Writer of crime fiction, drinker of coffee and walker of city streets. My next novel, Missing, is out on 1st February 2026.
Manchester
Joined April 2014
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Missing, set in Manchester and featuring homeless private eye Victor and his disgruntled dog, Oscar, is available through Amazon prime.
I've come to love the characters and hope you do too.
Please leave a review if you can, it would be a great help.
Thanks
amazon.co.uk/Missing-City-St…
David Beckler retweeted
A bunch of dishonest clowns are distorting the facts to excuse a convicted rapist or to sell a two-tier justice story. To do it, they have to smear every survivor of a grooming gang, a rape gang or a children's home who got justice the way Brand's victims did: by giving evidence in court and being believed by a jury.
Testimony is what convicts child abusers in this country. In June 2025, at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court, seven men were convicted of raping and abusing two girls in Rochdale between 2001 and 2006. The CPS built the case on the girls' testimony, which matched although they had never met, backed by employment records and vehicle data, and the men got between 12 and 35 years. In 2021, at Nottingham Crown Court, a jury convicted Nigel Pipe, a housemaster at a Nottinghamshire children's home in the 1960s, of 27 offences against five boys, even though the school's records were lost and some witnesses were dead.
In 2023 the Court of Appeal said the question for the jury was whether the offences took place as each complainant alleged, and it upheld every conviction.
Brand was convicted on the same kind of evidence, and anyone calling that evidence worthless is calling those verdicts worthless too.
Shabir Ahmed, the man @jonatanpallesen says "got off free" in the post @JTLonsdale quoted, was convicted in May 2012 at Liverpool Crown Court of raping that same girl four times when she was 15, handing her to another man to be raped, and trafficking her for sex. He got 19 years and served 14. The CPS had dropped the case in 2009 because it decided she "would not be a credible witness", which is Pallesen's Brand argument word for word, and it left a 15-year-old in the hands of her rapists. His "Offender J" never stood trial at all. The 2022 Oldham review says Greater Manchester Police didn't follow up when J was named in 2007, ignored his wife's report in 2011, and lost or destroyed key evidence. That was police failure, and no court let anyone off.
Al-Soaimi, the "rapist" @FaraiMazhindu posted and @AllisonPearson says was treated leniently, wasn't convicted of rape. He was convicted of three sexual assaults and one assault by penetration on a child under 13, all committed when he was 15.
The sentencing guideline tells every court in the country to start from the sentence likely to have been imposed when the offence was committed. The Badreddin brothers, from the same gang, got 18 and 13 years.
The two Telford men @SamanthaTaghoy points to each got four and a half years in December 2019, at Birmingham Crown Court, for indecent assault on a girl who was 13 when the abuse began in 2001. Brand got 18 months for three sexual assaults. The man convicted of rape in the Telford case got eight years plus an extended licence.
Kebatu, the example @TheJadeWarwick uses, got 12 months at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court in September 2025 for two sexual assaults, an attempted sexual assault, inciting a girl to engage in sexual activity and harassment, and he was never convicted of rape. Nine of Brand's 10 and a half years are for the rape.
Every one of these posts sets a rape sentence against something else: a child sentenced as a child, an indecent assault, a case the police never built, or a conviction they pretend never happened.
Take out the lies and what's left is a message to every grooming gang survivor that her word shouldn't have been enough either.
David Beckler retweeted
In England, 4,793 people were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 — a record high. Behind every statistic is a person who deserves dignity, safety & a place to call home. Support Homeless England. Raise awareness. Be part of the change. #Homelessness
David Beckler retweeted
That was the Huddersfield Grooming gang trial in 2018 in Leeds Crown Court. Fortunately despite SYLs idiot antics the trial(s) completed.
Sentencing was a total of 221years for 16 men, that's an average of 14years each.
David Beckler retweeted
Alastair, since you asked for courts and dates:
9 May 2012, Liverpool Crown Court: 9 Rochdale offenders, sentences up to 19 years.
1 October 2025, Manchester Crown Court: 7 offenders, sentences totalling 174 years.
22 May 2026, Bradford Crown Court: 6 offenders, sentences up to 14 years.
These scandals involved disgraceful failures by the authorities. Nobody should deny that.
But pretending the prosecutions never happened erases the courage of the victims who testified.
The CPS publishes the evidence. Perhaps consult it before posting.
David Beckler retweeted
I'm seeing lots of wildly harmful opinions (even from 'professionals') regarding the long wait of Brand's victim-survivors to report & how they behaved after, so let's talk about trauma responses to sexual violence & women reporting rapes to the criminal justice system:
1/
David Beckler retweeted
John Amaechi, "The question is provocative" #BBCQT
Lady in red, "Is it fair people in poverty in Liverpool today are being asked to pay reparations for historical injustices they played no part in?"
John Amaechi, "Do we want poor people anywhere to have to pay more? No"
"The British 'we' is so intriguing to me. We are proud of our maritime history.. We become a little bit more callow when we discuss what was in the holds of the ships"
"We become more circumspect when all of a sudden people are saying: extracting wealth form people at any stage will have an impact on them in every stage"
"This is not about guilt. Is there a conscientious way we can consider that wrongs done in the name of the thing we currently have, that we may consider those"
Fiona Bruce, "Should we be paying reparations?"
John Amaechi, "There are sensible ways to consider, whether it be tax relief, or debt relief"
"Because 2015 was when the gilt was finally paid off, that was used to pay the slave owners off"
My view:
Britain paid £20 million in compensation to slave owners between 1835 and 1843, around 40% of annual government spending at the time.
Historic England estimates its modern equivalent at approximately £16.5 billion.
The enslaved received no compensation.
Generations of taxpayers serviced the borrowing used to compensate their owners, with the associated government bonds finally redeemed in 2015.
Putting poor people in Liverpool on one side of this debate, and poor people in countries affected by slavery on the other, creates a choice we do not have to accept. Neither should have to bear the cost of injustices that enriched others.
Nobody inherits personal guilt. But wealth, land, assets and advantages can pass down through generations.
If institutions continue to benefit from wealth accumulated through exploitation, it is reasonable to ask what responsibility comes with that inheritance.
Reparations could mean those institutions helping fund hospitals, schools, clean water systems and other infrastructure in affected countries.
They could include debt relief, scholarships and investment directed by the communities concerned.
A serious conversation would ask who benefited, who should contribute and what would make a lasting difference.
Concern for people struggling in Britain should help shape those answers, rather than close the discussion.
David Beckler retweeted
John Amaechi, "When you listen to this conversation, it's like the policy was make for the apocryphal kind of grotesque stereotype of what an immigrant is"
"Not for real actual people"
"Yes there are fraudsters in this world. Guess what, they're not just black and brown people coming to this country"
"I worked in the NHS for 10 years where migrants doing the jobs that many of us would find the most desirable did it with passion - we stood by as they protected our loved ones in their most vulnerable moment"
"And I'm not saying that that is the picture of all migrants too"
"But surely a more charitable picture than the fraudsters and the connivers, the criminals, somehow - as if we do not have them here in aplenty"
"Any time you look at a policy that starts to tell people coming here that they're only valuable if they make more than this amount of money, then all of us here should look out"
My view:
During the pandemic, we called them essential workers. We applauded them for caring for our parents, cleaning hospital wards and keeping the country going.
Now their wages are being used to question whether they contribute enough to deserve a future here.
Their contribution hasn’t diminished. Politicians have simply found it convenient to stop recognising it.
If someone earns too little while doing work our society depends on, perhaps the problem is how little we pay them. What a cruel response to underpaid care workers: we need you to look after our families, but your wages make you unworthy of settling alongside them.
John Amaechi’s warning should trouble everyone. Once a government starts measuring people’s worth by their salary, millions of us should wonder where that leaves us.
What price do you put on someone holding your mother’s hand through the night? And why would their payslip tell you whether they deserve to stay?
David Beckler retweeted
Now Russell Brand's been convicted of rape, we need to talk about Sylvie Berki. Because she can't speak for herself.
In 2014, Ms Berki said she'd been assaulted by Russell Brand.
But if she talks about it, even now, she risks jail.
David Beckler retweeted
Thinking of the survivors who suffered and watched Russell Brand thrive for years in an industry that protects and rewards monsters like him.
David Beckler retweeted
Tom Hurndall was murdered on 11th April 2003.
He was carrying Palestinian children (who were frozen from fear) to safety from gunfire. He successfully rescued one but was shot when he went back for the others. He was 21.
David Beckler retweeted
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣Jon Stewart: “That was not AI. That was not artificial intelligence. That was not any form of intelligence. That was the president of the United States.”
🌊🌊🌊#Trump #VoteBlueToSaveAmerica 🌊
David Beckler retweeted
COVER REVEAL 🚨 Without further ado, here is the cover of my fifth novel WHERE THE LIGHT FALLS. Set between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi, this will appeal to readers of NO HONOUR and A THOUSAND SPLENDID SUNS. This is where I need your support:
Pre-Order: geni.us/ZTUvHCZ
David Beckler retweeted
This is very good
bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/1…
David Beckler retweeted
THEY FOUGHT FOR FRANCE IN WORLD WAR II, RETURNED TO AFRICA DEMANDING THEIR UNPAID WAGES, AND FRENCH SOLDIERS OPENED FIRE ON THEM.
On 1 December 1944, African soldiers who had fought for France during the Second World War were massacred by the very army they had served.
Their crime? Demanding the money they had earned.
They were known as the Tirailleurs Sénégalais, African infantrymen recruited from France’s West African colonies. They came from territories including Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire and Benin.
Many had been captured by German forces in 1940 and spent years in prisoner-of-war camps before being liberated and repatriated to Africa.
When they arrived at the military camp in Thiaroye, near Dakar, Senegal, they expected their outstanding wages, allowances and demobilisation payments.
The money did not come.
They protested. They demanded what they had earned through years of military service. Instead of receiving their payment, they faced French military forces.
On the morning of 1 December, French troops surrounded the camp and opened fire.
Men who had survived the battlefields of Europe and years of German captivity were shot by the army they had fought for.
And the injustice did not end with the killings. Survivors were arrested, tried and imprisoned. For decades, French authorities portrayed the incident as a mutiny to justify the violence.
How many were killed? The original French military figure was 35. Later records referred to 70 deaths, while several historians believe the actual number could have been between 300 and 400. The full death toll remains unresolved.
In November 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron officially acknowledged the events as a massacre, 80 years after the killings.
Think about that. These men were good enough to fight and die for France, but when they demanded the wages they had earned, their own army turned its guns on them.
Their names deserve to be remembered. Their families deserve the truth.
Share this story. How many Africans know what happened at Thiaroye on 1 December 1944?
