The BBC, the News Of The World, First Minister Peter Robinson, and Me!

I'm a bit reluctant to tell this tale. I'm not sure that it puts me in a good light, but it is what it is. Besides, it's just over ten years ago, and I have made a lot of strides recently and am actually in a better frame of mind nowadays. 

I used to work for a Belfast taxi firm. I went through a busy phase of a couple of years from 2007 to 2009 where I wrote about a dozen non-fiction reference books in my spare time, while also working long hours for a taxi firm. By 2009, I was getting miffed about being passed over for promotion at work. I believe the fact that I dared to hold a few opinions counted against me. In fact, one of my bosses bought one of my books and when he read the inner workings of my mind, he was a bit concerned about promoting me, or so I was told. 

Eventually by the early summer of 2009, I had decided to jump ship in August, and planned to go out with a bang. Yes that's right: I was feeling vindictive (not for the first time or the last.....) 

I did have a slightly privileged position at work of booking taxis for special customers, such as BBC staff and assorted celebrities and elected politicians. I started making note of a lot of names and compiling email addresses of about three hundred people who had booked taxis on the BBC account, as well as various MLAs too. 

The political background to my er crusade was the expenses scandal. The BBC, amongst others, was highlighting the abuse of expenses, yet in all the major cities of the UK where the BBC had premises, they were booking shed loads of taxis each day for staff and guests. These taxis were a free ride for the passengers, because the BBC (or to be exact, the licence feepayer) was paying for all these journeys. Some MLAs were getting taxis paid for out of the public purse. William Hay, who was the Speaker in the Stormont Assembly, was getting free executive taxi rides from Londonderry to Belfast, costing the taxpayer ninety pounds per journey. I kid you not. There were loads of other examples of this nature in Belfast, and probably far more across the Irish Sea. 

Radio Ulster used to have a daily slot on TalkBack where a sage was invited to give a monologue on a topical issue. Often their food for thought items were excellent. However, I discovered that they were getting free rides (at the feepayer's expense) to be recorded in Belfast. This involved taxis to and fro Bangor and somewhere out in the sticks. This was another costly BBC measure that was coming out of their funds (and who funds them?). I think that they knocked this on the head possibly as a result of my whistleblowing. I've never heard any food for thought monologues since on TalkBack.

I dressed my motives up as a personal crusade which was in the public interest. It was. However, my motives were varied! I correctly guessed that the press might be interested in a bit of whistleblowing from GW. Lo and behold, the good old News Of The World got in touch and I arranged to meet their Belfast journo, Ciaran, in a coffee shop way up the top of the Lisburn Road. 

I passed on lots of info to Ciaran on a Thursday evening, demanded £1,000 for my efforts, and unknown to him, I emailed hundreds of BBC staff, scoffing at their free rides and their hypocrisy. I used my Michael Corleone quote on them: "We're both part of the same hypocrisy!" 

My emails spooked some of them big time, because I worded them that I was passing the information on to "other organisations". I meant to newspapers. A few of them misinterpreted it as the paramilitaries. The BBC and the media are bullies. They like to highlight the flaws in others, to scrutinise, but when you confront them, they don't like it.

Someone from the BBC emailed me on the Saturday. I think that it was someone in HR who was stating that I was breaking the law. It was Saturday afternoon and I couldn't get to solicitors then. The following day, I walked down to the Tesco's on the Dublin Road and was actually relieved that the story wasn't on the front of the News Of The World! It wasn't anywhere that I could see. Nevertheless, I feared that I might get a visit from the law, so I kept my curtains shut all Sunday! 

Then early on Tuesday morning, I got a call from an English geezer from the BBC who said that I was in hot water and offered to meet me. I was tempted to hang up. I think that he said later that if I had hung up, I'd have got arrested. Anyway, I arranged to meet him and a colleague in Clements Coffee Shop, across from Belfast Central Library. I think that they might have gone through a library computer the evening before to trace my emails. 

His name was Tony. I forget his full name. He gave me his card. I'm not sure where it is now. He and his colleague had been flown in from the north of England by the BBC especially to interview me! They were ex-policemen, now employed by the BBC as investigators. In fact, Tony was previously a hostage negotiator. He was quite a jovial chap and when he discovered that I wasn't passing on BBC staff details to paramilitaries, he said I was "a pillock"! The conversation was quite cordial and they weren't going to press charges. They were confident that the NOTW wouldn't publish anything. 

I kind of cost my mate Tommy Dangerous his job, but when Tommy Dangerous was applying for another job, I acted as his employment referee and gave him a glowing reference which got him a new job! 

Well the News Of The World did eventually publish something a couple of weeks later, but it was a minor story on page nine or ten. It wasn't a screaming front page headline, which I initially wanted and then feared! I had signed a contract with the NOTW and while I expressed my concern that I was flirting with illegality, Ciaran just gave me the half-baked assurance that I was acting in the public interest. I kept the contract hidden under the mat in me car, in case the police came-a -calling. 

Of course, the NOTW downplayed my efforts and only promised me a measly £150. I didn't have much choice in the matter! I couldn't exactly complain to the police. It took me until January 2010 before I prompted Ciaran to meet me outside the entrance of the Lodge Hotel in Coleraine and hand me my filthy lucre. 

I found the whole business of liaising with the tabloid press akin to swimming with sharks. Once I passed on the information, I lost control of the situation and felt vulnerable. I grew up flirting with the idea of becoming a journalist, but I was learning that journalism was not really a noble profession. 

This should have been the end of my association with the NOTW, but it wasn't. 

Around that time, the Iris Robinson scandal broke. Peter Robinson's career was teetering on the brink. Nobody could land a decisive blow on the First Minister, so the tabloids were sniffing around for a knockout punch. Ciaran rang me up and asked if I knew anything about Robinson booking taxis 'on account' or if there was anyone at the taxi firm he could get information from. I couldn't help, even if I wanted to, but I suggested that he loiter around a bakery opposite Botanic railway station where some of the taxi staff went at lunchtime. 

It's weird but it's true: The News Of The World actually asked me to help them topple the First Minister of Northern Ireland! 

Although I came from a loyalist/unionist background, I would have sunk Peter Robinson if I could have. I had no strong feelings about him one way or another, but I was just like the assassin in Peter Gabriel's 'Family Snapshot', I was an opportunist, 'on the make', willing to exploit almost anyone or anything. For a few years afterwards, I probably had a mild form of depression. The way I was feeling, I would have sunk anyone.....and I mean anyone! 

I have moaned a few times in recent years that some people seem wary of me. I don't know what people know or think they know or what they've heard, but I suppose when you see this tale, I can hardly blame people for being wary of me! Mr W is not to be trifled with, boys and girls. I used to almost specialise in feuds. 

In recent times, I have been doing quite a lot of good (which is under the radar for many of you) and I am enjoying being 'nice' and getting good feedback from some quarters. It seems that this bogeyman is in danger of being popular again for the first time since I was in P7! I am keen to remain nice. It's nice to be nice. Long may it last! 

Bizarrely, myself, the BBC, and the News Of The World were briefly entwined again the following summer in Westminster, but that's a story for another day!