"Impartial" ASSAP Bans Bishop

"Given the final vote:

12 to remove, 4 to keep, 2 abstain......

I have removed Sean Manchester from this page."

— Robert Moore (ASSAP)

That's a mere twelve votes, naturally including Farrant and his cronies, eg Redmond McWilliams, and, of course, Barbara Green, voting for Seán Manchester's ban out of a total membership of 2,023.

The vote was held on a completely obscure thread started by Barbara Green, ostensibly to discuss vampires and hauntings, that was mostly dominated by trouble-makers, trolls and time-wasters.

The Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena (ASSAP) is a registered charity, and as such is obliged to be impartial and not show bias for or against any contributor or member.

Is that reflectd by Robert Moore's supposedly "democratic" vote on Barbara Green's thread where a mere twelve people out of two thousand and twenty-three members decided the ban? How many members were even aware that he was carrying out this kangaroo court which lasted a few hours?

A thread for the explicit purpose of voting over a reasonable period should have been created, if it was felt necessary. But was it necessary? Why, indeed, is Robert Moore demonstrating such partiality? Those who were posting material to the extreme detriment of Seán Manchester before he joined, continued to do so while he was briefly a member, and no doubt will continue to do so now he has been summarily banned. However, let's examine the spurious reasons offered for the ban.

Robert Moore says that Seán Manchester was too keen to implement DMCA notices. In fact, Seán Manchester only exercised his legal right once where the ASSAP is concerned, and that was on a newly created ASSAP page supposedly dedicated to the Highgate Vampire. Robert Moore linked to a page on Trystan Lewis Swale's website that had nothing to do with the Highgate Vampire, or indeed anything else remotely paranormal. The hot link caused an image to appear from that page which is Seán Manchester's copyright. The page itself is designed to incite hatred against Seán Manchester.

Robert Moore claims Seán Manchester does this "when arguments don't go his way." It was done once, and Seán Manchester wasn't having an argument because he contributed nothing whatsoever to the page. The reason it was done is because the image linked to inflammatory defamation.

Moore said he had received two serious complaints about "protracted harassment campaigns," but was unwilling to identify from whom, or indeed any evidence of any harassment campaign. We can reveal that the complainant is Redmond McWilliams who is one of the worst offenders when it comes to trolling and stalking Seán Manchester. McWilliams, a lackey of David Farrant, is the one who has been waging a relentless harassment campaign against Seán Manchester, both on and off the group.

Moore alleges that "it came to the point that we were unable to discuss any aspect of his work due to his very liberal use of such threats." Once again, Robert Moore offers no evidence to support this claim. Seán Manchester exercised his right only when hateful material that had nothing to do with any ASSAP discussion was linked by Robert Moore to a Highgate Vampire page on which Seán Manchester was not even present. The malice could have put Seán Manchester in some danger due to its extreme nature. That is the only time a DMCA was activated against Robert Moore and the ASSAP. There was also a minor incident where Barbara Green uploaded a group photograph that was not her copyright, which included Seán Manchester's wife. The photograph was gratuitous and unnecessary. Seán Manchester advised her that it was not her copyright, but she failed to remove it.

Bearing in mind the constant libel against Seán Manchester being published by David Farrant, Patsy Sorenti, Redmond McWilliams and others of that ilk on the ASSAP, was the ban really justified?

Robert Moore has suggested that Seán Manchester's refusal to unblock known trolls like McWilliams, Hogg and Swale contributed to the ban. Yet Moore knows that other members have blocked numerous people (who are also members). For example, Angie Mary Watkins is blocked by Redmond McWilliams. Seán Manchester is blocked by David Farrant, and so on and so forth. Seán Manchester is very much aware that the trolls he has blocked can all view his comments because they employ fake "sockpuppet" accounts on Facebook, but what they cannot do is integrate their comments with his. Thus the trolling is minimised, and he was able to have a voice. Though no longer because Robert Moore sympathises with these elements and has more in common with them than he does with Seán Manchester. Banning him, however, brings its own problems for the ASSAP.

The Charity Commission have advised Seán Manchester to contact the Trustees of the ASSAP over their charity being in breach of their non-negotiable impartiality rule. He contacted Robert Moore privately and requested the names of the Trustees. Moore ignored his request. Then he reiterated the request on the ASSAP group shortly before he was banned. Still his request was ignored. It would seem that certain individuals in the ASSAP, and Robert Moore is one of them, think this will go away now that the independent voice of the bishop has been silenced on their FB group. Huge mistake!