Updated: ACC Forum & ACC Focus, helpful online resource or haven’s for cyber stalkers?

Months before we had commenced our investigative series on the website www.accforum.org we had been advised that the website was nothing more than a haven for cyber stalkers and serious, if not criminal, bullies. As our program progressed we discovered that the forum had evolved into a far more complex organism than just an online community. We evidenced that the key members had not limited themselves to cyberspace, they had taken their, in some cases criminal, activities offline and had for some time been operating in the larger “real life” community .

Key players in the forums creation and ongoing operational success, Miles and Aaron Wislang, Alan Thomas, David Butler, Kenneth Miller, Douglas Weal, Paul Sutton, John Huntley, Tony Lowe, Christine Thomas, Evonne Puru and Angela McCutcheon to name but a handful had developed and organised a machine that was far from an innocuous and helpful website aimed at assisting disabled accident compensation claimant/beneficiaries.

A large part of our research also involved interviewing ACC claimants, people that we had determined had a genuine entitlement to income related financial assistance, be it a lump sum or ongoing earnings related compensation (ERC); we wanted their take on the this so called forum. All of those interviewed acknowledged that they were aware of both www.accforum.org and www.accfocus.org. Interestingly, without exception, those interviewed all believed that the two websites were extremely harmful to genuine ACC claimants.

Their belief is perhaps supported by our additional research which evidenced the fact that many of the key players including,but not limited too, Douglas Weal, Evonne Puru, Colleen Limmer and Angela McCutcheon had defrauded the Corporation, with Puru and McCutcheon having been convicted of the crime.

Whilst our investigation was conducted over some months the real dirt arrived with David Butler when he came in from the cold and was interviewed over the telephone and on Skype by a well known “self styled” Kiwi justice crusader Mr Dermot Nottingham.

Butlers viva voce account, thirteen hours of it confirmed what we had already established. More importantly, however, it evidenced an identical actus reus by the key players, in each of the highly organised attacks on the websites targeted victims. Butler later caved under pressure, exerted by both Weal and Miller, of being outed himself and resorted to form; threatening harm unless we distroyed the “Epitaph” tapes!

Both websites since 2006 and 2008, respectively, have been utilized as platforms from which to launch spiteful and defamatory attacks on ACC staff, medical professionals and para legals. Their latest attack aimed at Australian medico’s which the accident compensation corporation plans to contract, the most significant, we genuinely believe, on one of www.accforum.org’s own founders Alan Thomas; the convicted Takapuna bomber.

The older of the two sites www.accforum.org has also managed to attract its fair share of naive advocates who perhaps, unaware of the peril, have continued to support the site with the simple aim of soliciting business. Two of those members David Wadsworth and  Tony Gibbons who according to Super Grass, David Butler, together operate an advocacy service, Access Support, in the Nelson area of New Zealand

Meanwhile, the aforementioned key players have used the two sites for far more nefarious purposes; to destroy anyone and everyone that dares to “cross” them, each acting with apparent total impunity given that the site and its use of online monikers offered them all the anonymity that stalkers so often covet.

Despite its attacks on ACC”s own staff this highly organised and intentionally harmful behaviour was on the face of it condoned, on some occasions even encouraged, by the Accident Compensation Corporation, it’s CEO and the Government Ministers responsible. To the extent that the corporation even released privileged documents and information to at least two members of the group.

Ultimately these forum members who had by 2006 formed what can only be described as a criminal cabal had begun manufacturing false allegations and inciting organised attacks which culminated, we believe, in the malicious attack and wrongful conviction in 2009 of Alan Thomas who,  only a few months earlier, numbered amongst the key stake holders and organizers of the very same cabal.

By mid 2007, reading between the lines, it’s clear that rifts had begun to appear in the larger group and two very different factions had subsequently evolved. The Group as a whole had a lot of baggage as each and every member had been responsible for a variety of criminal offending.

Then by the August of 2007 the fracture had reached a critical point with both factions threatening to out the others involvement in the defamation and false allegations that all had conspired to bring against their innocent victims. Then there was of course the small matter of every members intimate knowledge of the frauds many had perpetrated on the Accident compensation corporation. They had all helped each other with concealing these crimes. Butler in particular lets slip in the tapes that he’d burnt file copies he’d received from at least one of the cabal, Angela McCutcheon, who he had assisted whilst she was being investigated by Paragon.

In fact, McCutcheon was not the only cabal member that Paragon had been investigating, both Douglas Weal and Alan Thomas had also been under serious scrutiny by Paragon, which could account for the trios hatred of private investigators and Ron McQuilter of Paragon Investigations in particular.

Butler also admits to an adversarial involvement in the attack on the infamous Bruce Van Essen case in Dunedin New Zealand, involving an ex-cop turned private investigator by the name of Peter Gibbons, Butler apparently wanted to “fuck” the Private Investigator responsible – who according to the malicious posts on www.accforum.org also just happens to be the brother of the aforementioned Nelson based advocate Tony Gibbons.

Four of the original cabal had formed and taken control of the splinter group, Douglas Weal, Kenneth Miller, David Butler and John Huntley, three of them had met on the 13th January 2008 only hours after Douglas Weal had left the fourth, David Butler, in Cheviot where he had stayed and deposited a hard copy of his own work, the splinter groups infamous Fitzie File, a file that Weal had created with only one purpose in mind; to “Fuck” Alan Thomas and destroy www.accforum.org, with the splinter groups new competing site www.accfocus.org rising from the ashes!

David Butler wanted his interviewer to believe that he knew nothing about the conspiracy against Alan Thomas until contacted by Weal advising of the police involvement, there are however a number of facts that lead us to believe otherwise. The most glaringly obvious is Butlers possession of the Douglas Weal created “Fitzie file”, a file the contents of which mirror almost exactly Weals police Statement. Even Alan Thomas himself was convinced that Butler and his mate Christine Thomas had been in on the conspiracy, even if it was only initially:

The second concern was our suspicion that Butler was not telling the whole truth, we have subsequently evidenced that our hunch was correct, Butler had been altering some of the documents he was sending, so as to conceal his own involvement, which explains his tardy delivery of the material.

Evidence: http://laudafinem.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/stop-press-acc-forum-david-butlers-deceit/

Our third concern, why would Weal, who lived in the Whangarei area of the north Island in early January 2008 travel in excess of one thousand kilometers to meet with Butler at a motor camp in Cheviot, North Canterbury and then supply him with a copy of the Fitzie file. According to Butler Weal left the Cheviot motor camp on or about the 11th January 2008 (if he drove the inter Island ferry service would have held records of his vehicles registration).

An email sent to Butler by Weal on the 13th January 2008 describes a meeting the night before (12th January 2008) wherein Weal details his Meeting with Kenneth Miller and John Huntley, in a small north Island Hamlet 30 minutes north of Hamilton, also coincidentally named Huntley. It was at this meeting that the trio discussed “what was going on” with Alan Thomas. Weal, for a man that according to his police statement already had full knowledge of the alleged Takapuna bomb plot, uses a curious turn of phrase in the email :

“They have an idea what is going on re Thomas but don’t have the inside info.

Tomcat has downloaded this thread and sent it to Sue North as requested.”

Then on the  16th January 2008 Weal again emails Butler:

Hi Dave

Phone me

We need to get the info into ACC.

I suggest, in the absence of other better alternatives it is feed through Lahman, then we follow it up by later providing copies the Jan White?

Not ideal – but at least better than sitting on it?

Clearly Weal expected Butler to have had knowledge of whatever it was that he was referring to and whats more he seemed very reluctant to commit the subject matter to an email or written record; “Phone me”.

We strongly suspect that the ensuing telephone conversation with Weal was the point at which Butler realised just how dangerous and malicious Weal had become and advised Weal that he was not going to be a party to the false allegation. Weal then went it alone with Kenneth Miller. Miller had already earlier demonstrated that he had absolutely no problems with putting his name and signature to false documents.

At this point in the chronology of events the Takapuna Bomb plot has yet to be mentioned in any correspondence whatsoever, Weals Fitzie file, as at the 11th January 2008 additionally had absolutely no mention of the alleged plot to bomb Takapuna despite the document, in every other aspect, being a very comprehensive treatise on Alan Thomas and his personal history, including movements, career etc, the only mention of any threat to ACC was an alleged plot to blow up their Auckland office in Queen Street.

This secondary plot also appears in Weals police statement. Weal further stating that police would also be able to obtain more detail and or corroboration of his story from both Butler and Miller, the inference being that their knowledge of the alleged events was completely independent of his own.

According to Butler, however, he had no knowledge of the petrol tanker plot until Miller had briefly mentioned it in October 2007 and more importantly Weal had then been the one responsible for giving Butler the extraordinary level of detail, including one very curious specific; the building in Queen street, that Weal had claimed was Thomas’s target contained not only the Accident compensation corporation, it also housed the department of immigration. Thomas had issues, all of them did, but Thomas’s weren’t with Immigration, Weal on the other hand, based on the evidence, was consumed with a deep hatred for the Immigration department.

When looking at the chronology and taking into account the aforementioned documents that Butler has supplied, documents that we believe were not available to the court during Thomas’s trail, What actually took place was a criminal conspiracy to falsely accuse Alan Thomas so as to destroy what was percieved by all concerned to have been Alan Thomas’s website, www.accforum.org.

One must also factor in the contents of Weal’s police statement wherein he claimed that had been told of the Takapuna Bomb plot by Thomas, whilst staying with him at his flat in June 2007.

Weal had to tell the Police that he was told of the plot in June, it was common knowledge in the forum that Thomas and Weal had not been on speaking terms since that time, additionally Miller and his associates had been declared persona non grata following their botched attempt to hack and steal www.accforum.org’s files, so obviously these events created a small problem with opportunity.

So why then, given that Weal and Miller had obviously been hunting Thomas for many months did the so called Takapuna Bomb plot only raise its head with an email Weal sent both Butler and Miller on the 2nd February 2008?:

From: “Douglas”
Date: 2 February 2008 8:54:04 AM
To: “Hardwired”
Subject: Re: tomas
Dave
I don’t think I told you about Thomas’s plan for the Takapuna Office.
The Assembly Point for fire alarms is in the public carpark. His plan is to park the van packed with
explosives and nails at the assembly point. He told me he was looking for someone (ACC client)
to go into ACC and set of the fire alarm. He would wait until they had all assemble outside,
around the van – then set it off. He said the good part of the plan was the person he was trying to
get to set of the fire alarm wouldn’t know about the van – and there would not be any witnesses
left to know who set off the fire alarm.

Not only is this email structurally different to the many others Weal had sent butler, he has suddenly and very obviouly lost his fear of leaving a record of discussions or correspondence, in fact given the extraordinary detail, its as if Weals clear intention was that it be recorded, which within hours Weal would prove to be the case.

When reviewing  the evidence that Butler supplied we are more inclined to believe that the conspiracy against Alan Thomas had started out in much the same way as many others that Weal and Miller in particular had prosecuted. Butler knew about it, he just was not as prepared to be named or, as is the case on at least one previous occasion, implicated in criminal offending. Had Butler pulled out at the last moment when he realised it had gone to far?

What we find extraordinary is that members of www.accforum.org are still pillorying a man who is most likely an innocent man, despite many of them having been made aware of the possibility of a serious miscarriage of justice. That, however is not unusual when dealing with the internet and the members of such websites:

Anonymous online mobs

Web 2.0 technologies have enabled online groups of anonymous people to self-organize to target individuals with online defamation, threats of violence and technology-based attacks. These include publishing lies and doctored photographs, threats of rape and other violence, posting sensitive personal information about victims, e-mailing damaging statements about victims to their employers, and manipulating search engines to make damaging material about the victim more prominent. Victims are often women, people of colour, gays and lesbians, religious minorities and members of other traditionally disadvantaged groups. They frequently respond by adopting pseudonyms or going offline entirely.^[10] A notable example of online mob harassment was the experience of American software developer and blogger Kathy Sierra. In 2007, a group of anonymous individuals attacked Sierra, threatening her with rape and strangulation, publishing her home address and Social Security number, and posting doctored photographs of her. Frightened, Sierra cancelled her speaking engagements and shut down her blog, writing “I will never feel the same. I will never be the same.”^[11]

Experts attribute the destructive nature of anonymous online mobs to group dynamics, saying that groups with homogeneous views tend to become more extreme as members reinforce each other’s beliefs, they fail to see themselves as individuals, so they lose a sense of personal responsibility for their destructive acts, they dehumanize their victims, which makes them more willing to behave destructively, and they become more aggressive when they believe they are supported by authority figures. Internet service providers and website owners are sometimes blamed for not speaking out against this type of harassment.^[12]

Profile

Preliminary work by Leroy McFarlane and Paul Bocij has identified four types of cyberstalkers: the vindictive cyberstalkers noted for the ferocity of their attacks; the composed cyberstalker whose motive is to annoy; the intimate cyberstalker who attempts to form a relationship with the victim but turns on them if rebuffed; and collective cyberstalkers, groups with motive.^[14] According to Antonio Chacón Medina, author of Una nueva cara de Internet, El acoso (“A new face of the Internet: stalking”), the general profile of the harasser is cold, with little or no respect for others. The stalker is a predator who can wait patiently until vulnerable victims appear, such as women or children, or may enjoy pursuing a particular person, whether personally familiar to them or unknown. The harasser enjoys and demonstrates their power to pursue and psychologically damage the victim.^[15]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberstalking

This post will be continued…….

Bibliography:

http://laudafinem.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/accforum-the-fitzie-files-a-cursory-glance/

http://www.erces.com/journal/articles/archives/volume2/v03/v02.htm

http://nottinghamtrent.academia.edu/MarkGriffiths/Papers/780986/Bocij_P._Griffiths_M.D._and_McFarlane_L._2002_._Cyberstalking_A_new_challenge_for_criminal_law._The_Criminal_Lawyer_122_3-5

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