Last October a new pro-grouse shooting group lurched on to the scene in the form of an ‘aggressively chanting’ mob outside a Harrogate theatre. They were there to protest against Chris Packham (who was appearing at the theatre that night), who they claimed, amongst other things, was ‘destroying moorland communities’ and they threatened to enter the theatre and disrupt the event. Local organisers were so concerned they called the police.
These protesters all carried corporate-looking placards embossed with the name of the new group: Campaign for Protection of Moorland Communities (or C4PMC) and they appeared to be led that evening by an individual whose twitter account included some pretty disturbing views (see here for a blog about that night).
This new group had a website (here) and social media accounts and the content might have persuaded some naive readers to think this was a ‘grassroots community group’, purporting to represent ‘downtrodden country folk’ who were being unfairly attacked by some nasty people from the cities who didn’t understand country ways. You know the sort of idiotic rhetoric.
At the time of the website’s launch, the group’s ‘About’ page identified four individuals who were described as “Our People”. Here’s who they were:
Interestingly, the name of the Harrogate protest leader didn’t appear anywhere on the website and his twitter account was deleted shortly after screen grabs of its offensive content were published on this blog.
The four people who were listed as ‘Our People’ were all known, all ‘real’ people, but it wasn’t clear which of them, if any, was writing the articles that appeared on the website or pumping out the group’s propaganda on social media. This content has, over recent months, become progressively nasty and has targeted a number of individuals and organisations in the conservation sector, leading to several of them taking legal advice on topics such as misrepresentation, copyright infringement and harassment. Predictably, the targets have been the RSPB (obvs), the directors of Wild Justice (obvs) and the Revive Coalition (obvs) but then some other, less obvious targets such as a prominent member of Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and a prominent author and TV producer.
Some of us got the impression, given the style of C4PMC’s output, that none of these four were directly involved with producing C4PMC propaganda at all, but were perhaps just being used as a convenient front to maintain the illusion of this group being a ‘grassroots community group’ rather than an astroturfing outfit for the grouse shooting industry (a bit like, it could be argued, You Forgot the Birds and the Strathbraan Community Collaboration for Waders).
Even more interestingly, in the last few days the names, bios and photos of these four have vanished from the website, as quickly and suddenly as a tagged hen harrier vanishes from a driven grouse moor. The reason for this can only be speculated but it’s not the only weird thing that’s happened in recent days, as you’ll see further below.
The C4PMC’s ‘About’ webpage now looks like this:
So now C4PMC is claiming to be run and managed by editor ‘Jenny Wilson’, whose bio sounds about as convincing as Dominic Cummings’s justification for visiting Barnard Castle.
It’s fascinating that ‘Jenny Wilson’ is portrayed as she is, given that the behaviour and media output of C4PMC in recent weeks has been more akin to something written by a tabloid hack. Or perhaps a former tabloid hack now working for a corporate PR company. You know, a personal, nasty, sensationalist, poorly researched, distorted version of reality designed to grab headlines rather than sensibly inform.
Anywaaaaaaay……..
In early July, C4PMC ramped up the nastiness by publishing an article that included a vile and personal attack on a young RSPB staff member. It’s not going to be re-posted here to save him the anguish. A couple of days ago the RSPB’s Martin Harper wrote a blog about this attack and condemned those involved (see here).
Now, that deeply offensive article wasn’t just written and published by C4PMC. The group went a step further and paid to have it promoted on Facebook, to ensure it was seen by an audience beyond the reach of its own limited following.
C4PMC has paid for a lot of promotional work since the group was established in October 2019…..£3,311 so far, according to these statistics provided by Facebook, which seems a lot of money for a poor, downtrodden grassroots community group to fritter away on self-promotion and attacking those who want to see grouse moor reform, doesn’t it?
But the amount paid for the particularly vicious attack on the young RSPB employee was the highest sum that C4PMC has paid for any of its promotional output to date. According to the Facebook stats, C4PMC paid between £300-399 to promote this particular nasty piece, whereas it’s paid less than £100 for almost all of its other promoted pieces:
Now, when you pay to promote material on Facebook, not only is the amount paid recorded in the public domain, but if that material is categorised as being about ‘social issues, elections or politics’, then the promoter also has to provide contact details which are also then available in the public domain.
And this is where it gets interesting.
Here are the details, posted by Facebook, associated with the promoted piece attacking the RSPB employee:
You’ll note that the phone number has been partially redacted. On Facebook the number is provided in full but a decision has been made not to publish it in full on this blog for what should be obvious reasons.
But that phone number is important, because if it can be linked to a named individual it might provide an insight in to who, exactly, is behind the C4PMC group.
And it appears it can indeed be linked to a named individual. Somebody by the name of Katy Roxburgh, whose mobile number was listed on another Facebook page that promoted a charity event in 2015 at Durham University – the Durham University Charity Fashion Show (DUCFS):
Hmm. So Katy Roxburgh’s mobile phone number was used by whoever paid for the C4PMC’s advert.
So who is Katy Roxburgh then? Is she another gamekeeper’s daughter now living quietly on a small farm in Yorkshire?
Err, not quite.
Katy Roxburgh is an Associate Director at Sabi Strategy Group, a slick corporate communications outfit with offices in Johannesburg, Hong Kong and London.
How do we know this is the ‘right’ Katy Roxburgh? There could be (and are) a number of people in the world with that name.
Well, LinkedIn has helped there. Here’s Katy Roxburgh’s LinkedIn profile page, linking her to the SABI Strategy Group and the University of Durham:
And here’s a bit more detail from her LinkedIn profile page, documenting that this Katy Roxburgh was the Vice President of Durham University Charity Fashion Show in 2015:
According to Companies House, Katy Roxburgh is also a Director of a company called KHK Media Group Ltd, along with two colleagues from the SABI Strategy Group. Note the correspondence address given for Katy Roxburgh, and compare it with the correspondence address given for the C4PMC promotion on Facebook:
Interestingly, the London address for the SABI Strategy Group, up until yesterday, was also given as 49 Princes Place, London, W11 4QA, as shown in this screengrab:
But then this morning the address had been changed on the website to this:
All this sudden change in website content, both for C4PMC and SABI Strategy Group, is very curious, isn’t it?
Now, it should be said quite clearly that there is no evidence whatsoever that Katy Roxburgh is responsible for the disgraceful propaganda being published by C4PMC. Nor is there any evidence that she, personally, is responsible for paying Facebook to promote this tosh. All we can say is that Katy Roxburgh’s mobile phone number and work address were provided to Facebook as the contact details required when paying for a promotional piece.
So really, we’re not that much further forward with finding out who is behind C4PMC. There’s ‘editor Jenny Wilson’, who sounds fictional and until evidence of her existence emerges will continue to be viewed as fictional, and there’s Katy Roxburgh and the SABI Strategy Group and/or KHK Media Group Ltd who appear to be connected to C4PMC to some extent but not conclusively and if they are, it’s not clear what their roles are.
We don’t know who’s bankrolling this outfit. Who’s paying for ‘editor’ Jenny Wilson’s time and expertise? Who’s paying for those corporate placards and banners? Who’s paying for the C4PMC website? Who’s paying thousands of pounds to promote nasty, vindictive attacks on conservationists? Who’s paying to engage a slick London communication company to organise that promotion?
We don’t know. Yet.
But as part of the research undertaken for this particular blog, the following organisation was brought to our attention:
Now THIS is an interesting organisation. Check out the Directors (here) and note the links to the Moorland Association, GWCT and the Royal family, and have a read of the company’s objectives, which can be downloaded here: Moorland Communities Tradition Ltd_ArticlesIncorporation
How very interesting.
Raptor Persecution UK 