A poisonous home educator from Doncaster…

No, not that home educator, you fools! I’m referring not to Cheryl Moy but rather to her friend; Katya Lamb. I had heard vaguely of Katya Lamb, but had no personal dealings with her until this year. She contacted me out of the blue, in a very friendly fashion, in order to tell me that Maire Stafford had bought special computer software to analyse comments on her blog, to see if they were being made by me. Yes, I thought it sounded pretty mad as well. Then, a month or two later, I had another brief exchange with Katya; but this time the mood was very different. Instead of being chatty and amiable and suggesting that we exchange stories, as she had in her first message, she threatened my family. This threat was so explicit and awful, that I think  it deserves to be widely known.

After claiming to be a friend of Wendy Charles-Warner, on whose behalf she was evidently speaking, Katya said;

What if, to get back at you and your obnoxious attitude, someone put your daughters photo, profile and home address on a rape fantasy website and invited undesirables to break into her house and fulfil her fantasy? How would you feel? 

Any further comment would be superfluous!

Why I started this blog

Now that some of the less well-balanced types seem to have wandered off elsewhere, I thought that I might explain how and why I came to start this blog. Since it was largely to counter the activities of people like Lisa Amphlett that I began blogging back in 2009, readers might find this interesting. It will also not have escaped notice that I have recently been called a ‘creepy stalker’ and ‘bully’; these complaints too are worth examining.

      In the summer of 2009, before this blog existed, I found myself the target of a good deal of venom by Lisa Amphlett and others. Complete strangers were inventing all sorts of mad stories about me and spreading them all over the internet. I had no way of countering these falsehoods and since they were being related publicly, I thought that I should take steps to deal with them.  Before I started this blog, Lisa Amphlett was already telling people that I was dangerous:

https://twitter.com/untwining/status/2926565462

This was at a time that I had never even heard of her! I am tempted to ask in what way Lisa Amphlett thought that I was dangerous. Did she think that I was physically abusive? Was I a rapist or murderer? No, it was simply that I had a different view about home education than she herself had. Since I had at that time been home educating for eleven years, while she herself was not even  a home educator, you might find it a bit rich that she should choose to say such a thing.


What sort of stories were being fabricated and spread at that time? Well, that I was a former colleague of Graham Badman, for one. The general view among Lisa Amphlett and her cronies like Maire Stafford these days seems to be that googling people’s names is ‘cyber stalking’. They have certainly changed their view about this.  Maire Stafford, who by the way was also making offensive tweets about me at the same time as Lisa Amphlett; that is to say before I started this blog, was all in favour of this sort of thing. Before we look at that, let’s look at a tweet of Maire’s on July 30th 2009:


https://twitter.com/Maire52/status/2927163148

On the same day, some fool posted this on the HE-UK list:

There is a Simon Webb mentioned here as an Area Education Officer.... under
Badman! Listed is the 
CFHE Directorate Structure Chart which is readily available on the
internet.... .


http://docs. google.com/ gview?a=v
<="" docs.="" em="" google.com="" gview?a="v&" q="cache:W9Udfm7e" whatdotheyknow.=""
m/request/7844/ response/ 21038/attach/ 2/cfe-structure- chart1106. pdf+Simon+ Web
b+badman&hl= en>
&q=cache:W9Udfm7eA8 AJ:www.whatdothe yknow.com/ request/7844/ response/ 21038/att
ach/2/cfe-structure -chart1106. pdf+Simon+ Webb+badman& hl=en


Like many others, this person  had been researching my life and googling my name to see if he could find anything interesting about me and my family. You might have thought that people like Lisa Amphlett and Maire Stafford would denounce this as ‘creepy stalking’ or ‘cyber stalking’, but you would be wrong. That same day, Maire Stafford said of this on the HE-UK list:

Brilliant research 

Oddly enough, nobody thought that there was anything creepy about the remarks being made about my daughter and the attempts to connect me with Graham Badman. Perhaps Lisa Amphlett did not know about this smear campaign? Of course she did, otherwise she would hardly have tweeted on August 7th 2009 that; ‘Simon Webb says that he is not badman's colleague.’ Lisa Amphlett was right in the thick of  the attacks on me at that time;


https://twitter.com/untwining/status/3175964397

This is why I started this blog; to provide a platform to tackle the rumours that these people were doing their best to spread. Those who have been talking  about stalking and bullying  might stop and ask themselves why they did not have so much to say about this when researching my life on the internet was such a flourishing cottage  industry! Of course, there was not a word of truth in the idea that I was or had been a colleague of Graham Badman's. Here's an idea, the next time that anybody feels like saying that I have been cyber stalking or bullying; don't bother. I cannot tell readers how revolting it is to see people like Lisa Amphlett now claiming to be upset. If she and others like here had not been so keen to dig into my life and tell lies about me in the past, this blog would not even exist.

Oh, no! Simon Webb is publicising the names of children

I suppose that I have only myself to blame for the latest piece of nonsense to be circulating about me on face book and twitter! When Lisa Amphlett was expressing the desire to speak to me on the telephone or at least exchange emails with me yesterday, I just knew that it would end badly. I said as much to her on the comments here, when I declined politely to do so. She was persuasive though, saying;

my offer of an email, telephone or face to face conversation stands. How can honest communication be anything less than a good idea? 

How indeed? And how could I have been such a mug? Despite refusing to play, she eventually sent me a personal email, trying to draw me into a debate. I could have deleted it, but felt that that would be a bit rude. She was clearly anxious to be in touch with me.  Now the first thing that I noticed was that she had CC’d her email into a third party; a man whose name I did not recognise. Obviously, I checked this person, just in case he was a lawyer or something. A quick google led me to a newspaper article featuring this man, who turned out to be Lisa Amphlett’s partner. In the article, they were very free with their personal details, mentioning their daughter’s name and precise age. I was amused to find that this meant that from 2009 to 2012, Lisa’s daughter had been under the age of five and she had therefore not technically been a home educator at all during those years of activism on behalf of the cause. It will be recalled that much has been made of the fact that Fiona Nicholson is not technically a home educator either, by virtue of her  own son’s age. 

I replied amiably enough to Lisa’s email, checking that I was right about her daughter’s age. I mentioned that I too had been regarded by some as not competent to speak about home education, because my daughter too was not aged between five and sixteen and I was therefore not a home educator. I thought this pleasingly ironic. Let us pause for a moment here and consider what has happened. Lisa has in the past telephoned a newspaper and advertised her daughter’s name and age. She clearly didn’t mind this information being freely available on the internet. She has gone out of her way to get me to exchange emails with her, even though I have told her that I don’t wish to do so. I have teased her about the fact that for three years of her home education activity, she was not officially a home educator at all and we part on what seems to me good terms. Anybody see anything reprehensible in my conduct?

Before we go any further, I should explain that I was pretty sure that this would all end  in unpleasantness, whether I did or did not  respond to Lisa Amphlett’s advances. How could I know this? It is really very simple. Whenever anybody makes a fetish of being honest and truthful, as Lisa did when she talked of, ‘my personal integrity, which I take very seriously’, you can be pretty sure that the individual will turn out to be a tricksy liar! (It’s much the same as her friend Maire Stafford, you see. She of course describes herself in her twitter profile as being mild, shy, timid and sweet; it’s a racing certainty that such a person will prove to be an aggressive bully).

So far, so good. At Lisa Amphlett’s urging, I have been in touch with her and exchanged a few good humoured messages. Imagine my surprise, when I found that as a result of this, people were talking of trying to close down this blog or speculating about calling the police. You gasp? You think it unlikely? Here is a man called Peter Flynn, tweeting last night;

 breach of privacy. Report them to the Blog hosting firm !


if he used the names of my children I'd report him to the police.

https://twitter.com/PeterRFlynn


So, I am to be reported to the police and also the Blog hosting firm, because Lisa Amphlett wanted a newspaper to report the name and age of her daughter? No, that would be crazy! It must be because I publicised the child’s name by mentioning it to her mother. But wait, surely her own mother would already know her daughter’s name? Very odd.

Here is another of that same crowd:

he is playing a dirty game..using names of children etc. Nasty man.

https://twitter.com/offshorebella


I won't weary readers with any more examples.  The good thing here is that we are able to see precisely what has happened and follow  these untruthful rumours to their source. This can only be the personal email that I sent Lisa Amphlett. It is good to be able to see in detail how these rumours are started and who is responsible for them. If nothing else, it should act as a warning for others who become embroiled with this particular bunch of home educators. I say home educators, but you have to ask how much time they are actually  able to spare for educating their children! One sees them engaging in all sorts of conspiracies and rumour mongering at all hours of the day and night, but they never seem to discuss education or childcare. They are all of them too obsessed with fighting imaginary hobgoblins. A little more education and a little less fretting about supposed threats to their chosen lifestyle would be my recommendation for some of this particular crew! In the meantime, the take-home message is clear. If somebody claims that her personal integrity is very important to her; be afraid, be very afraid! You will soon find lies and innuendo about yourself being spread across the internet.

The ‘Exiled Educator’; an update

Readers will perhaps recall that there was a little unpleasantness here a couple of weeks ago, following  a casual remark which I made in answer to a comment by Gill Kilner. I said:

I have just remembered, weren't you one of that gang who helped somebody slip out of the country and relocate to Ireland, in order to avoid answering all those awkward questions from social services about leaving her kids alone in the house?


Cue predictable outrage, in the course of which I was accused of everything  from criminal harassment and libel to suffering from a cogitative dissonance! How dare I say that she left her children alone in the house! I knew nothing about it and was smearing an innocent woman! There was renewed hostility when I elaborated by explaining that the  woman’s seventeen year-old son had been left in charge of his younger siblings and that this came to the attention of social services, because he was not a fit person to be left looking after young children. 

This sort of thing is a bit of a distraction from the real business of this blog, but now that the dust has settled a little, I thought that I would set out the facts of the case and allow readers to decide for themselves if I was right.

The mother in question  went off for the evening, leaving her teenage son to take care of the younger children.  While he was babysitting  a prank call was made  to the police from the house. They duly attended the property, whereupon the boy refused to let them in. They then forced entry to the home. At this point, perhaps we could just consider what I said; that the mother left her children alone in the house. Anybody think that this is the sort of thing that having a responsible adult in the house would have prevented from happening?

Having gained entry to the home, the police discovered that not only was there not a responsible adult looking after the children, conditions in the place left somewhat to be desired. There was, for example, animal shit all over the floor. As a result of this, they did the sensible thing and notified social services. The mother had had trouble before with both the police and social services. She was pregnant at the time and was in the habit of smoking cannabis and then more or less boasting about it. There were rumours that the kids might be about to be taken into care and so she left the country for Ireland, where she started a blog briefly, called,  The Exiled Educator. This may be found here:

http://the-exiled-educator.blogspot.co.uk/

  She had the baby, returned to this country and now lives in the north of England,  not far from  Nottingham.

I am hoping that some of those who were so unpleasant to me about what I said will now take the opportunity to apologise; beginning with Gill Kilner. I don’t really expect this to happen, but readers might like to look back at the things people said here, when they evidently knew all about this and wanted to pretend that I was making up lies about this case. What a bunch!

Home Education Heretic; The first stop for information about home education

Readers will, I am sure,  forgive a little vanity on my part. It is hardly to wondered at, since I discovered over the last week or so that some of those who could scarcely be numbered as members of my fan club, turn  first to this blog when  seeking up-to-the-minute and stunningly accurate information and commentary about home education in this country. 

I first noticed this tendency for those active in British home education to take their cue from me, back in August, last year. On August 5th, 2012,  I drew attention to the Welsh Government Assembly plans to introduce the registration of home educated children in the Principality. This was the first time that anybody in the home educating community appeared to have noticed what was being planned. I fancy I even stole a march there on La Nicholson! Certainly, organisations such as Education Otherwise and Home Education UK didn't seem to know about what was planned, until that is, I told them. Imagine that; the whole campaign about the Welsh proposals began here!

Of course, not all those who pick up on what I have to say are quoting directly from this blog. We saw an example of this, the other day, when somebody  was googling  Alison Sauer and Cheryl Moy’s names and came up with this;


http://www.helenhoughton.com/1316-a-problem-with-education-otherwise.shtml


This is only one of a number of sites which apparently cut and paste masses of entries from here and create new blogs from the material. In some of these cases, there are advertisements on the blogs, which might provide some motive for the enterprise, but in others there are not. Take this one, for example:


http://retreteverbal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/home-education-conference.html

Here are a few others:

http://mojecosie.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.dooedu.com/home-education/home-education-heretic-three-home-educating-myths.html

http://friendshipessaystudentessayssynopsis.wtc.cc/175/home-education-heretic-early-childhood-experiences-and-their/


The result of all this is that people searching for information on specific subjects or people connected with home education in this country are increasingly likely to  stumble across my own views, although not of course attached to my name. I find this pretty amusing, because I am constantly seeing my own ideas circulating through home educating lists and blogs, with many of those writing, not having the faintest notion that they are propagating the views of the famous Simon Webb!

Maire Stafford becomes a fan of mine...

I genuinely am beginning to wonder how many  people are using this blog as their primary source of information about home education! Since I wrote here about Graham Stuart's idea for an 'expert' group of local authority officers, there has been frantic activity on twitter about this very topic. The suggestion was made on October 22nd, but only since I blogged about it, the other day, have people been badgering Graham Stuart and asking what is going on. Another scoop for Home Education Heretic! Astonishingly, even Maire Stafford thinks that I am the boy to watch:

1.  View conversation
2. Maire Stafford ‏@Maire527h

   @untwining @ema_flutterbyit is the end days indeed when Simon Webb is largely spot on with his commentary on this issue Indeed #homeed #APPG

   •  Reply 
   •  Retweet 
   •  Favorite 

    View conversation

Maire Stafford still getting all her information on home education from me!

Dear me, Maire Stafford is still having to rely upon this blog to keep in touch with the wider world of home education! In addition to coming on here and making snarky remarks against Julie, she has now taken to reposting comments from here in facebook, adding her own puzzled coda to them:


"Julie14 November 2013 14:00
Well, actually the last meeting was open to all - there were quite a few ordinary HErs there - although it was a squash. The proposed group was only mentioned in the last few mins and certainly has been extensively discussed on a list I am on; and the minutes of the meeting are in the public domain,so it is hardly a secret. It was only GS tweet that Simon mentions that informed anyone (including me) that the next meeting is invitation only. As I have said above, I don't actually think it is a good idea, but we weren't invited to comment on it last time - it is a proposal for the next time."

I just do not understand this, Graham has tweeted that the last APPG was invite only and Julie herself has said that on here, what is going on?

I don't know, this afternoon  Maire was calling me an, 'absolute wanker' to anybody who would listen and now she's creeping around here like the kid nobody invited to the party! Come out from the shadows Maire! Everybody is welcome on this blog.

Where Maire Stafford's information about home education comes from...

I couldn't help but laugh this afternoon, as  I was watching  Maire Stafford and other members of her coven discussing Cheryl Moy and the HE Angels during a facebook conversation. Believe it or not, the only information that they could find on this topic was from me!  Somebody called Buffy Wilkinson gave a link to this blog, causing Maire Stafford to wince in pain and say some unflattering things about me. Ten minutes later, she had managed to come up with some information which did not originate with me, or so she thought! She posted this link:

http://www.helenhoughton.com/1316-a-problem-with-education-otherwise.shtml


Ah, unlucky Maire! This too is a post from Home Education Heretic and is one of those strange sites which have taken to reblogging everything from here. So far, the only information that Maire Stafford, Buffy Wilkinson, Marjorie Watkins, Daisy Haynes, Janet Mackay and the rest can find comes from me. Incredibly, they then fell to discussing my facial appearance and the fact that I now have a mustache! What empty lives these people have, that my growing a mustache should occupy their minds in this way.  Marjorie Watkins was unable to decide whether she fancied me like mad or thought that I was an 'unmitigated tosser'. I know which one I would go for dear! Daisy Haynes wondered if I dyed my hair to prevent myself from going grey. Honestly, I don't like to be bitchy or spiteful, but has she seen the colour of Maire Stafford's hair these days? That's never natural; she's sixty if she's a day. Talk about mutton dressed as lamb!

For those who have  missed a few episodes, Maire Stafford is the person who entered into a conspiracy with Mike Fortune-Wood to try and get me arrested. Perhaps she has changed her mind about me though. This afternoon, she described me as a 'bloody hurricane'. It's an odd metaphor to use; do you suppose that she too is secretly in love with me?  I rather like the idea of being viewed as a 'bloody hurricane'!  I can just imagine Maire Stafford saying to her friends, 'Say what you like about his mustache and possibly dyed hair, but that guy is a real bloody hurricane!' 

Another strand in British home education

We have looked in the course of the last week or two at a couple of major strands in British home education. There are of course others, including the one I wish to examine today.


A sizeable proportion of home educating parents in this country have worked as school teachers. This is also the case in the USA. In contrast to this group is another, perhaps as large, whose members hate schools, teachers and anything which smacks in the least of formal education. Of course, there is a good deal of overlap between these groups and the others of which I have lately been writing. For example, I mentioned the mother/daughter pairs with neurological disorders a little while ago. A well known member in this group comes from a family of teachers and was herself married to a teacher. Another parent in this category, on the other hand, belongs to the group who hate schools and had unhappy experiences there.

Let us look at one of the parents whose decision to home educate was motivated less by the needs of her child than by residual anger felt by her towards authority figures in her childhood. Some readers may recollect that there was a campaign last year to raise money so that a home educating parent could skip the country before social services moved in on her and her children. This appeal was signed by many of the usual suspects; Barbara Stark, Neil Taylor, Alison Preuss, Maire Stafford and so on. Their efforts were successful and the woman was able to flee to Ireland. Her name will be familiar to many, but I cannot mention it for legal reasons.  She kept for a while a blog and one of the posts there shows precisely the sort of thing that I am talking about:



http://the-exiled-educator.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/dear-miss-downing.html




‘She hated school and had few friends, she was always much happier at home’ Nothing could more clearly illustrate the type of parent whose own past makes her likely to whip her child out of school at the first sign of any difficulty. We see Maire Stafford in the comments, saying, ‘That could have been me, although they did not know I was bright they criticised all the time and I got two years of the bitchiest teacher going, she picked on and exposed the shy ones.’ She is also a member of this group of home educators who hated school and still feel angry about their time there; even half a century later.

Now a thing that I have noticed is that those parents who home educate because of their own childhood misery tend to be a lot angrier than ordinary home educators. Their anger is directed not only against teachers and schools, but also against authority in general. They are also very often the ones at the centre of schisms and rows within the home educating community. Maire Stafford is of course famous for falling out with anybody who disagrees with her views on home education. She is a bitter enemy of Cheryl Moy, whose blog I drew attention to a little while ago.

This type of parent spearheads the opposition to visits from local authorities and is keen to spread news of any problems in schools; shortcomings in academic standards or cases of abuse by teachers for instance. Readers may have noticed the awful pleasure with which incidents of sexual abuse in nurseries, say, are advertised on blogs and lists run by such people. I have an idea, although I am of course quite ready to be proved wrong, that much of the anger which one sees simmering beneath the surface of some home educators is driven not by contemporary events in British education, but rather stems from childhood memories of perceived ill treatment from teachers. I need hardly add that parents in this group are, almost without exception, opponents of teaching and firm advocates of child-centred education. The extent to which this is a rational choice is open to question and it is perfectly possible that their chosen pedagogy is instead a Pavlovian response to reflexes which have their roots in childhood.

The mental state of some of the more high profile British home educators

One of the things which I have observed over the years is the peculiar levels of anger displayed by many of the more high profile home educators in this country. This is directed not only towards me, but also towards anybody in the comments section of online newspaper articles, for example, who is at all dubious about the supposed benefits of home education; to say nothing of teachers and others who are worried about the educational attainment of children who are not at school.


On a personal note, I have in this blog expressed strong views in favour of home education. I have also advocated the ‘look and say’ method of teaching reading, as well as criticising autonomous education. Now here is an odd thing. Some people who read this blog are less than enthusiastic about home education. They do not however become furiously angry about the fact that I believe it to be a good idea. Similarly, the orthodoxy today,  as regards learning to read, is in favour of synthetic phonics; a method of  which I have never thought highly. Now I find it perfectly easy and pleasant to discuss learning to read with people who hold very different views to my own. In the same way, I can debate the pros and cons of home education and school education with those who strongly disapprove of home education. I do not fall out with people who are opposed to home education and they do not become angry about my point of view. These discussions are good natured and often quite fruitful. How very different is the case with many of the more well known home educators.

In subsequent pieces here, I shall be looking at the campaigns run by a small core of what might not inaptly be termed militant home educators. I shall also be trying to see if these characters have anything in common; if there is some explanation for their apparently fragile mental states. In the meantime, I wish to put forward this thought. When  teachers or local authority officers  read on this blog that I am a strong advocate for the ‘look and say’ or whole word technique for acquiring literacy, does anybody imagine that several of these teachers would band together and try to have me arrested because of this? Are there really supporters of synthetic phonics who feel this strongly about the matter?  When somebody feels that I am wrong about the advantages of home education, is it likely that this person will encourage others to arrange nuisance deliveries to my home or to harass my family?

It is this kind of pathological behaviour which marks some of those who are most well known publicly in this country for their enthusiasm for home education and I want to look into this in a little detail. Why do some of these people wish to have those with whom they disagree arrested? What can motivate them to instigate campaigns of online harassment against anybody who feels differently about home education to them? These are curious points and if we can find the source of the anger and malice which some of these people regularly display, then it might give us a little insight into why some other people feel uneasy about the situation of children trapped in the homes of such parents; exposed constantly and unremittingly to their distorted worldview, without the escape valve of being able to get away from their mothers and fathers for six hours or so each day. It is at this that the next few posts will be aimed.

Conformity and orthodoxy among well-known home educators

I have remarked before that an awful lot of the more well known home educators seem to conform to a fairly rigid stereotype. They tend to be left wing politically, often opposed to vaccination, prone to conspiracy theories, in favour of organic food; that sort of thing. I could draw up a profile of the typical high-profile home educator without too much difficulty. I have come across two recent examples of this tendency to conformity. The first is  that mother who was, allegedly, forced to flee the country in order to protect her children from social services involvement. I am sure that most of us remember the appeal which was circulating on the forums and lists three months ago, beginning;

 
A well-known member of the HE community and trusted friend needs our help. The person's family is facing a possible court order and they felt the need to leave the country very quickly in order to protect the children from unfounded interference based on home education as a risk factor.

It was signed by many of the usual suspects, including Maire Stafford, Barbara Stark, Alison Preuss and Neil Taylor. Readers will be relieved to hear that this unfortunate and persecuted woman made it safely to Ireland. What precipitated her flight? Let her tell us in her own words:

A few months ago I shamefully attended a meeting about how to obtain Organic Food, leaving my young children in the care of their 17yr old brother, when I should have been at home washing the clothes... This led to scrutiny from 'authority' figures & caused me to commit a further sin of defying that 'authority' when it sought to persecute myself & my family for my wayward ways, particularly my disgraceful choice to educate my children outside of the state system or allow my parenting, educational provision, or moral scruples to be inspected & dictated by dubiously qualified 'experts'


It just had to be a meeting about organic food! Mind, one feels instinctively that there is more to the case than meets the eye. Leaving a seventeen year-old babysitting is a fairly common thing to do; how did the ‘authorities’ even hear of this?  The whole of this explanantion appears to be written in code. I have heard of local authorities wishing to check on educational provision, but when was the last time you had a man from the council knocking on the door because he wanted to inspect your 'moral scruples'? It would be interesting to know if anything happened to any of the younger children being looked after by the seventeen year-old and how this family first came to the attention of social services in the first place.

The other well-known home educator whose views are exceedingly orthodox for this type of individual is Alison Sauer. While idly looking at her Facebook page, I noticed that her interests include attachment parenting and support of Dr Wakefield; the maniac who started off the whole autism and vaccination scare. Alison Sauer, needless to say, thinks he was right and is opposed to the triple vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella…

As others have pointed out here before, we cannot judge all home educators by those whom we see on the Internet; for which I thank the Lord! However, these people are influential and thousands of people belong to lists and forums where their views are propagated. Their bizarre thoughts and weird belief-systems therefore have a way of filtering down to other home educating parents, via groups composed in the main of normal people. It only takes one of two evangelical mothers who spend a lot of time on Home Ed Biz or HE-UK to spread alarm about things from a particular slant in an ordinary home educating support group. It is certainly worth keeping an eye on the ideas to which many of them subscribe, for this reason alone.

A final word about Maire Stafford…

I dare say that readers are now growing heartily sick of this subject and I promise that this is the last time that I shall be posting about it; unless that is, I am actually arrested! Normal service will be resumed from tomorrow and there will only be posts about home education.

As I have explained, Maire Stafford is, with Mike Fortune-Wood’s help, trying to find people who will claim that I have harassed them here. She is also claiming that she herself was harassed by things that I have said about her on this blog. I want to point out two things that will be considered if Maire Stafford tries to put herself forward as a victim of harassment or is instrumental in instigating somebody else to make such a complaint.  The first is that a government department has already decided that she has been guilty herself of harassment and causing distress in connection with home education. See;



http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/21994/response/55614/attach/2/Document.pdf



This cannot but tend to weaken any case of harassment in which she plays a prominent part. The second point is that, as this letter makes clear, she has a history of encouraging people to make complaints and take legal action. I have dozens of posts and emails in which she does precisely this; urges people to make allegations against others.

What all this amounts to is that if Maire Stafford comes across people whose views on home education are different from her own she has a history of harassing them and also encouraging other people to harass them by making complaints and accusations against them. It is in this context that her latest campaign against me must be seen, because of course it contains just these elements.

And with that, I leave the topic of Maire Stafford and her unfortunate dupes and return to home education!

A do-it-yourself guide to online harassment: Part 2

Maire Stafford is currently posing as the selfless defender of a woman who has allegedly been harassed by me on this blog. This dupe has been persuaded by Maire Stafford that I am, as she puts it, in the habit of, ’making very unpleasant accusations’ about people’s children. This at least was what she told me in an email. Maire Stafford has told her that she herself has been upset by what I have had to say about her on this blog. She is being less than candid; Maire Stafford actually began a vindictive campaign of harassment against me before I even started this blog. Come with me now, as the years roll back and we revisit 2009.


Up until the end of July 2009, I had been a member of several HE lists for years. I had encountered Maire Stafford, but not really taken any notice of her. On July 30th, a piece of mine was published in the Independent. That same day, Maire Stafford tweeted this:

http://twitter.com/Maire52/status/2927163148



Simon Webb is Judas! Strong stuff indeed from somebody I did not know and had barely exchanged a dozen words with on an internet list. From then on, Maire Stafford saw it as her personal mission to attack me. How did she do this? One way was to get people to post comments on the online versions of my article and also to encourage the spreading of untruthful rumours about me. Some fool posted this on the HE-UK list on July 30th;

There is a Simon Webb mentioned here as an Area Education Officer.... under
Badman! Listed is the
CFHE Directorate Structure Chart which is readily available on the
internet.... .


http://docs. google.com/ gview?a=v

m/request/7844/ response/ 21038/attach/ 2/cfe-structure- chart1106. pdf+Simon+ Web
b+badman&hl= en>
&q=cache:W9Udfm7eA8 AJ:www.whatdothe yknow.com/ request/7844/ response/ 21038/att
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This was an attempt to prove that I was a former colleague of Graham Badman. Maire’s response was to post;



Brilliant research R.


Maire

She then touted this idea around and tried to get others to take it up and use it. Mike Fortune-Wood was quick to join in and posted a comment on the Independent site, claiming that I had lied to gain access to the HE-UK list and that I was a colleague of Graham Badman’s. Of course, he didn’t want to use his own name, these people are too cowardly for that, and so posted as Maesk123.

Meanwhile, Maire Stafford was doing her best to get people on various lists to criticise me on newspaper sites. Still on July 30th, she posted:


Couple of less supportive comments on there now, even a nothing to fear
nothing to hide one! Anyone got the energy to slam em.




‘Slam em’; this hardly ties in with her description of herself on her twitter account as shy and sweet! Her aim was to present me in as bad as light as possible. That same day, she posted again on the HE-UK site, saying of me:

Perhaps he has one of those illnesses, you know like people who confess to
murders they haven't done in order to get attention.




The next day, July 31st, somebody posted something unpleasant about me on the HE-UK list and Maire Stafford said:



This would look very good in the comments section under the article.


Maire




Here she is again on both HE-UK and EO, a day later:



What about lots of comments that support Jeremy but ignore Simon.


And don't forget to vote in the poll.


Maire




Now I do want to emphasise that this was all at a time before this blog even existed. I am not going to put all the things down here; there are simply too many. She was posting comments all over the place, telling lies such as that I was a local authority officer, that I was not really a home educating parent and, most ludicrous at all, that I was actually a home education inspector. She was tweeting these falsehoods, emailing them to people, commenting on newspaper sites, lists and forums. This was not limited to passing on rumours from others; she would make up her own.

This might not sound too bad, except that these lies soon spread round the world. In September 2010, for instance, a year after Maire Stafford had invented these stories, Kelly Green in Canada said of me on her blog, Kelly Green and Gold:


'He was an advisor to Graham Badman and the Department of Children, Schools and Families over the course of the Badman Review,'


A year later and the story cooked up my Maire Stafford is surfacing on the other side of the earth! Are readers beginning to see why I might have been a bit annoyed about this?

I gave another example of this yesterday. In the autumn of 2009, a rumour was circulating that I had told Graham Badman to ignore Paula Rothermel’s research. I was also alleged to have warned him that many home educating mothers were suffering from Munchausen’s Syndrome. This was so completely barmy that I could make no sense at all of it and wondered where it had started. Eventually, I tracked down the story to it’s earliest appearance. Not surprisingly, this was on the HE-UK list, which had served as a clearing house for these lies. On November 4th, Maire Stafford posted there, saying of me:


And considering it was probably him who told Badman that Paula Rothermel's
work was not sound I think he has an immense amount to answer for. Wouldn't
be surprised if this wasn't the source of the Munchausens fiasco too


I might have guessed; it originated, like so much of the other poison, with Maire Stafford.

Now I will freely admit that I began to get a little ticked off with the woman after all this. I barely knew her and here she as inventing stuff about me and doing her damnedest to make life difficult for me. I had said nothing at all about her at this time and was puzzled as to why she seemed so determined to try and harm my reputation. I certainly made a few sharp comments about her once the blog was running, but this was in an attempt to stop her carrying on in this way. Anybody who wishes to check up on all this can of course still see the messages on the HE-UK site on the dates I have given. That a woman like this, who has behaved in such a way, should now offer to help people who have supposedly been the victims of online harassment is little short of incredible.

I hope that readers will understand if I hold back a good deal of material in reserve, in the event that Maire Stafford really does try to stand up in court and portray herself as an innocent victim of my malice. I have in the past been in contact with people who have been bullied by her and two new people have now come forward to offer me emails and statements. Boy, am I looking forward to a court case! I have already drawn up a provisional list of witness summonses and I think that I can safely assure readers that Maire Stafford will not, by the end of it, be in a very strong position to represent herself as my victim; quite the opposite in fact.

A do-it-yourself guide to online harassment; Part 1

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Maire Stafford, Mike Fortune-Wood and Nikki Harper try to have me arrested!

The title of this piece is not one which I could, in my wildest dreams, have ever thought that I would be typing. Never the less, it is actually the case. Having realised that action against me for libel would be horribly expensive and in any case unlikely to succeed, Nikki Harper has decided to go for the cheaper option of reporting me to the police for supposedly harassing her and her husband on this blog. As readers might know,  Mrs Harper posted a piece on her blog at the beginning of May, naming me and saying some unflattering and untruthful things about me:

http://secondaryathome.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/the-inadequacies-of-mr-anonymous/

Since then, I have made the odd reference to this woman and her husband’s eccentric ways of making a living. Then, a week or so ago, Nikki Harper began coming on here and getting herself worked up into a regular state.

Now of course this is nothing unusual on the internet; spats like that happen all the time. By a stroke of ill fortune for her though, Mrs Harper fell under the influence of that most malevolent of women, Maire Stafford. This is when things took a decidedly surreal turn, as Maire Stafford advised Nikki that she had a duty to beetle off to the police station and report me for saying upsetting things about her such as that she was an astrologer. Mrs Harper duly did so and, it will come as no surprise to readers to learn, she was promptly given the bum’s rush by police officers who have more important things to investigate than this blog; things like murders and rape, for example.

In order to give her the brush-off courteously, they being unwilling to be too brusque with somebody who was obviously distressed and whose mental state was clearly a little fragile, they told her that if I was in the habit of upsetting people in this way, then they would get in touch and have a word with me.

Enter, stage right, Maire Stafford. Readers with long memories will recall that Maire Stafford ran a campaign against me on the HE-UK list a few years ago, after pieces of mine about home education were published in the Independent and Times Educational Supplement. She devised rumours, spread lies, coordinated the online comments on the articles and generally made a thorough nuisance of herself. To give just one example, when Paula Rothermel claimed that Graham Badman had suggested that home educating mothers were suffering from Munchausen’s and also questioned the validity of her research; many parents were annoyed and upset. On November 4th 2009, Maire Stafford posted on the HE-UK list, trying to make people think that this was in some way my fault! She wrote,

And considering it was probably him who told Badman that Paula Rothermel's
work was not sound I think he has an immense amount to answer for. Wouldn't
be surprised if this wasn't the source of the Munchausens fiasco too


She also helped to spread the ridiculous lie that I was a former colleague of Graham Badman’s. Even this was nothing compared to a Tweet of hers in September 2009, to the effect that I was really not a home educating parent at all, but a home education inspector!  I don't suppose for a moment that Maire Stafford believed all this, she just felt that lies like this would make people view me with suspicion. Much of this malicious activity was undertaken on the HE-UK site, with Mike Fortune-Wood’s aid and encouragement. Maire Stafford is a strange woman. The very fact that she describes herself on her blog as being sweet, mild, timid and shy should be enough to alert any objective observer to the probability that she is actually unpleasant and aggressive and so it has proved over the years.

Yesterday, Mike Fortune-Wood appealed for information on his list that might help Maire Stafford to help Nikki Harper to get me prosecuted. The idea is that I have been revealing personal information about people here and attacking them. As a result of what she has been told by Maire Stafford, Nikki Harper is convinced that I  have, 'a reputation for attacking people, making very unpleasant accusations about their children', as she puts it.  I have no idea what these unpleasant accusations are about children, but Maire Stafford and Nikki Harper are currently scouring this blog for them. I will not go into all the things that were said about me on both HE-UK and various other lists and blogs in the past, but I will instead limit myself to remarking that it is a good thing that I was not the sort of chap to feel that he was being harassed online! It is to be hoped that this nonsense will end soon and I shall be able to get back to blogging about home education, which is after all the purpose of this place. I have an idea though that this business has a little way to run yet.

Munchausen's again

Well, I am certainly glad to find myself acquitted of the charge of dreaming up some connection between Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy and home education; I find that people have evidently been talking about this idea for years. Asking around, I have found a few home educators who feel that they have been suspected of this. Even the woman who sat next to me at the select committee was herself suspected by some professionals of having this syndrome a few years ago. She didn't, I hasten to add, have it at all. Most frequently, it seems to be with reference to ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, as I surmised, but I have also found it associated with autism. All very curious. Actually, this shows Graham Badman in a rather better light. Instead of simply plucking the idea out of thin air, it suggests that he had actually been doing a bit of research. Mind you, as Julie said a few days ago, without knowing how he said it and exactly what was said, it is hard to know how serious he was being. I have certainly said things myself in exasperation such as, "I think some of these home educators must be absolutely mental!". Of course this has been said to my wife in the privacy of my own home; I would have thought twice about saying anything of the sort in front of a witness.

I don't suppose for a moment that Graham Badman meant to suggest that all home educating mothers suffered from this syndrome or even that it was a major factor in the decision to home educate. He is not a fool. The second meeting with Paula Rothermel took place after he had visited a home education group at which practically every child to whom he was introduced apparently had some special need or other. One was too gifted for school, another had ME, a couple were dyslectic, there was OCD, dyspraxia, ADHD and various other syndromes. I heard about this from one of the few mothers present who had home educated through simple choice. I can see that after meeting so many children described like this, he might have felt tempted to wonder what on earth was going on!

The main objection that people seem currently to be raising to the idea that there might be cases of Munchausen's by proxy among home educating mothers seems to be that the majority of home educators do not crave attention, which is usually seen as a defining factor of the syndrome. I am not so sure that this is a good argument. Often, the very act of withdrawing a child from school does attract attention to a mother. Attention from the school, from her family and friends, from the local authority, health services, sometimes even social workers. So although it may not be the only reason why parents take their kids out of school, it could still be a factor in some cases. I am not a huge fan of Paula Rothermel's research, as I said yesterday, but she did find that over a fifth of home educating parents have children whom they claim to have special educational needs.

In short, it should be quite clear now that I did not myself invent this idea of a connection between Munchausen's Syndrome and home education. I felt I had to nip that in the bud, otherwise I would find it being accepted as fact that Simon Webb told Graham Badman that home educators had Munchausen's! Without wishing to be unkind, I can't help noticing that the person who started this particular hare is not only on medication for anxiety, but has also self-diagnosed herself as suffering from dyslexia, dyspraxia and ADHD. More worryingly, she has apparently retrospectively diagnosed some of her grownup children as having had similar learning difficulties. I would have thought that such a person could hardly keep too quiet on the subject of Munchausen's syndrome by proxy; never mind accusing complete strangers of starting a scare about it! It is however an interesting notion and I would be keen to find out more. I certainly would not dismiss it out of hand as a contributing factor in some parents decision to de-register their child, but I would have to see an awful lot of convincing evidence in order to persuade me that it was a major cause of home education.