Neil Wilby Media

An infamous internet troll, widely known as ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’ is becoming increasingly desperate for attention as, through public interest journalism, his shocking past catches up on him (read why here).

Paul Arthur Ponting, who has recently removed his surname from his routinely malicious, frequently-banned Twitter feed, was found by a circuit judge in 2020, at the end of a five day Liverpool County Court injunction hearing, to be a mendacious liar, including making outrageous slurs on the character and integrity of police officers; a bully; a persistent harasser; and a person who frequently breaches personal data and privacy rights. The full court judgment can be read here.

The judge also found his behaviour to be abusive, aggressive, confrontational and intimidating. Few, if any sane or sensible persons, apart from other similar trolls hiding behind anonymity, scrolling down his social media output and his portfolio of outrageous websites, would conclude otherwise.

Another circuit judge, sitting in Manchester County Court in April, 2023 hearing interlocutory proceedings against Ponting, made similar findings when granting an interim injunction restraining him from harassing the two female complainants.

He is also a notorious, vexatious complainer who has wasted thousands upon thousands of officer hours deployed in a variety of police forces and statutory regulators. Not to mention the millions of pounds in public funds dealing with a man regarded by many as ‘a menace to society’.

Ponting’s latest wheeze is to claim, publicly, that in one of Manchester’s 650 bars (that’s just the number in the city centre, not the much wider Greater Manchester Region) someone overheard a ‘contract on his life’ being discussed.

The price on his head is, he says, £1,000. An extraordinary claim for many reasons, not least that there are, arguably, hundreds of people, including very many police officers, who would happily do the job of silencing him for free, if it did not involve spending the rest of one’s life in prison.

A suitable, lawful and preferable alternative for dealing with Ponting being a committal to a secure mental health institution over his self-admitted behavioural issues, including suicidal tendencies, heard in open court and in newspaper reports.

But, moving on, the contract to kill fantasy then involves that same big-eared person, with lottery-winning luck to be in that particular place at that particular time, travelling from the Manchester pub to Ponting’s home in Ormskirk, knocking on the front door and telling the ‘Vigilante’ what he had allegedly heard.

But history shows that having failed to gain traction either with the police or the public with his nonsensical claim, Ponting doubles down with an even bigger charade: Now he muses that Greater Manchester Police, with its hundreds of officers authorised, and equipped when necessary, to use lethal force, is involved with the ‘contract on his life’ and the man, or men, in the, as yet, un-named pub.

Not even Walter Mitty himself could have come up with such a tale.

Paul Ponting was offered right of reply at this weblink. He did not respond.

Of particular public interest is the name of the Manchester pub where contract killers allegedly meet and openly discuss their target within the earshot of that unfortunate individual’s friends – and how he believes those talkative, indiscreet hitmen are connected to the police.

A previous request to explain the absence of the Ponting name from his Twitter feed is still extant.

Nick Buckley, who claims to be campaigning for the Mayoral elections in Greater Manchester in May, 2024, was tagged into the post by Paul Ponting. He has been invited to explain his connection to ‘The Ormskirk Vigilante’. Perpetually noisy in every other aspect, Mr Buckley did not reply. Moreover, the post under which the question was posted appears to have been removed. He previously stood for the same Mayoral role under the Reform Party banner.

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Page last updated: Friday 4th August, 2023 at 09h20

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