Daily Mail Fooled By Particularly Rubbish Fake Twitter Account Of Rev Paul Flowers

by Guest Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:27 pm

A man, perhaps most aptly described as a professional Twitter troll, has fooled several national newsdesks into thinking he is "Crystal Methodist" Rev Paul Flowers, with a particularly unconvincing Twitter account.
The account, which had remarkably poor spelling and grammar for a Bristol University educated chairman of a major bank, was created around one week ago by Manchester-based Cody Lachey, who tweets as @badboysmcr.
The account began following a number of journalists, and tweeted about the case of the former Co-op Bank chairman, who was reported to have been a meth user and using male escorts.

The Twitter account gained Lachey three stories in the Daily Mail, about "Revd Flowers". The Mail said in the story that sources close to Flowers had confirmed the account was real.
The story removed read:

In an account believed to have been set up by the disgraced 63-year-old, Flowers said he was seeking professional help, and issued an apology to all he had 'hurt or failed' through his actions. Under the username @PaulFlowersRVD, the Methodist minister said he was due to speak to police officers tomorrow over drug allegations, and that he was 'nervous' as to whether he would be charged. Although Flowers did not respond to requests to confirm that he was behind the account on the social networking sites, sources close to the minister said that it was genuine.

Trying hard not to laugh at the @PaulFlowersRvd story in todays@DailyMailUK @DAlLYMAlL @dailymailonline pic.twitter.com/KUqaCcM1J4
— C.C Lachey (@badboysmcr) January 19, 2014

Another story said Flowers was set to write a tell-all book, another that he admitted only getting the Co-op job because of "friends in high places". Both stories were from the Twitter account.
ITV News' website also carried a story saying Flowers was to quit as a Methodist minister.
Their story read:

The sixty three year old, who has served as a minister for more than forty years, last night tweeted that he was resigning as a minister in the Clayton and Wibsey area of Bradford because he had " brought shame upon the church.

But Channel 5 news presenter Julian Druker, spotting the stories in the Mail, was the first to confirm the account was fake, though long assumed to be so by most who had seen the feed.

Most of the stories based on the fake account have now been removed.
Lachey, who says he is an ex-soldier has appeared numerous times on the BBC and other broadcasters as an "Afghan veteran" but his Twitter behaviour has meant he has been in trouble with the law.
Lachey was arrested in November on suspicion of threatening to kidnap two rent boys involved in the Flowers scandal, accused of sending threatening texts to one of the escorts.
In 2012, Lachey was arrested for admitting sending images of bullets to Sunderland footballer James McClean, after McClean chose not to wear a club shirt embroidered with a poppy.
Lachey, 29, posted images of 5.6mm bullets alongside the message: "Poppy bullies' death threats against James McClean! Too right he deserves to be shot dead + body dragged past the cenotaph!!"
"I wanted him dead," said Lachey, told the Derry Journal at the time of the incident. "But there's no threat from me to James McClean now, although I can't be held responsible for what other people may do.
"I think he's a fucking disgrace. I know I'll end up in trouble and maybe in prison over this but I'm willing to go to court, that's how strongly I feel."
That same year, he was named in a documentary as an enforcer for a notorious Manchester crime family headed by Domenyk Noonan, in the film 'Meet the Noonans'. The Mirror called him "a doorman and a loyal Noonan disciple".
He has applied for Big Brother, and been quoted by TV, radio and newspapers as a case study subjects as broad as the bedroom tax, the 2011 riots in Manchester, the EDL and the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby.
Lachey told HuffPost UK he was pursued by four separate Mail journalists over the story. "For one of the nation's biggest papers to print the rubbish that I have put is madness, I don't make the news I write it.
"It's amazing how not one, not two but three journalists from one of nation's most popular papers wrote three stories, just on what I put on Twitter.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/01/20/daily-mail-paul-flowers_n_4630405.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

lol!

by Guest Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:47 pm

And yet when someone writes something claiming to be UKIP its not just the papers believing its the gods honest truth

by Ben Reilly Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:50 pm

I work at a newspaper, and I have seen my fellow journalists who should know better just make asses of themselves when they think they've got the big story. For shame! Smile

We literally train for these scenarios.

by Guest Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:54 pm

sphinx wrote:And yet when someone writes something claiming to be UKIP its not just the papers believing its the gods honest truth

I remember back on the Savile thread on ADO , where you were on the verge of claiming that him being innocent was the Gawd's honest truth Sphinx...

Do you still stand by that?

by Guest Mon Jan 20, 2014 5:27 pm

Joy Division wrote:
sphinx wrote:And yet when someone writes something claiming to be UKIP its not just the papers believing its the gods honest truth
I remember back on the Savile thread on ADO , where you were on the verge of claiming that him being innocent was the Gawd's honest truth Sphinx...

Do you still stand by that?

I stand by the statement that the dead should not be charged because they cannot defend themselves.

Do you notice that in all the rush to catch up with other 80 and 90 year olds who people can remember doing things to them all those years ago not one single person who it is alleged had these crimes reported to them has been charged yet alone punished?

We have a vast number of he said she said cases going through the courts (apparently unlike FGM cases prosecutors are confident that they can prove beyond a reasonable doubt things that happened 30 or 40 years ago based on nothing but witness testimony made years after it is supposed to have happened.) and apparently over 1000 attacks by Saville were reported to the BBC - so why are the people who had these attacks reported to them not on trial for aiding and abetting?

The people that are accused of knowing it was going on are still alive - so why are they not being arrested and put on trial?

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Daily Mail Fooled By Particularly Rubbish Fake Twitter Account Of Rev Paul Flowers

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Re: Daily Mail Fooled By Particularly Rubbish Fake Twitter Account Of Rev Paul Flowers

Re: Daily Mail Fooled By Particularly Rubbish Fake Twitter Account Of Rev Paul Flowers