The Guvnor, exposed PPRuNer aka Neil Robertson of Lionair fame guilty of paedophilia
After many months of waiting it can finally be announced, thanks to the efforts of many PPRuNers in gathering evidence that Neil Robertson of 150 Walker Avenue, Troon in Ayrshire, more commonly known here on PPRuNe as The Guvnor and on other websites as SAS23 or Ceilidh has been found guilty of predatory paedophilic acts against a seven year old girl. Robertson who pretended to be an airline executive and pilot amongst other things was exposed here on PPRuNe after repeatedly trying to use the website to further his business scams.
Many PPRuNers met Robertson at several PPRuNe bashes, the first of which was held at 'The Old Bank of England' pub in Fleet Street, London. It was at that bash when I first met him and within minutes of being introduced I had my suspicions about his authenticity. At that time none of us had any suspicion about his paedophilia but his claims to have been an airline executive and an airline pilot were plain for any of us in the industry to see as being bogus.
Robertsons stories smacked of 'Walter Mitty' fiction and it only took a small amount of research to see that he was untrustworthy. Through PPRuNe I was able to gather information on Robertson and his more recent 'business' activities which included claims to be an airline owner and the recipient of funding to acquire several ex-Delta Airlines L1011 tri-jets. Enquiries into his status at Prestwick International Airport soon revealed that Robertsons 'office' was nothing more than a briefcase, a mobile phone and a premium rate fax number where faxes were accessed through email. Prestwick Airport were informed about our suspicions but Robertson continued up until his arrest to use their facilities as a drop mail address.
After more research into Robertsons background I was given copies of CV's he was distributing which revealed the total fabrication of his life history, including his claims to have several degrees in aviation business management and more suspiciously, Child Psychology. A follow up on the previous employers revealed that they were either non-existent or else no one knew of Robertson. This was all revealed on PPRuNe yet many people refused to believe that he was nothing but a Walter Mitty and continued to lambast me for alerting the aviation industry to Robertsons fraudulent history as though I was just on a personal vendetta.
Documents were found that revealed a more serious side to the liar. Letters from credit agencies, banks and credit card companies revealed that Robertson had been fraudulently opening bank accounts and spending as much as he could up to and exceeding the overdraft limits. My sources revealed that he was using fake airline tickets to travel to America and the Caribbean in his pretence to be an affluent airline executive trying to secure other peoples aircraft. He was even trying to harvest the email addresses of PPRuNer Wannabes and offering them shares in his fraudulent company in return for the offer of a job as a pilot if they invested enough money to cover the type rating costs. Luckily, he sent one of those emails to me and I was able to immediately alert everyone on PPRuNe about his scam. I am led to believe though, that there were a few gullible people who refused to listen to the warnings being raised on PPRuNe about the con-man and some people did indeed give Robertson some smaller sums on the promise that they would get various jobs and functions in his proposed airline.
I was eventually contacted by Robertsons ex-girlfriend from his time in South Africa and she told me about his paedophile activities. This was indeed a shock and although the charges against Robertson were eventually dropped due to the girlfriend deciding that she would rather protect her young daughter from having to face Robertson in open court the allegations had been made and further enquiries were made. Soon after this more rumours started arriving about other paedophile activity that Robertson was alleged to have committed whilst he was in Africa. At this time, I also received information about Robertsons claims to be a qualified Child Psychologist specialising in child sex abuse. The alarm bells were now really ringing and after another expose on PPRuNe about the rumours many readers did their own research and provided the damning evidence that I finally managed to put together and pass on to the Police in late 2002.
Initially, it was very difficult to get anyone in the police interested but thanks to another PPRuNe moderator who used to be in the police I was put in touch with an officer who was able to refer me to the right people. I passed on my evidence, some of which is shown in the 'Announcement' post at the top of this and every forum on PPRuNe. Within the space of just a few weeks the police had arrested Robertson and yesterday was the penultimate chapter in this ongoing saga. Robertson admitted the charges and now awaits sentencing next month.
There is of course far more to this story but I think we should be grateful that Robertson poses no imminent danger to young children for the next few years at least We must not forget though that there is at least one little girl who has had her innocence destroyed by this pervert and I have reason to belive that there are other children who have been abused by him but charges ave not been brought yet in an attempt to make sure that the legal system gives him an appropriate sentence. Watch this space.
Robertson attempted to shut me up by threatening legal action against me for 'libeling' and 'slandering' him. I called his bluff and had the satisfaction of watching him resort to more desperate maneuvers to stop me cutting him off at every corner. He even published my name, home address and phone number on a number of websites, including some where the readership are slightly more 'rednecked' claiming that I was a war criminal responsible for the murder of thousands of Palestinian women and children. He included an invitation to anyone who believed him to visit me and extract their revenge in person. Typical of the coward that he was, he tried to incite others to carry out the violence he felt towards me. Thankfully, no-one was stupid enough to actually try and carry out his invitation although it did take some time, money and legal threats to get some of those website owners to remove the allegations and my personal and private details. Unfortunately, the owners of some of those websites refused to belive any of the evidence I provided them in order to prove my case that Robertson was nothing but a Walter Mitty con-man. Even when provided with the more serious and damning evidence that he was also a paedophile and a predator they refused to stop him from making his ridiculous claims that he was just an innocent businessman and that it was just my personal vendetta. Some of them even went on to defend him and claimed that he was a personal friend!
In the end everything has turned out for the best. Robertson is incarcerated and is likely to be so for quite some time. Those that refused to believe the evidence that countered their gullible belief that Robertson was just a hard working entrepreneur and airline executive will now have to live with their consciences. The rest of us here on PPRuNe can be proud that we stood by our convictions and the insurmountable evidence that we were dealing with a dangerous pervert. Thank you all for your continued support.