Moment conspiracist plants camera to ‘prove’ terror victim was faking injuries
This is the moment an ‘absurd’ conspiracy theorist hid a camera outside a Manchester bombing victim’s house in a warped attempt to prove the attack was ‘staged’.
Richard Hall targeted dad and daughter Martin and Eve Hibbert to try and prove his twisted belief the 2017 terror attack which killed 22 people was staged by the government.
Eve, who was just 14 at the time of the attack, was left with severe brain damage and still uses a wheelchair after Salman Abedi detonated a bomb at an Ariana Grande concert inside the Manchester Arena.
Her dad Martin suffered a spinal cord injury.
Hall visited Eve’s home to hide the camera to try and see whether the now 21-year-old was secretly able to walk.
Despite Eve being seen leaving her home in a wheelchair, Hall told his viewers there was ‘no evidence’ her injuries were due to the bomb and called her a ‘crisis actor’.
He went so far as to say the dad and daughter were harmed before the attack and were not even at the arena that night, despite the fact CCTV shows the pair attending the concert.
They took Hall to the High court for harassment, the misuse of private information and data protection infringement.
Martin told the BBC: ‘I’m all for freedom of speech but it crosses the line when you’re saying I’m an actor or I’ve not got a spinal cord injury or Eve’s not disabled, she’s not in a wheelchair.
‘He is profiting from other people’s suffering and I won’t have it. He can say what he wants about me, but when it comes to my daughter and those people who have lost loved ones it’s too far.
‘We have enough to deal with just getting through day-to-day life without him.’
A judge branded Hall’s claims ‘absurd and fantastical’.
Judge Davison said: ‘Suffice it to say that, although his beliefs may be genuinely held, his theory that the Manchester bombing was an operation staged by government agencies in which no one was genuinely killed or injured is absurd and fantastical and it provides no basis to rebut the conviction.’
Martin and Eve said Hall’s views were ‘repugnant and offensive to those who suffered so badly that evening’.
Hall made money off of his upsetting conspiracies, selling books about his theories and flogging DVDs online while begging his followers for donations.
The crazed conspiracy theorist also denies Madeleine McCann disappeared and said MP Jo Cox’s murder was staged.
Hall showed the court a series of images he claims show survivors are lying about their injuries.
He also said concert-goers had ‘agreed to take part in an exercise’.
Judge Davison ruled in favour of a summary judgement – meaning parts of the case can be decided without a trial.
He said he feared Hall would use a trial ‘as a vehicle to advance and test his staged attack hypothesis’.
Further hearings are ue to take place to determine the rest of the claim and costs.
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