Wednesday, August 15, 2007

“Christian” Councillor refuses to swear on Bible over assault on Police


Newham in the news again. The "Christian People Alliance" (CPA), a bigoted right wing fundamentalist (and so-called) “Christian” Political Party, has 3 elected borough councillors in the Canning Town South Ward of West Ham CLP. One of its Councillors, Simeon Ademolake (left), was convicted last week of assaulting two Police officers and fined £1000 in total for these offences. Apparently this was in connection with a visit by bailiffs over unpaid parking tickets. See my previous post on this thoughtless thug and serial Parking ticket offender. The judge last week made it clear that he thought Ademolake was lying (at best) during his evidence.

Despite this, he has not resigned from the Council and is appealing against his sentence. Now, normally if someone was appealing I would be careful about saying anything until the appeal is heard. However, I was amazed to hear that Ademolake (and interestingly the CPA leader Alan Craig) refused to give sworn evidence at his trial on the bible, despite being so-called “Christian” politicians? His wife did. I have searched the CPA websites for some sort of explanation but there is nothing.

What is going on? What hypocrisy? Why hasn’t the Alan Craig, the leader of the CPA kicked Ademolake out of his Party? Why does Craig not give swear on the bible when giving evidence at court? Something stinks. The CPA are surely the mirror image of the "Respect” Islamist fundamentalist bigots in Newham and Tower Hamlets.

Hat tip thingy to local newspaper Newham Recorder which was also picked up again by Marsha on Union Futures.
UPDATE: He wins the appeal because the CPS lose his file and fail to warn witnesses to attend the appeal! Check out

12 comments:

marshajane said...

Cheers for the Hat tip :)

Anonymous said...

Simeon Ademolake is also a trustee of two charities that have not made any returns to the Charity Commission for five years, SHEM International and Arise and Glow.

Go to www.charity-commission.gov.uk and see for yourself.

John Gray said...

Hi Anon
I assume that these are not welfare charities for parking wardens but does it mean anything? Ademolake is obviously a liar and a thug who thinks he is above the law but...Are these charities defunct or still running? Will the Charity Commission take any enforcement action against the trustees for failing to make returns?

http://www.sheminternational.org.uk/html/about_us.html is about SHEM but can't find any internet link to “arise and glow” except on Charity commission site.

His Council “register on interests” does not mention SHEM? Is this wrong?

http://mgov.newham.gov.uk/mgDeclarationSubmission.asp?UID=1942&HID=456&CallAsp=mgUserInfo.asp&CallVars=UID%3D1942%26J%3D6&J=8

Anonymous said...

Hey Man!,
Will you update your site? You should know by now (21 Oct 07) that Ademolake was cleared off of the offence in Crown court!
For your information the bailiffs should have not attended his house if not for usual difficulties one may face for being who he was and position he held.
Do you not know that – the bailiff attended his house after he won the landmark ruling?
Lawyer AA

John Gray said...

http://grayee.blogspot.com/2007/10/bigot-is-not-guilty.html

Quite right AA, he is totally innocent, since the CPS "lost" his file. So that's all right then. hmmm?

Anonymous said...

Wow is the best you can do on trying to tarnish the CPA????

I love your ad-hominem:

bigoted right wing fundamentalist (and so-called) “Christian” Political Party.

Grow up.

John Gray said...

Hi Dan
I have done better than this - Search CPA on this blog and you will find out about its homophobia, Islamophobia and how now it has even stooped to copying BNP leaflets.

I am sure that the vast majority of members are sincere Christians who are being taken for a ride by narrow minded bigoted right wing fundamentalists.

Anonymous said...

Hello John

Just a few thoughts as I was reading your blog.

The loosing of a file is generally considered a tactic to stop certain evidence coming to light, perhaps this is not the case in this incident but should usually be viewed with suspicion. From my understanding Mr Ademolake's wife had taken pictures of alleged heavy handed tactics from the police which the police deleted from her camera, perhaps more information about this would be found in the file, who knows.

I am not at all justifying avoiding parking tickets as this is obviously wrong but perhaps there is more to this story than has been reported, and as he has now been cleared of assault it would be wrong to continue to state these things as fact without the appropriate amendments.

moreover it is quite appropriate to not swear upon the Bible, in fact swearing on the Bible is just one of a number of ways of committing to telling the truth in court, one can simply make an affirmation, they can swear on the Bible, new or old testament, on the Gita, the Koran in fact any Holy Book, the importance is in the oath itself not in the book or lack of book that it is said on. From a Christian perspective also it is perfectly possible to refuse to swear on the Bible as there is a passage that says:

33"Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not break your oath, but keep the oaths you have made to the Lord.' 34But I tell you, Do not swear at all: either by heaven, for it is God's throne; 35or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. 36And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. 37Simply let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No'; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
Matthew 5v33-37

Because of this it would not be strange for a Christian to refuse to swear on the Bible and says nothing about his/her intentions to tell the truth or to lie.
I hope this is interesting at least and clears up some of the things that you are upset about with Mr Ademolake. I am not a particular supporter of CPA but think it is important to look at things as they really are.

thank you

John Gray said...

Hi Anon
Thank you for taking the time to make a comment and apologies for the delay in responding (computer problems).

In a Parliamentary democracy based on the rule of law, I of course, fully accept the appeal court’s decision that he is innocent.

There are a number of issues outstanding that I do think still deserve a proper “explanation”. I do accept that some Christian’s will not swear an oath on the bible for genuine reasons of faith. Even though I thought it was strange that his wife reportedly did so?

Such is life.

Anonymous said...

If the man's a Christian? why he won't swear on the bible in court?

To answer your question, the fact is, it comes from the bible where Jesus say's "do not swear by anything, in heaven or on earth, but let your Yes be yes and your no be no"

Whatever anyone's opinion of this, many Christians do not therefore swear on the bible in court, as a result of this. (How do I know? I'm a pastor of a church)

Paul's Mighty Blog said...

If the man's a Christian? why he won't swear on the bible in court?

Easy to answer the bible says not to swear by anything in heaven or on the Earth.

James 5:12

But above all, my brethren, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath; but your yes is to be yes, and your no, no, so that you may not fall under judgment.

John Gray said...

Look - I'm not going into a real debate about this but to just to note that the vast overwhelming majority of "christians" quite happily swear by the bible.

isn't this just "pick and mix" religion?