Neil Wilby Media

During the course of research for an earlier Neil Wilby Media article featuring a notorious, self-styled ‘social media influencer’, a Google search threw up a website titled ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’. The picture above is taken from its home page and full credit is given to its operators for its reproduction here.

The website appears not to have been updated for several years but, presumably, someone is still paying for the domain name and hosting – and, more crucially, its principal subject, the highly litigious Paul Ponting, has either not attempted, or succeeded, in having it taken down.

Despite it repeatedly exposing him as a prodigious and malicious internet troll, matters later borne out in Liverpool County Court in an utterly damning judgment handed down in injunction proceedings brought by the Chief Constable of Lancashire Constabulary (Lancs Police) against Ponting:

These were the headline findings against Ponting by the circuit judge, HHJ David Knifton QC, who presided over a five day hearing:

– He is a persistent harasser

– He frequently breaches personal data and privacy rights

– He is flagrantly dishonest

– Some of his website posts were grossly unfair, inaccurate, distorted, with no basis in fact

– He makes ‘outrageous slurs’ on the character and integrity of police officers;

– He is a bully

– He is anti-social

– His behaviour is abusive, aggressive, confrontational and intimidating

– and selfishness.

The latter, whilst on the face of it much less serious than the rest, actually involved an incident where Ponting called 999 a very short time after the Manchester Arena bombing atrocity in May, 2017 and insisted, accompanied by what the judge described as harassing threats and intimidation, that a non-emergency incident was dealt with, over a number of minutes by the 999 operator, rather than, as suggested, calling back on 101 when there was less demand on the service. In reply, he said he ‘didn’t give a flying shit’ about life or death emergencies involving others. Or, it seems, a terror attack in which 22 people died.

A detailed ex-tempore version of the full judgment can be read here.

Paul Ponting is also presently the subject of a second injunction over harassment allegations. Issued on 6th April, 2023 in Manchester County Court by HHJ Nigel Bird on an interim basis.

Moreover, he is on extended and conditional police bail following an arrest by Greater Manchester Police on 23rd March, 2023 over suspicions of stalking, harassment and assault (read more here). He denies any wrongdoing.

It is not possible to provide a link to ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’ website as there are matters raised within its various pages and sections of which the author of this article, Neil Wilby, has little or no knowledge and may, therefore, have difficulty standing them up in the unlikely event that a credible legal challenge to this article materialised.

There is, however, some important public interest commentary that can be reproduced here without fear of legal reprisal, giving further insight into a vile, obsessive, deranged liar whose on-line activities, and those of his largely anonymous keyboard warrior following, still bring him into routine contact with the law.

– In 2017, ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’ website reports Ponting allegations of Lancs Police setting up a special investigating team to ‘frame’ him. This, he says, is taken from the output from a data subject access request made by him to the Lancashire Police and Crime Commissioner:

“Operation Malaya was designated effectively to deal with complaints made by [name redacted] and [name redacted] against you. Due to the number and complexity of the allegations made, in order to provide continuity and a more efficient, streamlined service, a small team of dedicated officers were removed from their normal duties and assigned to work on these linked reports. For operational resourcing reasons they were required to be shown as allocated to a particular investigation, hence the creation of the operation name”.

– The ‘framing’ appeared not to be successful as one of the complainants was prosecuted and convicted as a result, but Ponting wasn’t. A freedom of information request has been made seeking more information from Lancs Police about Operation Malaya, most particularly its start and end dates and the total amount of officer hours and public funds spent on it (the full FOIA request can be viewed here).

– At the same time, Ponting said he would ‘post all information highlighting how Lancs Police have tried to protect a police informant from prosecution and because I reported the police informant for committing offences against me, Lancs have tried to silence me numerous times including setting up a task force to enrol others to help’. It emerged in the injunction proceedings against him, brought by the same police force in 2019, that the alleged ‘police informant’ was a former employee of Danoli Solutions Ltd, a company majority owned by Ponting (read more here). During a five day court hearing not a scrap of credible evidence emerged that [name redacted] was a ‘police informant’.

– An ancillary issue, as yet unaddressed by Paul Ponting, is why a person who purports to hold corrupt police officers or forces to account would employ a police informant in his business?

– More recently, Ponting has used the same ‘police informant’ smear against Neil Wilby on social media. A dangerous claim to make against a journalist and court reporter that most people would regard as ludicrous, of itself, but, again and, in typical vigilante style, it is not accompanied by any evidence, whatsoever.

– One of the most remarkable revelations by the ‘Ormskirk Vigilante’ website is the sheer scale of the obsessive trolling: ‘Paul Ponting has been targeting people online for several years now and runs several websites designed to cause maximum alarm and distress to any person who dares cross him or speak out against him. He has been known to spread {what are believed by that website to be] lies and malicious allegations against well over 70 different people through these websites, which are all run through his business, Danoli Solutions in Ormskirk’. That total of 70, extant in 2019, is now probably well over a hundred. Which begs the question: How can a computer repairer, operating in a backwater town, accumulate so much hate against so many people or, conversely, have made so many enemies?

– The final hearing of the Lancs injunction proceedings against Ponting in March, 2020 revealed that 30 police officers had been targeted, 9 of whom gave witness box evidence against him. As The Ormskirk Vigilante website notes: ‘Any officer who he deals with ends up on his websites accused of cover-ups, fraud, protecting his aggressors, for being corrupt and anything else derogatory or insulting he feels like adding about them’.

– Ponting was heavily criticised by the judge for posting private pictures of police officers in social or business settings on at least one of his websites, describing it as a ‘flagrant breach of privacy’.

– This is another pearl of wisdom from ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’ website of highly significant public interest:

‘As we mentioned earlier on in the post Paul Ponting attacks anyone who dares to say anything remotely negative about him. Even if you don’t agree with him he may attack. If anyone writes anything about him online he attacks with threats of legal action, even though he acknowledges that freedom of speech is a legal right. But not for anyone speaking against Paul Ponting it would seem. Here is a quote from the man himself on his pubchat.co.uk website’:

That public interest is heightened when Ponting claims that what he posts is ‘researched and based on evidence’ when the hard fact is that, on copious evidence available publicly and to a journalist privately, he could be regarded as one of the North West’s most prolific issuers of threats; persistent, mendacious liars; and a relentless propagator of malicious comments about others.

– His activities on the iconic WhatDoTheyKnow (WDTK) platform are also highlighted by The Ormskirk Vigilante website where Paul Ponting made 37 freedom of information requests, and numerous annotations to other requests, in a 2 year period, in the course of pursuing his various personal vendettas. He is now banned from posting or making any further requests via WDTK over what they say is ‘repeated misuse of our service’. After that initial ban he then tried to circumvent the WDTK prohibition by setting up another account which the platform also banned.

– The Ormskirk Vigilante website also features this interesting and illuminating YouTube film of Paul Ponting, filmed whilst driving a Danoli Solutions Ltd. liveried van:

– Another paragraph from ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’ website is well worth reproducing as a sign off to this article:

‘Maybe, just maybe, Paul Ponting’s shit does stink, maybe he is a menace and maybe he does harass people online, stalk their private Facebook posts, maybe he does create fake accounts and befriends friends of friends to find out information about his victims. Maybe he enjoys fighting with anyone who dares speak out against him or disagree with him; he has been known to fight in the street on numerous occasions, recently against a 16 year old boy over which he was shown his ass over. Maybe, Paul Ponting likes attacking MPs, police officers who have not resolved cases to his liking, the CPS, judges and local businesses, maybe this is the type of person he is. Maybe he likes causing alarm and distress to possibly more than 70 different people online. Many have come forward and spoken out and told us the harm they have suffered as a result of his online abuse, several have spoke to us about having suicidal thoughts as a result of his abuse. Does this stop him? Does he feel any remorse for his actions? No! Paul Ponting sees only one thing in his mind, that “he is right”. That is it, nothing more’.

Paul Ponting is invited to exercise his right of reply via the Neil Wilby Media contact form here.

Follow Neil Wilby on Twitter (here) and Neil Wilby Media on Facebook (here) for signposts to any updates.

Page last updated: Wednesday 5th July, 2023 at 07h55

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Picture credit: The Ormskirk Vigilante website

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