Activist set to defy police warning over witness intimidation?

In news first broken on this website on 21st January, 2022, Greater Manchester Police confirmed that a 48 year old man from Stamford Road, Mossley had been charged with two criminal offences and bailed to appear at Tameside Magistrates’ Court on 3rd February, 2022 (read more here).

Bradford-born Raja Miah (pictured above), an unemployed, self-styled political activist, was first arrested in July, 2021 in a dawn raid on his home. After a search of the property, all his electronic devices and notebooks were seized. He has been repeatedly bailed since, with conditions that include a night-time curfew.

He runs a series of controversial social media channels, the most notorious of which is Recusant Nine, known locally, regionally and nationally both in the press, and on-line, as a medium associated with racial division, rabidly anti-Labour Party narrative and far-right tropes.

In three years, he has accumulated around 300 subscribers who send him money. A number of which are from what might, fairly, be described as living in modest circumstances. Others appear to admit to mental health issues and the core of his support comes from an unattractive collection of racists, known far-right supporters, criminals, thugs, social media stalkers and trolls and, more generally, axe grinders who appear to have exhausted other means of legitimate complaint or protest. They self-identify, collectively, as ‘The Rabble’ or ‘Raja’s Rabble’.

In an extraordinary development, shortly after he was charged by GMP, Miah posted on Facebook that he intended to defy a warning given to him at Oldham police station by Detective Sergeant Chris Dean regarding witness intimidation. This is the relevant text of that post, with the witnesses names’ redacted:

“The Oldham Times has previously falsely and maliciously reported that I had been arrested as part of a child sexual exploitation investigation. Their claim was a complete fabrication for which they are being investigated by their own regulator. If Greater Manchester Police were not corrupt, they would be forced to arrest and charge the Editor. That Greater Manchester Police refuse to equally apply the law speaks volumes. As does the Oldham Times not having the courage to put the name of their reporter next to the article.

“Likewise, whilst this headline is also inaccurate, I have not been charged with ‘malicious communications’, please note how they FAIL to make any reference to their previous fabrication that I was arrested as part of a CSE investigation.

“Following being charged with far lesser charges, on each instance at the last moment possible having waited 6 months, DS DEAN felt the need to inform me not to intimidate the witnesses. I informed him that I had never sought to contact directly or indirectly [name redacted] (the only name ever mentioned to me during my interview) and nor would I. His response was when I realised that what he was actually doing was threatening me. Only then did he tell me that [name redacted] was a witness. Even though at no previous point had he mentioned this, apparently I should have been able to infer this from my bail conditions. I made clear that it was not my role to infer any such conclusion.

“From the outset I have maintained that mine is a politically motivated arrest and an attempt to prevent my lawful campaigning in exposing extensive corruption and the now proven cover up of the grooming and gang rape of Working Class White girls by [redacted] Labour Party run Oldham Council. If I had any doubt about this, the clumsy attempt to warn me off by DS DEAN confirmed this. And just for clarity, for those at Greater Manchester Police reading this, I am not a mobster. I have no intention of intimidating anyone, let alone a witness to a crime I have yet to receive details of what I have meant to have done. Rather, I relish the prospect of facing them in a Court of Law.

“DS Dean made sure I was aware that his warning had been recorded by the cameras. I likewise made sure he was aware that my response was also recorded by the cameras – that in a democracy, we are all allowed to lawfully campaign against politicians and bring to public attention matters of fact regarding them and the impact of their actions and decisions on the wider public. It does not matter if I cause offence by telling the truth about politicians. I will defend this fundamental right to freedom of speech. More than just protected by the Human Rights Act, this is a cornerstone of the very fabric of our way of life”.

“And irrespective of the threat of imprisonment, the Recusant Nine leaflets targeting South Chadderton go to print next week and will be delivered to every household in the area”.

Those familiar with the Recusant Nine output will be well aware that little of it bears any resemblance to reality and is routinely populated with blatant untruths, smears and stretched narrative. That is the case here, yet again.

In matters that do not bear on criminal charges to be determined before a court, as it would be prejudicial to do so and the presumption of innocence must apply, the following corrections are offered:

(i) There is no trace of an IPSO investigation and no certainly no finding by that regulator against The Oldham Times. Whom, incidentally, have an unblemished record with the regulator. Nor is there ever likely to be; the newspaper, not exactly noted for edgy, groundbreaking news, quoted directly from a press release given to them by GMP. Miah has previously, and falsely, asserted that Neil Wilby, the author of this article, had tipped off the Times about the arrest.

(ii) The proposition that the editor of that newspaper has committed a criminal offence is beyond ludicrous and requires no further explanation. But, it pleases his supporters and whips up hate against the Times, and its staff, in what appears to be an attempt to intimidate and restrict reporting of matters adverse to him.

(iii) The email sent to Neil Wilby at 1339hrs on 21st January, 2022, by the press office of Greater Manchester Police, is explicit: Raja Miah has been charged with harassment and malicious communications offences. It is unclear why he would assert otherwise.

(iv) The Oldham Times are well able to speak for themselves but the objective view, from a fellow journalist, is that not naming their reporter in the byline would have been the result of a health and safety risk assessment and the resultant decision designed to protect from the threats, smearing, harassment and defamation of members of the press with which Miah, and his small but noisy band of supporters, indulge themselves very frequently. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with ‘courage’. A good example would be the public proclamation that Neil Wilby ‘will leave in a body bag’ if he attends Miah’s property, as an accredited journalist, to interview him.

(v) Miah was arrested as part of a wider police investigation codenamed Operation Hexagon, set up in November 2019 to look into lurid online allegations of a ‘cover-up’ of child sexual exploitation in exchange for ‘Asian Cartel’ block votes. He is very well aware of that fact and has broadcast as such on his Facebook page recently. But, as one gets used to when analysing the output on Recusant Nine, what Miah says on one day can vary wildly from another occasion, depending upon which hobby horse he is riding at a given time (read more here). Unchallenged by commentators on his posts, as he quickly removes any dissenting voices from his various channels.

(vi) One of the witnesses is closely connected to South Chadderton. The leaflet to which Miah alludes, and has posted about a number of times previously on Facebook, is intended, from what he has said about it, to smear that person in pursuit of his stated personal agenda to undermine at every opportunity. It does not give the appearance of legitimate political activity, or protest, and Miah has no party affiliation that would underpin such a proposition.

(vii) The remainder of Miah’s comments, reproduced above, may, possibly, have a minor bearing on the criminal cases against him and will not draw further comment at this stage so as to protect the integrity of those court proceedings.

The sign-off to Raja Miah’s Facebook post does, however, give the objective reader an insight into both the overall positioning of his political campaigning and his state of mind, such as it is:

“For the last 3 years, I have exposed Council corruption and the cover up of the grooming and gang rape of children in my home town of Oldham. Providing a voice to the betrayed, demonised and oppressed working class communities, that have been abandoned in exchange for a Cartel controlled block vote, I have used my skills and expertise to help hold powerful politicians and public officials to account for their actions.

“The consequence of my work has resulted in the endorsement of my murder by [name redacted]. The Oldham MPs JIM McMAHON & DEBBIE ABRAHAMS have attempted to frame me for crimes I did not commit and even police officers from a proven corrupt and paedophile protecting in accelerated Special Measures Greater Manchester Police have arrested me in a desperate attempt to silence me”.

(viii) Oldham is not Raja Miah’s ‘home town’. He is a Yorkshire man, born in Bradford and spent his early years there. He has lived at his current address in the upmarket commuter village of Mossley since 2004. He pays his local taxes to Tameside Borough Council.

(ix) His audience is very small, several hundred out of an Oldham Borough population of over 220,000. Miah’s noisy attempts to position himself as a credible representative of large sections of the community simply has no factual, or evidential, basis. All attempts to identify records of ‘Asian Cartels’ in the record-keeping of both the police or council archives have failed. Or if one asks about them, whilst on the journalistic beat on Oldham streets, the results do not bear out what Miah claims. No-one, but absolutely no-one, can be found who has heard of such cartels, let alone been. a victim.

(x) Miah has previously, and mischievously, asserted that Jim McMahon, Sean Fielding, the former Leader of Oldham Council and Neil Wilby conspired together to murder him. He plainly survived that, as he has done from the many other claimed attempts on his life and the mortal danger under which he apparently and permanently lives from the attentions of a myriad and mythical collection of his ‘Asian Cartels’, ‘mobsters’, ‘gangsters’, ‘Pakistani (or Glodwick) Goons’. All of whom remain unidentified by Miah, of course. Including those who allegedly subjected him to a car-jacking and attempted murder in November, 2021 and about which there are no details of the vehicle(s) used in the alleged attack, or descriptions of the armed robbers (whom the lightweight Miah says he tried to fight off), or even a location where it is said to have taken place. There was no police or press appeal following the attack and, for now, at least, is filed under ‘Raja Miah: Things That Never Happened’. A weighty volume, one might add.

An ’emergency broadcast’ on Miah’s YouTube channel, shortly after he was charged, mentioned the two principal witnesses by name and canvassed his supporters to turn up at Tameside Magistrates’ Court on 3rd February, 2022.

At least one of those witnesses has complained to GMP about what she perceives to be intimidation and further harassment by Miah.

The contents of his regular Sunday night podcast, broadcast on a subscriber only basis on 23rd February, 2022, are not known but it is understood that GMP are reviewing its content.

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Page last updated: Wednesday 26th January, 2022 at 0845 hours

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