The paedophile House of Lords researcher who wasn't

You might have seen this story in the press this week.

Meth-addicted paedophile Guleid Abdulkarim is being described across UK media as a 'House of Lords researcher'. It's true that he has worked as researcher for a member of the Lords (Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne).

But according to his professional profile, he quit that position over a year ago.

At the time of his arrest, his position was as follows:

Independent Researcher for Tom Spencer
Independent Research Consultant October 2015 – Present (1 year 1 month) London, United Kingdom
I am working on an research project for Tom Spencer on the UK's continued membership of the EU. More details as they emerge.

Who is Tom Spencer? That'll be this guy. Mr Spencer is a former Member of the European Parliament, and now Executive Director of a big-time EU think-tank, based in Brussels.

Bor-ing. H o w e v e r... some might think his name rings a distant bell.

They would be right. Mr Spencer was caught smuggling cannabis and pornography when arriving from Amsterdam through UK Customs in 1999, leading to his resignation as an MP.

A tiny bit of spliff is no big deal to you and me, but it's still drugs smuggling. And the weird thing is that when this happened, it was reported that the pornography he was carrying was also illegal.

Customs officers stopped Mr Spencer at Heathrow Airport with the gay pornography and two cannabis cigarettes in his luggage. Both items of contraband are not illegal in other parts of the European Union.

Gay porn wasn't illegal in Britain at the time (in fact, hasn't been for decades), so this was something truly out of the ordinary that he was carrying. But he accepted an on-the-spot fine (£600) and therefore avoided being taken to Court.

This information is openly available for anyone to find. So, don't you think it's somewhat peculiar that no-one is actually reporting what Abdulkarim was really doing for the last 13 months? Is it just me, or is this a bit... fishy?

(PS: If you look at the bottom of Mr Spencer's website, you'll see the notice: "web services provided by Yew Tree Media." An unfortunate coincidence, I'm sure!)

Have archived Abdulkarim's linkedin.com profile, just in case it is deleted by someone.

Around the late 1990's the porn industry was taking off in the UK due to a relaxation in the rules allowing much more fruitier stuff to be available. We had a small corner shop and suddenly we went from just having the usual t&a to the pan-european sort of mags available but they were still slightly censored at the 'point of impact' shall we say but there was still rules on what was allowed to be sold etc.

The main problem came in when there was any sort of BDSM material in it from what i remember as a single ball gag would mean you wouldn't get that magazine in your shop no matter what gender/sexuality it was. We had a guy who came in once a month to refresh the stock and he'd tell us that x/y/z had been stopped by customs as they didn't like what they saw and sometimes they'd appear 6-8 months later after a judge had had chance to make a ruling.

a reply to: Maxatoria

Gags were a particular problem, and still can be now, due to the obvious potential for preventing the wearer from giving or withdrawing consent. (They feature in the CPS guidelines for obscene publications). There isn't *ahem* a hard and fast rule for this one.

I ought to stress that I have no idea what Mr Spencer was carrying. I find it suggestive that the media appear to be shying away from mentioning the obvious connection with the guy who has just been convicted, and are in fact pointing in another direction instead.

More so since Mr Spencer has form for smuggling ropy stuff, so the question of defamation seems unlikely - and of course, accepting an on-the-spot penalty is in law an admission of guilt, so there can't have been any ambiguity about the porn in question.