Post by Teddy Bear on Aug 7, 2009 22:21:31 GMT
It appears that professional credentials or even a moral background make little difference to the BBC when it hires staff, as the following story shows. Bear in mind it's the same week when another ex-criminal presenter was arrested for grievous assault. One has to wonder how many more nasty bits of work like these are presently employed by the BBC.
A very chequered history: The story behind the rise of the BBC historian who tore off his love rival's ear is deeply unsettling
By Barbara Davies
For a man who had pleaded guilty to a charge of causing grievous bodily harm, Laurence Westgaph looked curiously blase as he sat in the garden of his mother's house this week, sunning himself in shorts and T-shirt and occasionally strumming his guitar.
A day after appearing at Liverpool Crown Court, the 34-year-old BBC historian looked more like a carefree student than a respected academic shamed by a court appearance.
Nor was there any hint on his face of the possible prison sentence that looms over him following his vicious attack on a love rival - an onslaught which left his victim with a fractured eye socket and Westgaph accused of biting off his ear.
Details of the assault heard in court this week certainly do not sit well with Westgaph's role as an expert on British black history and slavery, or his image as a heroic community leader in his home city of Liverpool.
On the one hand, he has worked as a presenter alongside the likes of Melvyn Bragg and Dan Snow on shows for the BBC, Channel 4 and The History Channel.
On the other, say those from Liverpool who know him, he is 'someone you don't mess with'.
Until the ugly goings-on reported this week, Westgaph enjoyed a gilded reputation as a working-class boy from the wrong side of the tracks who had, against all odds, gone on to make a success of his life.
It was his own ancestors' experiences of slavery, through his mother Carol Ann, he said, that inspired him. And Liverpool - a city with connections to the slave trade stretching back hundreds of years - proved to be fertile ground for the budding historian and social activist.
In recent years, Westgaph has devised a highly-praised Slavery Remembrance Tour around the city. It led to invitations to work with English Heritage and the National Trust. He was chosen to serve on a panel of judges charged with drawing up a list of 50 key figures and events from Britain's past.
And yet, as the Mail discovered this week, Westgaph achieved all this having left school at 16 with just a handful of GCSEs. He did not go to university until last year, when, despite his lack of a first degree, he was accepted onto an MA course in Atlantic History by Liverpool University. (He is said to be studying now for a PhD).
Having cultivated an academic image for himself, Westgaph found himself in strong demand by the likes of the BBC, who were apparently unconcerned at his lack of serious credentials.
Westgaph's glossy, uber-cool public persona also masked a darker side to his life.
Outside his immediate circle, for example, few knew that he was declared bankrupt last year after his property business - renting out cheap bedsits to students - collapsed with debts of thousands of pounds.
Or that he has a previous conviction for having sex with a 15-year-old girl in 2000.
Or that while his (now ex) girlfriend was pregnant with their son, he cheated on her with an 18-year-old glamour and lingerie model he met in a Liverpool nightclub.
Crucially, statements given by Westgaph's victim, 28-year-old Ben Blance, which were not read out in court after Westgaph entered a guilty plea, reveal a far more disturbing picture than has previously been revealed.
At Liverpool Crown Court, Westgaph was presented as a man who acted in a fit of rage after 'finding' what he described as his 'closest confidant' in bed with the mother of his 23-month-old son, Iggy.
But police statements reveal that far from stumbling across the pair, Westgaph broke down the front door of ex-girlfriend Natalie Inge's home before embarking on a vicious assault on musician Ben Blance.
Role model: Westgaph earned his first lot of money by modelling
Documents also reveal that police had been summoned to the same address on two previous occasions last year after 999 calls made by 26-year-old Miss Inge.
In light of all of this, then, it is hardly surprising that some who have come into contact with Westgaph are now questioning whether there is more to him than meets the eye.
Westgaph's beginnings were, as he likes to relate, humble enough.
Born on February 28, 1975, to a mother of Nigerian descent and a Jamaican father who returned to the West Indies when he was still a baby, he grew up in the tough inner city area of Toxteth.
He was six years old when Toxteth made headlines worldwide with nine days of race riots in 1981.
When he left school at 16, who would have guessed that he would go on to enjoy cudos as a television historian?
Yet according to one former acquaintance, he was 'naturally bright, an avid reader and interested in black history. I think he liked the romance and the drama of the black struggle. He identified with that'.
At around the same time, Westgaph became a practising Muslim, regularly attending a mosque in Toxteth and changing his name to Bilal - a name still used by some of his friends, despite the fact that Westgaph no longer practises the religion.
As a teenager, he made his first money working as a model in Liverpool.
'It wasn't anything glamorous,' says a former schoolfriend, 'just things like catalogues and information leaflets, but he seemed to make quite a bit of money from it.'
Westgaph used that money to start his property business. In the early 1990s, Toxteth was still one of the most deprived areas in Britain, and semi-derelict houses could be bought for as little as £10,000.
Their value multiplied again and again as massive regeneration projects swept through Liverpool and students looking for rooms to rent flocked to the city.
Investors like Westgaph were easily able to remortgage their properties and buy more.
Throughout his 20s, Westgaph was beginning to make a name for himself as a community leader, speaking out against racism, styling himself as a 'descendant of slaves' and calling for further regeneration of the Toxteth area.
He was the brains behind an initiative to introduce new business and housing developments into the area - something which clearly would also add to the value of his own properties. 'He's seen as a bit of a local hero round here,' says a neighbour.
'He's the one who made it. People need that round here - they want someone to look up to. No one will hear a bad word said about him. It's very hard to get away from his hero image.'
Indeed, Westgaph's increasingly high profile led to a column with the Liverpool Echo newspaper. He was honoured with a Black History Month Achiever's Award for his work raising the profile of the history of Liverpool.
Guilty plea: The 34-year-old will be sentenced next month
And as an expert on the slave trade, he was heavily involved in the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of its abolition, claiming that he could trace his own ancestors back to Liverpool two centuries ago.
On the back of all this exposure came his TV and radio appearances.
He appeared with Melvyn Bragg in the Radio 4 series The Routes Of English, discussing the Scouse accent.
In 2007, he presented The History Channel's Britain's Slavery Secrets and helped compile a series for the channel focusing on 50 key figures and events in British history - which was, incidentally, ridiculed for failing to mention the likes of Sir Winston Churchill or Queen Victoria.
And at the end of last year, in what should have been the crowning moment of his academic career, he was presented with a Masters Degree in Atlantic History from Liverpool University - his only actual qualification since his GCSEs, and one that required only a single year of study.
But with success, the contradictions in his life began to surface.
Despite constantly waxing lyrical about Toxteth and revelling in his black roots there, as a successful businessman and local celebrity Westgaph was able to afford far better for himself, and he moved to a detached 'chocolate box' house in leafy Childwall, just a stone's throw from the Trans Pennine Way.
But just when Westgaph seemed to be at the peak of his career, it all started to go wrong.
It started with the collapse of his property business last year, when the bank repossessed the seven houses he owned, and in September he was declared bankrupt.
While most bankruptcy orders are discharged after one year, according to records at Liverpool County Court, Westgaph's discharge has been suspended indefinitely - something normally done when the person involved refuses to cooperate with the Official Receiver.
So even before the events of February 20 this year, things were not going well for Westgaph.
He met Natalie Inge, a psychology graduate, at a Liverpool club in 2006.
According to a friend: 'They quickly became involved and Natalie became pregnant in 2007, but it was a pretty turbulent on-off relationship from the start.'
Ben Blance was one of Westgaph's tenants, paying around £50 a week 'cash in hand' for a room in one of his houses.
Westgaph first introduced him to Natalie three years ago at a music gig, and the pair became friends.
It was several months after Westgaph had moved out of the home he shared with Natalie and their baby son that Ben and Natalie's relationship changed.
'Despite what he said in court, I was never Laurence's best friend or his closest confidant,' said Ben.
'And from what Natalie had told me, she and Laurence had split up ages ago. It's not as if we'd jumped into bed together the moment his back was turned.'
Other sources suggest that Westgaph had no right to present himself as the wronged party, as he had cheated on Miss Inge, when she was pregnant, with young teenage model and former Miss Warrington Guardian Brogan Backhouse.
This week, Miss Backhouse confirmed that she had a brief sexual relationship with Westgaph in 2007, but added: 'As far as I was concerned, there was no one else.'
Even so, on February 20 this year, Westgaph was clearly enraged. 'He just broke down the front door, burst into the room and flew at me,' recalled Ben. 'I was taken aback at how savage he was. Natalie was terrified and the child was screaming.'
In the ensuing attack, Ben was punched in the face several times and his hand was bitten.
Initially, it was thought that Westgaph had bitten Ben's ear off, but in court it was said that there was no clear evidence as to whether it had been bitten or severed on a sharp object.
Afterwards, Westgaph telephoned for a taxi to take Ben to hospital. 'I think he was in shock,' said Ben. 'He could see what he'd done to my ear.'
At hospital, doctors, believing that the wound to his ear had been caused by a bite, gave him a hepatitis B injection and stitched it back together. He still has a plastic plate inserted around his eye socket to stop the eye muscle catching on the bone. His vision is blurred and his ear is scarred.
Westgaph, meanwhile, has left his plush Childwall home and returned to live with his mother in the rather less salubrious Liverpool suburb of Edge Hill.
His case has been adjourned until September 4 to allow reports to be compiled, after his lawyer told Liverpool Crown Court: 'An immediate custodial sentence would have devastating consequences for this man's career.'
Many would argue that his victim has already suffered far worse.
But Ben, who is no longer seeing Miss Inge, added: 'I don't particularly want Laurence to go to prison, but he needs to learn his lesson that he can't go around attacking people like that. He's clearly got a serious anger management problem.'
In the end, it seems rather tragic that such a promising individual - a man who wanted so much for himself and strove throughout his life to get it - should have fallen so far.
Some might say that he has only himself to blame for his misfortune.
And of all those he has disappointed, it's hard not to feel that Laurence Westgaph, social historian, descendant of slaves, hero of Toxteth, has let himself down the most.
By Barbara Davies
For a man who had pleaded guilty to a charge of causing grievous bodily harm, Laurence Westgaph looked curiously blase as he sat in the garden of his mother's house this week, sunning himself in shorts and T-shirt and occasionally strumming his guitar.
A day after appearing at Liverpool Crown Court, the 34-year-old BBC historian looked more like a carefree student than a respected academic shamed by a court appearance.
Nor was there any hint on his face of the possible prison sentence that looms over him following his vicious attack on a love rival - an onslaught which left his victim with a fractured eye socket and Westgaph accused of biting off his ear.
Details of the assault heard in court this week certainly do not sit well with Westgaph's role as an expert on British black history and slavery, or his image as a heroic community leader in his home city of Liverpool.
On the one hand, he has worked as a presenter alongside the likes of Melvyn Bragg and Dan Snow on shows for the BBC, Channel 4 and The History Channel.
On the other, say those from Liverpool who know him, he is 'someone you don't mess with'.
Until the ugly goings-on reported this week, Westgaph enjoyed a gilded reputation as a working-class boy from the wrong side of the tracks who had, against all odds, gone on to make a success of his life.
It was his own ancestors' experiences of slavery, through his mother Carol Ann, he said, that inspired him. And Liverpool - a city with connections to the slave trade stretching back hundreds of years - proved to be fertile ground for the budding historian and social activist.
In recent years, Westgaph has devised a highly-praised Slavery Remembrance Tour around the city. It led to invitations to work with English Heritage and the National Trust. He was chosen to serve on a panel of judges charged with drawing up a list of 50 key figures and events from Britain's past.
And yet, as the Mail discovered this week, Westgaph achieved all this having left school at 16 with just a handful of GCSEs. He did not go to university until last year, when, despite his lack of a first degree, he was accepted onto an MA course in Atlantic History by Liverpool University. (He is said to be studying now for a PhD).
Having cultivated an academic image for himself, Westgaph found himself in strong demand by the likes of the BBC, who were apparently unconcerned at his lack of serious credentials.
Westgaph's glossy, uber-cool public persona also masked a darker side to his life.
Outside his immediate circle, for example, few knew that he was declared bankrupt last year after his property business - renting out cheap bedsits to students - collapsed with debts of thousands of pounds.
Or that he has a previous conviction for having sex with a 15-year-old girl in 2000.
Or that while his (now ex) girlfriend was pregnant with their son, he cheated on her with an 18-year-old glamour and lingerie model he met in a Liverpool nightclub.
Crucially, statements given by Westgaph's victim, 28-year-old Ben Blance, which were not read out in court after Westgaph entered a guilty plea, reveal a far more disturbing picture than has previously been revealed.
At Liverpool Crown Court, Westgaph was presented as a man who acted in a fit of rage after 'finding' what he described as his 'closest confidant' in bed with the mother of his 23-month-old son, Iggy.
But police statements reveal that far from stumbling across the pair, Westgaph broke down the front door of ex-girlfriend Natalie Inge's home before embarking on a vicious assault on musician Ben Blance.
Role model: Westgaph earned his first lot of money by modelling
Documents also reveal that police had been summoned to the same address on two previous occasions last year after 999 calls made by 26-year-old Miss Inge.
In light of all of this, then, it is hardly surprising that some who have come into contact with Westgaph are now questioning whether there is more to him than meets the eye.
Westgaph's beginnings were, as he likes to relate, humble enough.
Born on February 28, 1975, to a mother of Nigerian descent and a Jamaican father who returned to the West Indies when he was still a baby, he grew up in the tough inner city area of Toxteth.
He was six years old when Toxteth made headlines worldwide with nine days of race riots in 1981.
When he left school at 16, who would have guessed that he would go on to enjoy cudos as a television historian?
Yet according to one former acquaintance, he was 'naturally bright, an avid reader and interested in black history. I think he liked the romance and the drama of the black struggle. He identified with that'.
At around the same time, Westgaph became a practising Muslim, regularly attending a mosque in Toxteth and changing his name to Bilal - a name still used by some of his friends, despite the fact that Westgaph no longer practises the religion.
As a teenager, he made his first money working as a model in Liverpool.
'It wasn't anything glamorous,' says a former schoolfriend, 'just things like catalogues and information leaflets, but he seemed to make quite a bit of money from it.'
Westgaph used that money to start his property business. In the early 1990s, Toxteth was still one of the most deprived areas in Britain, and semi-derelict houses could be bought for as little as £10,000.
Their value multiplied again and again as massive regeneration projects swept through Liverpool and students looking for rooms to rent flocked to the city.
Investors like Westgaph were easily able to remortgage their properties and buy more.
Throughout his 20s, Westgaph was beginning to make a name for himself as a community leader, speaking out against racism, styling himself as a 'descendant of slaves' and calling for further regeneration of the Toxteth area.
He was the brains behind an initiative to introduce new business and housing developments into the area - something which clearly would also add to the value of his own properties. 'He's seen as a bit of a local hero round here,' says a neighbour.
'He's the one who made it. People need that round here - they want someone to look up to. No one will hear a bad word said about him. It's very hard to get away from his hero image.'
Indeed, Westgaph's increasingly high profile led to a column with the Liverpool Echo newspaper. He was honoured with a Black History Month Achiever's Award for his work raising the profile of the history of Liverpool.
Guilty plea: The 34-year-old will be sentenced next month
And as an expert on the slave trade, he was heavily involved in the commemoration of the 200th anniversary of its abolition, claiming that he could trace his own ancestors back to Liverpool two centuries ago.
On the back of all this exposure came his TV and radio appearances.
He appeared with Melvyn Bragg in the Radio 4 series The Routes Of English, discussing the Scouse accent.
In 2007, he presented The History Channel's Britain's Slavery Secrets and helped compile a series for the channel focusing on 50 key figures and events in British history - which was, incidentally, ridiculed for failing to mention the likes of Sir Winston Churchill or Queen Victoria.
And at the end of last year, in what should have been the crowning moment of his academic career, he was presented with a Masters Degree in Atlantic History from Liverpool University - his only actual qualification since his GCSEs, and one that required only a single year of study.
But with success, the contradictions in his life began to surface.
Despite constantly waxing lyrical about Toxteth and revelling in his black roots there, as a successful businessman and local celebrity Westgaph was able to afford far better for himself, and he moved to a detached 'chocolate box' house in leafy Childwall, just a stone's throw from the Trans Pennine Way.
But just when Westgaph seemed to be at the peak of his career, it all started to go wrong.
It started with the collapse of his property business last year, when the bank repossessed the seven houses he owned, and in September he was declared bankrupt.
While most bankruptcy orders are discharged after one year, according to records at Liverpool County Court, Westgaph's discharge has been suspended indefinitely - something normally done when the person involved refuses to cooperate with the Official Receiver.
So even before the events of February 20 this year, things were not going well for Westgaph.
He met Natalie Inge, a psychology graduate, at a Liverpool club in 2006.
According to a friend: 'They quickly became involved and Natalie became pregnant in 2007, but it was a pretty turbulent on-off relationship from the start.'
Ben Blance was one of Westgaph's tenants, paying around £50 a week 'cash in hand' for a room in one of his houses.
Westgaph first introduced him to Natalie three years ago at a music gig, and the pair became friends.
It was several months after Westgaph had moved out of the home he shared with Natalie and their baby son that Ben and Natalie's relationship changed.
'Despite what he said in court, I was never Laurence's best friend or his closest confidant,' said Ben.
'And from what Natalie had told me, she and Laurence had split up ages ago. It's not as if we'd jumped into bed together the moment his back was turned.'
Other sources suggest that Westgaph had no right to present himself as the wronged party, as he had cheated on Miss Inge, when she was pregnant, with young teenage model and former Miss Warrington Guardian Brogan Backhouse.
This week, Miss Backhouse confirmed that she had a brief sexual relationship with Westgaph in 2007, but added: 'As far as I was concerned, there was no one else.'
Even so, on February 20 this year, Westgaph was clearly enraged. 'He just broke down the front door, burst into the room and flew at me,' recalled Ben. 'I was taken aback at how savage he was. Natalie was terrified and the child was screaming.'
In the ensuing attack, Ben was punched in the face several times and his hand was bitten.
Initially, it was thought that Westgaph had bitten Ben's ear off, but in court it was said that there was no clear evidence as to whether it had been bitten or severed on a sharp object.
Afterwards, Westgaph telephoned for a taxi to take Ben to hospital. 'I think he was in shock,' said Ben. 'He could see what he'd done to my ear.'
At hospital, doctors, believing that the wound to his ear had been caused by a bite, gave him a hepatitis B injection and stitched it back together. He still has a plastic plate inserted around his eye socket to stop the eye muscle catching on the bone. His vision is blurred and his ear is scarred.
Westgaph, meanwhile, has left his plush Childwall home and returned to live with his mother in the rather less salubrious Liverpool suburb of Edge Hill.
His case has been adjourned until September 4 to allow reports to be compiled, after his lawyer told Liverpool Crown Court: 'An immediate custodial sentence would have devastating consequences for this man's career.'
Many would argue that his victim has already suffered far worse.
But Ben, who is no longer seeing Miss Inge, added: 'I don't particularly want Laurence to go to prison, but he needs to learn his lesson that he can't go around attacking people like that. He's clearly got a serious anger management problem.'
In the end, it seems rather tragic that such a promising individual - a man who wanted so much for himself and strove throughout his life to get it - should have fallen so far.
Some might say that he has only himself to blame for his misfortune.
And of all those he has disappointed, it's hard not to feel that Laurence Westgaph, social historian, descendant of slaves, hero of Toxteth, has let himself down the most.