One in the Eye for Oldham’s most prolific stalkers and trolls

It’s taken a lot longer than could ever have been anticipated, writes Neil Wilby, but the principal operators behind the infamous ‘Oldham Eye’ Twitter account have now, it seems, been positively identified.

This entity started out in October, 2019 and has become notorious across the region, and further afield, for its routinely harassing and defamatory output designed to sate what appears to be a well-populated racist and far-right audience.

It has relied on closely-guarded anonymity, and an inability by Twitter to adequately police their platform, to enable such a disgraceful situation. At least one person has contemplated suicide after being regularly targeted by Oldham Eye, who describe themselves in their ‘pinned tweet’ as ‘untouchable’.

A pretence that the married couple, who like so many of the Borough’s on-line conspiracy theorists, stalkers and trolls are unemployed and exist on State benefits, are child sexual exploitation (CSE) campaigners has no basis in facts or evidence. It is, to all intents and purposes, a convenient, emotive, audience-pleasing far-right trope.

Oldham Eye, as one might expect, is very closely aligned to another disgraced, unemployed conspiracy theorist, Tameside-based Raja Miah, and acts as a landing point on Twitter for his supporters whom self-style as The Rabble (or Raja’s Rabble) and include an unedifying collection of criminals, thugs, perverts, and some of the social media platform’s most relentless stalkers and trolls (read more here).

Miah has the unusual distinction of being on both court and police bail over his own output on social media, via his frequently-banned Recusant Nine platforms (read more here).

Also closely aligned to the Eye and The Rabble are the similarly disgraced Failsworth Independent Party (read more here). Most notably Cllr Brian Hobin, a convicted criminal and Cllr Mark Wilkinson, whose shocking behaviour, in and out of the civic chamber, make them a good fit. Together with yet another unemployed conspiracy theorist, Party Chairwoman, Kathleen Wilkinson, who marshalls her own praetorian guard of on-line stalkers and trolls.

Another Oldham councillor and member of The Rabble, the Conservative Party’s Cllr Dave Arnott, and a close friend of its de facto Leader, Gary Tarbuck, is believed to have promoted the local election candidacy of one of the two Oldham Eye principals. ‘Jimmy’ Tarbuck, also very closely aligned to the Eye, stood as an unsuccessful candidate last year with Cllr Arnott, who dresses up as an elf in a risible attempt to maintain popularity, as his election agent. The connections are crystal clear.

With the cloak of anonymity all but gone, a series of actions will now be undertaken against the Oldham Eye, as soon as practicable, that include but are not limited to:

– Multiple harassment complaints to be submitted to Greater Manchester Police

– At least one defamation pre-action protocol letter to be served on the couple

– A report to be submitted to the Department of Work and Pensions over concerns that there may well be a concerted scam in Oldham regarding disability claims and paid carer arrangements. The Rabble appears to have an unusually high proportion of such individuals in one form or another. At least one of whom, a very healthy looking specimen, stood as a Conservative Party candidate in last year’s local election.

– Notifying Conservative Party HQ of very arguable concerns as to the suitability of the selection of one of the couple as a candidate in the forthcoming Oldham local elections.

In December, 2021, by way of a Neil Wilby Media article headlined ‘Lowest of the Lowe’ (read in full here) two close allies were identified as being part of the stalking and trolling conglomerate associated with Oldham Eye: ‘Warriors of Oldham’.  Chris Lowe and Anita Lowe, both deeply dedicated Rabblers and another disabled and carer pairing, are near neighbours of the Eye operators and share the same interest, apart from their nefarious on-line activities, of gardening. For which they have all regularly featured in local awards. Anita always claimed, amongst her many disguises on social media, that she knew exactly what was going on with Oldham Eye and is, indeed, very likely a contributor to its output, along with the rest of the off-line ‘Warriors’ group. Which appears, from the available evidence, to include Cllrs Hobin and Wilkinson.

Once the appropriate legal and regulatory actions are in train, and the archiving of all the past posts of the Oldham Eye Twitter account is complete (over 6,000 have been harvested so far), then the operators will be publicly named.

As a recently emerged public figure, the Conservative Party candidate can expect a knock on the door from an inquisitive investigative journalist, and an accompanying cameraman, interested in a number of matters that include reports of alleged ‘aggressive behaviour’ in the neighbourhood that, if substantiated, would be entirely in keeping with the on-line persona – and not at all a good start to a political career for someone in their late sixties whose absolute obsession with anonymity and absence of even a single societal contribution to the Borough, over the twenty years he has lived in it, remains a complete mystery.

It is fervently hoped that Neil Wilby’s knock on that door will not be the only one and Oldham Eye will soon be joining Raja Miah on police or court bail (or both) and the offensive social media account will ultimately be removed or severely restrained.

Page last updated Wednesday 1st March, 2023 at 0840hrs

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