In the fifth of an occasional series we look at another egregious "turning of the blind eye" by our Californian friends and, as ever, the case involves our local lover of troll accounts - @sandwelleader - who, unbelievably, actually is the Labour "leader" of Sandwell Council, Darren Cooper!
Regular readers will know that Cooper associated himself with an account @OdgenW who went live using a fictitious name in early March. The primary purpose was to abuse (a) me and (b) UKIP and hundreds of posts poured forth from this troll. Cooper soon started following this troll and directly communicating with him (for it is a "him").
Cooper claimed not to know who the troll was but when "Mr Mole" and I set up a "sting" * my velvety friend sent me this on 27th March, 2015:
How strange then that two days LATER Cooper should tweet to a UKIP Councillor, Phil Garrett, claiming the exact opposite (surely deliberately and publicly giving a fellow Councillor false information is a breach of the Council's standards if nothing else?):
Cooper's constant lauding of the troll was risible even by his standards. As ever Twitter did take some action against the account but then saw fit to reinstate it - much to the "leader's" delight:
As the Labour Party hierarchy warned Cooper off his own account in the run up to the election he became brazen in his ludicrous support for the troll:
Curiously the now unemployed Cooper used to be a mental health nurse but was happy to continue with incessant communications with the troll even when the latter set up a "loony list" - attracting more complaints to Twitter:
Yet again Twitter refused to act on reports from myself and others and many hours of time were duly wasted until eventually even they "saw the light" and suspended @OdgenW. Right up to the moment of suspension Cooper was trying to direct traffic to the troll:
The moronic Cooper duly lamented Odgen's suspension (complete, as usual, with a missing apostrophe):
But, of course, as everyone bar West Midlands Police and Twitter can plainly see, as soon as one troll is suspended another one immediately pops up to continue the co-ordinated campaign. And this happened on the very next day when a semi-dormant account in the name of one @andrewhipkiss suddenly morphed into @Ennabran.
Now there is a real person called Andrew Hipkiss who supplied the covert footage of one of Cooper's enemies which the latter then immediately put on his Twitter account - earning himself a suspension in the process (the one and only time Twitter have taken action against bullying and abuse by @sandwellleader).
This was the Twitter profile for Hipkiss:
Suddenly this tosspot was claiming "disability" and when regular Sandwell Twitter watchers started to expose the account as yet another troll, the anonymous "Ennabran" started to whine that he was being attacked despite his alleged "condition". He claimed to have "several mental problem" [sic]. I am not sure what the policy of Twitter is to anonymous mentally-ill people running amok across their site (again, I am sure the advertisers are most encouraging of this) but the ludicrous troll tried to put up a ridiculous sob story that being abusive on Twitter was somehow therapeutic for his alleged conditions and to accuse people of bullying him!
Now Twitter may be taken in by this guff but the anonymous "Ennabran" does let his guard down. His real motive is to troll others and, if possible, to get their accounts suspended. As you will see from the above he has studied Twitter's rules and thinks he is clever enough to circumvent them (he is right so far). And there is more - setting out his true intentions:
And Twitter have received complaints about this guy but, once again, they have allowed this troll back into business. "Ennabran" - although remaining anonymous - claims to have sent his ID to Twitter:
So whose ID do Twitter have exactly and are they concerned that this self-confessed "mentally-ill" troll is telling the truth - particularly when this moron has been using Twitter to openly boast about his skills at forging ID documents!!!!!!
I am sure Twitter advertisers are also well-impressed that users "advertise" the ease of using fake ID documents!
As ever, @sandwellleader is directly communicating with the troll - in this example making yet another threat to me (he thinks it very clever as the leader [sic] of a large public authority to call me "#Skidmark"):
Once again the former mental health nurse Cooper is happy to keep following Ennabran despite his descriptions of people as "nutters" and "fruitcakes".
Of course, @sandwellleader has form for putting a covertly obtained photo of me on Twitter and another troll account - @notsandwellukip (also now suspended by Twitter) - put a covertly obtained photo of me talking to some UKIP candidates canvassing at the election and claimed this showed me as being a "Ukipper". Cooper and Ennabran then discussed this with the Council "leader" clearly approving this sort of clandestine street photography:
Now it seems to me there are three possibilities here -
1 The Hipkiss account was never the real account of Andrew Hipkiss but was set up to make us think that it is his account (sounds weird but there is some precedent for this is the web of Cooper-associated troll accounts);
2 Hipkiss is allowing his name to be used as "cover" for the trolls. If this is the case I hope he is not getting paid for this as the real Hipkiss claims to be unable to work and is reliant on state benefits;
3 Ennabran is Andrew Hipkiss. In which case was he also "Odgen"? Both accounts have more or less identical writing styles and use hundreds of photoboards/memes which must take hours of preparation (perhaps Andrew got some tips from his son, Ryan, who works for a digital tech company and who has been using such sites as Photoblip since 2011). I am sure Mr Hipkiss will wish to formally refute this and I look forward to hearing from him.
Clearly if Hipkiss is able to pour out literally hundreds of tweets in a very short space of time it begs the question why he is allegedly "unfit for work"?
The curious thing is that, despite complaints made, Twitter cannot seem to make the link between Hipkiss and Ennerbran and yet their own Advanced Search Facility does! Here is a search for UKIP + Andrew Hipkiss and look at the name on the tweets that pop up!!!!
The Ennabran account IS followed by Hipkiss's wife and by the son, Ryan. He is also a Facebook friend with, er, Councillor Darren Cooper!
West Midlands Police have been determined to protect Cooper thus far but why are Twitter so keen to do so? Perhaps if you have enough "followers" they simply don't care about his association with trolls...... I wonder if their advertising paymasters agree?
* See my post - "Cooper Exposed":
http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/cooper-exposed.html
For more on Ennabran see:
http://trollnemesis.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/ennabran-as-at-11th-june-2015.html
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Cllr Darren Cooper