When a series of deliberately started fires broke out at properties and a car that were linked to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, the rumour mill started running at full speed. One of the more lurid of these rumours coming from the more tin foil hat sections of British society concerned the three young men who were described as East European male models at the time of their charging when they were named. These rumours were that these men had had paid sexual relationships with the Prime Minister and the arson was some form of revenge against the Prime Minister.
I put no store in these rumours. I’ve heard loads of rumours before about high profile cases from members of the public and these rumours so often turn out to be false. People may circulate these rumours for all sorts of reasons either because they believe that it helps their political narrative or because they dislike the person at the centre of the rumours, in this case the Prime Minister, so much that they want the rumours to be true and circulate them because of that dislike.
I tried to keep myself out of these rumours and not play my part in spreading them to others mainly because some rumours are too fantastical to be based on reality and because I know from my experience as court reporter that it’s nearly always best to wait until the trial when all will be revealed about a particular case.
I’ve also seen several instances in the past where high profile activists and citizen journalists have failed to check sources or check the veracity of what they are being told about certain criminal cases because it fits in with their world-view. These individuals in addition don’t want to report any information that might conflict with their world-view. The instance that most comes to mind here is the behaviour of citizen journalists and activists following the brutal stabbing murder of seven year old Emily Jones in a park a few years back. Following the killing a whole host of people popped up with false claims that the murder was carried out by a ‘Somali Muslim’ and that this fact was being censored by the police. This rumour was picked up an amplified by people, some of whom I had previously had a fair bit of respect for, without checking with the source nor checking whether the sources alleged source, in this case a police officer, actually existed. It was eventually revealed that this terrible murder was carried out by a female Central/Eastern European headcase with no Somali or Islamic terrorism motivations, just madness on the part of the perpetrator.
As it was with the Emily Jones case so it is with the case of the alleged Starmer Arsonists. So far it appears that the vast majority of the lurid rumours about these men being Starmer’s aggrieved rent boys is total bollocks. Also busted are the equally lurid rumours about the trial being ‘censored’ or that it was to be held ‘in camera’ which means the court sitting in private with no public or journalists present. There might be legitimate reasons for some parts of the trial to be held behind closed doors or to have reporting restrictions but in this case I can only see that being the case if matters pertaining to the PM’s security are discussed or if MI5 operatives are called to give evidence. These sorts of reporting restrictions are not at all unusual and are readily understandable.
Now that the trial has begun we can see that none of the lurid rumours that have been thrown around over the last year so far form any part of the reality of the case. As for the allegations of censorship this has also been disproven. This court case is being covered not just by citizen journalists and long standing court reporters but also by the state broadcaster the BBC. It’s a funny sort of censorship that allows almost unrestricted reporting of all that is said in open court isn’t it?
Here’s part of the BBC report into the trial of the three young men accused of arson at property connected to the Prime Minister.
The BBC said:
“A Russian speaker recruited and offered money to Ukrainian men to carry out arson attacks on properties connected to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, a court has heard.
Ukrainian nationals Roman Lavrynovych 22, and Petro Pochynok, 35, are accused of targeting two properties and a car linked to the PM, along with Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 27. They deny all the charges.
All three, who live in London, are charged with conspiring together - and "with others" - to damage property by fire between 1 April and 13 May 2025.
Lavrynovych is also charged with damaging property by fire with intent to endanger life on 11 and 12 May 2025 at two properties in north London connected to Sir Keir.
He faces alternate counts of damaging property by fire being reckless as to whether life is endangered.
On 8 May 2025, a car previously owned by the prime minister was found on fire on a street he previously lived on in Kentish Town, north London. Three days later, a fire was discovered at flats linked to Sir Keir in nearby Islington.
On 12 May 2025, a fire was discovered at the entrance to Sir Keir's Kentish Town home, which was being rented out.
Prosecutor Duncan Atkinson KC said: "This case concerns a series of three fires that were deliberately set in a residential area of North London over three nights in May last year."
He said "three fires in the same area within five days would be pretty unusual" but that "fires all involving property linked to the same person were beyond a coincidence".
He said in this case, the car had once belonged to Sir Keir, one house was managed by a company of which the prime minister had once been director and shareholder, and the other house still belonged to the prime minister and was occupied by his sister-in-law.
He added: "The evidence demonstrated that there was here no coincidence. Rather, the vehicle and properties in question had been targeted, and the acts of arson at these locations had been planned and directed, with those involved promised payment for their participation." “
For the record, the veracity of the account of the opening of this trial in the BBC’s report has been backed up by the reports from the court from the normally reliable court reporting account on X UK Courts Live and the citizen journalist and ‘Western Civilisationist’ activist Jonathan Wong.
It’s important to note that what we’ve heard so far is only the Crown’s side of the story. It’s also important to realise that I and all the others who are reporting this or any other trial in the United Kingdom are bound by the rules of Sub Judice. We cannot speculate or comment based on personal views on a live case lest it impact on the Jury’s understanding of the case and maybe influence the Jury’s verdict. All cases, without exception, need to be decided by the evidence put before the court and nothing else.
As I said we have only had the Prosecution’s opening evidence, which it seems contains an awful lot of signals intelligence garnered from the suspects mobile phones. There’s also a wealth of CCTV evidence that the Crown is presenting to the Jury along with other documentary evidence that the Crown are using as part of their prosecution.
We have not yet had the defence counsel start their part of the case and it will be interesting to see what form this defence case takes. Will it be a straight up and down claim that the alleged arsonists were not the same people as those in the dock? Will we learn more about this mysterious Russian speaking character? Will something more lurid be claimed as a defence? We’ll just have to wait and see. I’m also going to be interested in reports of how defence counsel are cross examining prosecution witnesses and how they are testing the prosecution’s evidence.
I suspect from what has come out so far that there could be little provenance in many of the lurid rumours surrounding this case. The Crown doesn’t seem to have touched on them but will the Defence? We’ll wait and find out. As an observer with an interest in the trial process I am very curious as to what defence will be put up. Not at all pertaining to this case of course, but it has been known for Defence in some trials to chuck out a wild card allegation in order to bamboozle a Jury or muddy the waters or to try to winkle out deficiencies in the Prosecution case. If you search you will find a few of these cases of a bizarre defence case such as that of the case of a woman from East London who claimed PMS made her threaten a police officer with a knife. There’s also a case that I personally became familiar with, which is the O’Dowd case where a man accused of rape and perjury and perverting the course of justice who, as part of his defence, produced a fake picture of former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath involved in a sex act with a woman. This picture was during the course of this trial revealed without a doubt to be a fake.
Sometimes bizarre defence strategies work and sometimes they don’t. What tack the Defence counsel in this case will take will be interesting to see. I’m not going to try to second guess the Defence strategy but I will say that after hearing the Prosecution’s opening statement it’s going to have to be a good one.
I’m not going to speculate too deeply about this particular case, for obvious legal reasons, but I really want to know more about this mysterious Russian that the Prosecution mentioned and which is the lynchpin of the story. I don’t think that my curiosity will be satisfied by this trial, but may well be satisfied by some future legal proceedings against others.
The case continues.
Links
BBC report.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx21y204zz4o
UK Courts Live
https://x.com/UKCourtsLive/status/2049421018649772059
Jonathan Wong account
https://x.com/WONGthink
PMS knife case
https://www.nytimes.com/1982/07/12/style/premenstrual-syndrome-a-complex-issue.html
The O’Dowd case
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2015/08/05/sir-edward-heath-and-the-ghosts-of-criminal-trials-long-past/
The false reporting surrounding the Emily Jones case.
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2020/05/21/a-response-to-a-murder-case-that-will-leave-lot-of-egg-on-a-lot-of-faces/