The Jamie Wallis story gets darker and weirder

Don't worry, Brian Paddick is not on the case!

Last week we looked at Britain’s first ‘transgender’ MP, Jamie Wallis, a man who uses ‘he / him’ pronouns, publicly dresses in men’s clothing, yet has been praised for his ‘bravery’ by clowns like Brian Paddick, Anneliese Dodds and Ash Sarkar. His decision to transition coincided with a number of other exciting events in his life, including infidelity, fleeing the scene of a car crash and a blackmail attempt involving ‘photographs’.

Less than twenty-four hours after he ‘came out’, it also came out that he had a history of running dodgy companies and associating with criminals.

And there’s more.

Fields Group, a holding company for other brands, including Fields Associates, had Willis as director until he resigned a few days after becoming an MP. Just three weeks later, Bridgend Council revealed that Fields Group had been the subject of more than 800 complaints to trading standards. There has been a blog running since 2017 highlighting some of the allegations Fields Group is facing, while Money Saving Expert had a thread that ran for nearly eight years documenting the public’s usually highly negative experiences of dealing with some of the Fields Group companies.

Fields Associates was set up in 2002 by Jamie’s father, Daryl, with Jamie later joining the board of directors. Daryl also wrote the majority of the publications that Jamie cited for his PhD in ‘astrobiology’, granted by Cardiff University in 2014, even though his supervisor left the university three years earlier.

Its website says Fields Associates is a ‘digital forensic consultancy’ that’s ‘trusted’ by organisations such as Amazon, Thames Valley Police and the US Department of Defense.

The company advertises itself as being an expert in ‘child pornography’.

You might think that their expertise involved helping convict paedophiles, but in 2003 the company came to local prominence for defending British people who the FBI had claimed had bought pictures of child abuse online. Backed by its own software, Fields Associates stated that many of the accused could have purchased pornography that wasn’t illegal and while their hard drives did have images of child abuse on them, they might not have ‘knowingly’ downloaded those images.

Daryl said: “We are not trying to defend paedophiles. If someone paid for child porn that is it - guilty as charged.

“We are not trying to get paedophiles out of a difficult situation.

“But the ignorance about the internet is astonishing and that goes for ordinary citizens, police officers, judges and many others you could mention.

“I don't think many people know what is on the hard drives of their computer or where it comes from. A lot of people would be shocked if they knew what was on their computers and helpless to explain where it came from.”

Hmm.

He added that of the 30 or so cases with which his company had been involved, more than half - 60% - escaped conviction as a result of interventions by Field Associates. These were people the FBI had located, who had child abuse images on their computers and they typically had previous convictions for indecency.

The article states that although the police initially handed over hard drive images to Fields Associates so they could defend their clients, they eventually stopped this and instead invited experts to inspect hard drive copies, a move that effectively ended Field Associates’ work of defending people accused of paedophilia. It’s not clear why the police made the change.

Later, Fields Group company Action Direct (UK) Ltd, was ordered by the Ministry of Justice not to “advertise for, or otherwise seek out, persons who may have a cause of action [or] represent a claimant, whether in writing or orally, and regardless of the tribunal, body or person to or before which or whom the representation is made.”

Another Fields Group brand is Fields Analytics. Its website provides no details about its work, but does state it is based in Chiang Mai in Thailand and pays staff relatively high salaries.

From the website: “The area was chosen due to the unique culture and lifestyle options Chiang Mai provides. This location has allowed us to grow the company with like-minded individuals,” states the website.

The site offers numerous jobs, but doesn’t state what any of them involve beyond stipulating that successful candidates must speak European languages so they can contact people in Europe who have requested a call.

Even its section on training for staff gives no details as to what they’re being trained to do.

There is little about the company online, although BuzzFeed found an advert for ‘female only’ applicants in 2013 and in 2018 a request was made to the Immigration Services Commissioner about the number of ‘Thai brides’ Fields Group companies had imported to the UK.

This is, of course, all in addition to the ‘sugar daddy’ website which had James Wallis as director.

We now know that of the many companies that had Wallis as director, one defended people accused of paedophilia, with which the police stopped liaising despite its claims of expertise in the area, another was ordered by the MOD to cease representing any new clients, another faced questions about its links to ‘Thai brides’ and a fourth promised to hook up financially struggling youngsters with older, wealthy men.

How did he survive the vetting process?

Thanks to Karen for her research on this one.