South Norwood man says he was ‘just talking twaddle’ when calling for armed rebellion against pandemic measures
A 60-year-old covid denier with an arsenal of deadly weapons stored in his flat in South Norwood has been found guilty of encouraging terrorism following a two-week trial at the Old Bailey which heard that he had sent tens of thousands of online messages calling for armed uprising and the destruction of national infrastructure.
When Paul Martin was arrested in September 2021, police found a stun gun disguised as a torch, two crossbows with bolts, a large knife, air guns and drones at his flat on Suffolk Road.
Today, Martin is out on bail, awaiting sentencing, after he was found not guilty of possessing the weapons for terrorism-related purposes.
Martin was initially charged with the “encouragement of terrorism, contrary to Section 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006, possession of articles for the purposes of terrorism, contrary to Section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and possession of a weapon capable of discharging a noxious substance or other thing, contrary to Section 5(1)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968”.
Between December 15 2020 and September 29 2021, from his home off South Norwood Hill, Martin tried to organise an armed militia. The police said that Martin’s own weapons, “gave rise to a reasonable suspicion that he intended to use them for the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorist acts”.
Martin had previously pleaded guilty to possession of a weapon capable of discharging a noxious substance or other thing (the stun gun).
Martin maintained during his trial that his two crossbows were “purely for sport” and that two pistols in his possession were the kind “commonly used in fairgrounds”.
Prosecutor Julia Faure-Walker told the court that Martin’s messages were designed to “stir up the idea of violent revolt using weapons for his ideological cause”.
Martin had been posting messages in a Telegram group called “The Resistance UK” under the username “Perpetual Truth”, calling for an armed uprising and the destruction of public infrastructure.
‘Silent war’: the prosecution failed to get a conviction against Paul Martin over his arsenal of weapons
Faure-Walker said Martin compared people protesting against the lockdown restrictions to the French Resistance of World War II.
“Rather than restricting himself to lawful protest”, the prosecutor told the court, the defendant had “repeatedly referred to serious violence, criminal damage and disruption of electrical communication systems”.
The jury at the Central Criminal Court were shown messages from Martin which said, “It is a war you better get ready to smash skulls and destroy evil.”
He called for attacks on 5G masts and CCTV cameras, saying that if groups hit key infrastructure across the country “they be running around like flies”.
At one point he wrote: “It will be a war, and the police will do everything to stop us.”
Commander Dominic Murphy, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London, said: “This is an unusual case dating back to the time of the covid pandemic when social media contained many conspiracy theories about the vaccine and lockdown restrictions.
“Paul Martin’s actions went way beyond lawful comment or protest against Government policy as he encouraged others online to acquire weapons and use them in attacks.
“Anyone who advocates violence in this way can expect to be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Counter-terrorism officers monitoring Resistance UK found that Martin was responsible for 16,000 posts, 4% of all the messages in a group containing 8,000 people.
Martin declared that the pandemic was “a silent war”, that covid was a hoax and the vaccine was a “poison designed to kill you off”. He encouraged group members to buy crossbows (unlike guns, adults over 18 in the UK are not required to have a licence for crossbows) and to make petrol bombs.
Later he told the group: “You do know if it kicks off lives will be lost on both sides. That’s the reality.”
In one post, Martin wrote: “The simple fact is there is no pandemic, never has been. The main goal was to genocide all they can and enslave the survivors and make the children sterile with poison.”
While giving evidence, Martin said, “I thought we would lose our privilege of consent, that we’d be forced to have it.
“That gave me scary thoughts. What I see on the news, drag them out of the houses, jab them, all this.”
Martin denied he had ever intended to commit any violent acts himself. From the witness box, he claimed he was “just talking twaddle” and was writing things down as he thought them.
Sentencing is due to take place on December 18. Martin has been told to expect a custodial sentence.
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Harmless keyboard warriors who happen to have basements full of weapons: beware…the police are coming for you.
Martin lived in a flat, Annabel. So his one-man army’s weapons stash was more likely in the cupboard over the boiler than in an basement…