as a result of a complaint in October 2022.

In the USA, where damages for making these sorts of claims can run into many millions of dollars, Alex Jones, who ran the Infowars website spouting the same crap about events such as the Sandy Hook shooting, has been hit with damage awards of nearly $1bn (£861,805,000) to the families of the victims of that one shooting alone ... with more claims in the pipeline.

However the legal process in the UK, with its less clear rules about freedom of speech and privacy, means that conspiracists like Mr Hall have been able to carry on peddling some or all of their claims, largely unchallenged until now. However one Manchester Arena survivor victim family, the Hibbert's, one of whom was paralysed from the waist down, and with the daughter left profoundly disabled and in a wheelchair, after the bombing, have started a legal action against Mr Hall, after he posted videos stating that there was no bombing and that no one was injured including the Hibbert's, a video claim that he apparently started partly back peddling from, as the imminent threat of legal action loomed.

Following questions by a real journalist, which were part of a series of podcasts on disaster trolls, Mr Hall posted a new video, in which he stated that he did not really put a camera outside the home of the Hibbert's daughter, but admitted to leaving "a camera rolling" in his van which was "parked in a public place". He also then claimed that he has only ever made "polite door to door inquiries in order to gather evidence, which is a perfectly legitimate activity when doing research", and that his appeal for information from the public, after posting the names and addresses of survivors, or the relatives of victims in another video, does not make him "responsible for hateful messages sent by people" .... many of these identified victims were subsequently trolled on-line, or even physically approached following the posting of his video's.

Oddly, even when he sees them in their wheelchairs and trying to get on with their lives, Mr Hall still doesn't believe that the attack wasn't faked .... he simply stated that "There's no evidence" that the injury was as a result of the attack (statements he repeated in court) ... which tells you that he is wedded to his view of the events. After thus being exposed as the type of person that he really is, he added a disclaimer to his website stating that he does not "advocate that viewers of this website make contact with alleged terror attack victims, either online or in person".

I wrote this post in October 2023, but I will now watch how this libel action pans out next year, before posting, and I live in hope that for once a judge or jury sends out a real message by awarding significant damages ..... we have to tackle this poison before it gets too deeply embedded into our culture.

Update: 08/11/2024: Well I didn't realise that I would be waiting over over a year to be able to post this, but Judge Karen Steyn ruled on the 23rd of October 2024 that Hall's conduct in publishing a book and videos about the Manchester Arena bombing, and also filming Eve Hibbert and her mother outside their house in 2019, amounted to harassment. 

“I have no doubt that his course of conduct was a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom,” Justice Karen Steyn wrote. “Over a period of years, he has repeatedly published false allegations, based on the flimsiest of analytical techniques, and dismissing the obvious, tragic reality to which so many ordinary people have attested.”

He had filmed them in support of his claim, without any real evidence, that the Arena attack was orchestrated by British government agencies. On the 8th of November, she awarded the Hibbert's £45,000 pounds ($58,184) in damages. On the matter of legal costs which could amount to more than £45k, the judge awarded 90% of the Hibbert's legal costs to be paid by Mr Hall, but she declined to award aggravated damages against Mr Hall

Presumably this judgement now opens the door for others affected by the conspiracy theorists denial claims, and Mr Hall could even face more claims of harassment from other families.