'Anti-establishment' group found guilty of plotting to kidnap Essex coroner

A "protest cult" group have been found guilty of plotting to kidnap a senior coroner after turning up at court with handcuffs and demanding to know where he was.

Lincoln Brookes, senior coroner for Essex, received "very bizarre" letters in 2022, before getting emails in April 2023 stating that "corporal punishment may be administered", Chelmsford Crown Court heard.

The emails, which claimed to be warrants “for seizure of goods and persons”, accused him of "detrimental necromancy".

Four members of the "anti-establishment protest cult with self-conferred court powers" then stormed into Essex Coroner's Court on 20 April 2023, demanding to know where Mr Brookes was.

Mark Christopher, 59, of Forest Gate, east London; Matthew Martin, 47, of Plaistow, east London; Shiza Harper, 45, of South Benfleet, Essex; and Sean Harper, 38, of South Benfleet, Essex, all denied conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.

On Tuesday all four were found guilty on both counts by majority verdicts of 11 to one.

Christopher, the "self-appointed leader and chief judge of England", was also found guilty of sending threatening letters to Mr Brookes with intent to cause distress or anxiety.

Mr Brookes was not in the coroner’s court building at the time of the incident last year.

Essex area coroner Michelle Brown – who had been conducting documentary inquests from paperwork and without witnesses or family present – said the group came into her courtroom.

She said the leader “kept demanding that I find and get Mr Brookes”.

Shiza Brown then served a "notice" on the coroner to shut the court down, which contained a "glossary of anti-establishment terms" with another document "explicitly condemning" coroner Lincoln Brookes.

Footage of the encounter was shown to the jury and Christopher could also be heard saying the court was practising "detrimental necromancy" and that people were "not dead on paper".

The judge bailed Matthew Martin, Mark Harper and Shiza Harper until their sentencing, which is due to take place in the week beginning 23 September.

Jurors cleared Martin of an allegation of assault by beating of security guard Eamonn McCormack on 20 April 2023, and he was also found not guilty of the criminal damage of his spectacles.

Det Ch Insp Nathan Hutchinson, of Essex Police, said: “The ideologies of this group were concerning and they genuinely believed that they had the power to construct their own legal system, threaten others and were above English law.

“It’s clear that throughout the investigation and court proceedings, that the group had no belief or regard in the British justice system."

He commended workers at the coroner’s court who “acted calmly and rationally during an intimidating and traumatising ordeal”.

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