A trial was adjourned today after a judge heard the defendant had been sent a link and 50-character password to crucial video footage just days ago – and on paper.
Matthew Payne, 57, told Brighton Magistrates Court he had only just been sent the footage, which allegedly shows him pushing former council candidate Denise Friend at a Let Women Speak event in Brighton in 2022, despite asking for it more than a year ago.
He denies assaulting Ms Friend.
Today, Payne told the court: “I have been waiting for this footage for 18 months and what I did receive was a link and a passcode – the passcode had more than 50 characters and was sent on paper.”
He said that he had made several attempts to enter the passcode, but had given up after repeatedly getting it slightly wrong.
He added: “I had a ticket to be at the event, Let Women Speak. I was with the organiser the night before. The complainant said they went there to close the event down and a large number of masked men turned up throwing smoke bombs and assaulting people.
“Six months later, I was arrested for a allegation of assault and I’m being told I was part of the counter protest.
“I remember there was a lot of intimidation. I don’t remember pushing or shoving her.”
Prosecuting, Alan Balneaves said the alleged assault took place at a protest between two rival groups on different sides of the debate in September 2022.
Payne, of The Promenade, Peacehaven, said he had found an hour’s worth of YouTube footage of the event which he wanted to show the court at the trial. He also said he wanted to call at least two witnesses.
District judge Amanda Kelly adjourned the trial until 18 September. Mr Payne checked with one of several people at the back of court who had come to support him that it did not clash with a date when his band Victorious were due to play a festival.
Police investigated several allegations of assault at the Let Women Speak event in Victoria Gardens in September 2022 and one of hate speech by main speaker Kellie Jay Keen.
A 19-year-old woman who was arrested for assault and a 20-year-old man arrested for obstructing a police officer on the day were eventually released with no further action.
An investigation into an counter-protester throwing glitter at event attendees was also discontinued with no further action, as was an investigation into alleged hate speech by Mrs Keen.
Craig Brown, 50, was fined £100 after admitting assault last year. He had initially joined the trans activists, but switched sides after hearing the speeches, and then squeezed a counter-protester’s testicles.
Ms Friend stood as a Labour candidate in Brighton in 2019, one of a slate of candidates supported by Momentum. She has since left the party.
ah yes, matthew payne of the “victorious freedom band” who sing about conspiracy theories and being anti-vax, who play at the same festivals as david icke attends and who were also permanently banned from the brunswick pub last year because their fans were hurling racist and homophobic abuse at pub goers.
why am I not surprised this is the type of person who would be meeting up with organisers of a kellie jayne keen event? and ending up in court for assaulting a woman at a “let women speak” protest. the irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
“Craig Brown, 50, was fined £100 after admitting assault last year. He had initially joined the trans activists, but switched sides after hearing the speeches, and then squeezed a counter-protester’s testicles.”
He was also charged with two counts of possession of a bladed weapon.
I think it says a lot that whenever KJK has a “let women speak” protest, card carrying neo-nazis (complete with flags and salutes) come out as enforcers. Surely at some point anyone supporting her must have a self awareness moment when they find themselves on the same side as actual nazis, no?
Just maybe he knows a lot more and has researched all the areas you are talking about. Its the people that have done the research who have my respect.
Ah yes, Kellie Jay Keen, isn’t she the one who believes a MAN is a MAN and a WOMAN is a WOMAN.? Sensible lady! Especially after the things which have transpired since this event took place.
Correct, KJK has a number of beliefs she is quite vocal about. Let’s list a few more:
1) She believes that lesbian parents should be taken off their child’s birth certificate. In fact this extends to ALL foster parents or anyone using surrogates or donors! In August 2023 she not only supported the italian government’s movement to remove lesbian parents from their child’s birth certificate, she went as far to say that only biological parents should be listed on birth certificates. This is the woman who says she supports LGB (particularly lesbians) and wants to protect them from trans people. Hmm.
2) She said that women who ‘stand in her way’ “will be annihilated”. Yes, this means non-transgender women. Better yet, she said this because she was questioned by a female sussex police officer who talked to her about this very incident in the article. If you’re a woman who disagrees with her, apparently you should “watch out”. Okay then.
3) In 2021 she said that men with guns should go into women’s toilets to protect them. In a video youtube had to remove for breaking their incitement of violence policy, she suggests that men with loaded guns should go into women’s toilets to make them ‘safer’. No that is not hyperbole or a passive agreement with something else, it was an idea she came up with.
4) In 2019 she did an interview with far-right white supremacist Jean-Francois Gariepy because she believed dialogue with him was ‘essential’. Gariepy believes in an all-white ethnostate and his other guests include a Klu Klux Klan leader and a known neo-nazi. Gariepy has also claimed he was paid $25,000 by Jeffery Epstein and is currently battling a sexual assault lawsuit against a disabled woman.
5) In 2018 Women’s Place UK snubbed her and cancelled her talk after she made (now deleted) racist tweets about muslims. They said her views ‘do not reflect a feminist position’.
And of course we all know about KJK’s controversy last year in Australia whereby over 30 armed neo-nazis turned up, chanted “white power” and threw up the sieg heil. KJK claims they had nothing to do with her, but of course given her history that’s obviously not true. The government of New Zealand almost banned her from entering the country as a result. Oh and of course there was the thing last year where a speaker at one of her events quoted mein kampf (as you do).
If you find yourself agreeing with KJK, consider the above and ask yourself “does this sound like a person on the right side of history?” I don’t know about anyone else but when someone has more than a few ‘coincidental’ run ins with neo-nazis, I tend to distance myself from that person. Maybe that’s controversial? Who knows.
In a previous post in relation to the Cass report you said ‘’you know the report is bogus when it says boys are “biologically programmed” to play with toy trucks. you couldn’t make it up!!’’. Yet you did make it up, or you need to take a less biased look at your sources before reposting misinformation and discrediting anyone you don’t agree with on the basis of that misinformation.
Anyone can turn up uninvited and disrupt an event including neo nazis, and trans activists and their supporters who have relentlessly (and often violently) disrupted events like ‘let women speak’’ over many years now.
I don’t agree with all that KJK has (actually) said, but she has the right to express those views and she is proving to be more ‘on the right side of history’ than trans activists who continue to attempt to ignore or discredit (proper) evidence, and silence legitimate concerns and different views at the ongoing cost to children, young people, and women in particular.
Just say you’re a nazi apologist, KL. You’re literally commenting on an article where people on the side of KJK are being charged with the assault of women. Where the neo nazis in question are directly talking at her events and meeting with her and she’s not even denying it.
She lost plausible deniability over 5 years ago, if you’re honestly trying to compare counter protesters to actual card carrying, self-admitted nazis then you’re too far off the deep end and that’s to say nothing of her other opinions on women.
And no I didn’t make it up, page 100 6.8 quotes a study that was widely discredited 4 years ago. But nice work trying to derail the conversation.
Fortunately your agenda, persistent misrepresentation of others/reports/research to suit your narrative, calling everyone who challenges you a bigot, a nazi apologist, transphobe etc. etc. is finally exposed for what it is and what it has achieved- aggression and toxicity at such a scale it has led to harm for numerous children and young people, and women’s rights.
Trans used to be the journey, not the destination.
The tide is finally turning on this madness, not least of all after what Dr Cass has brought to light.
Shameful that so many were harmed along the way, and not only children.
Those responsible need to be held to account, and let us never forget the cheerleaders among the media and politicians who encouraged this scandal.
gingseng loves calling people he doesn’t like ‘nazis’.
Deeply childish and toxic behaviour, Cass spoke about this at length in her report.
LMAO must have missed the “nazi” chapter in the cass report. How did we all overlook that spicy meatball?
And yes if you sympathise with self-admitting nazis then you’re a nazi sympathiser. The normal amount of nazis to have as friends or colleagues is zero. Any more than that and you need to have a word with yourself.
Wow. That Matthew guy was found guilty!!
“Defender of women” found guilty of assaulting a woman. oops
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2025/06/19/conspiracy-theorist-guilty-of-shoving-trans-activist/