Meet the mates of the BNP's "Man of God"

Banned from election hustings organised by the PCS trade union on July 16th, the BNP huffed and puffed and threatened to hold a press conference on the steps of Norwich City Hall to whine and whinge about their treatment. At the appointed hour the police were there in force, the press were there in force, and dozens of antifascists turned out, all eager to hear what the BNP and the bogus "reverend" Robert West had to say.

Alas - and true to form - Norfolk BNP had an attack of cold feet and with news of their press conference well and truly leaked their members stayed home to watch television (as most of them have been doing throughout the Norwich North by-election campaign).

Which was a pity, because we really wanted to have a chat with two friends of the Vicar of the Parish of The Front Room, located at 35 Farrow Avenue, Holbeach.

The first was Martin Roberts, seen below with His Eminence Robert West.

Until recently Roberts was the BNP's national enquiries secretary and Worcestershire organiser, but then the alleged Falklands veteran decided to drag his racism all the way to Norfolk - in fact, to 22 Church Road in hitherto unsullied Potter Heigham, where he relocated his online Calder Designs business.

During last week's little contretemps on Mousehold Lane in Norwich Roberts repeatedly asserted that he wasn't a Nazi (or a racist), but until the BNP ordered its members to remove all outward signs of support for Nazism Roberts had no problems at all shifting stocks of badges aimed squarely at the neo-Nazi market, which he sold alongside a range of BNP tat.

Nor does he have a problem hosting Calder Designs with NoisyDinosaur, run by BNP web guru Lambertus "Bep" Nieuwhof, an Afrikaaner immigrant convicted of attempting to blow up a church school in Nelspruit, Transvaal, in 1992. Nieuwhof had also been a member of Eugene Terre'Blanche's terrorist neo-Nazi Afrikaner Resistance Movement. Nieuwhof eventually fetched up in Hereford, close to Martin Roberts' old turf.

With the Nazi stuff tucked away under the counter, Roberts intoduced a range of "golly" badges in the colours of various football clubs. These are clearly intended to insult and inflame - there's no other purpose to them - and are equally clearly sold on their parasitic but completely bogus association with the football clubs concerned, including our own Canaries - a club with a long standing committment to anti-racism.

So that's one of the fake reverend's dodgy friends we can't wait to meet again.

The other is Steve Ames. Steve is a man of convictions, lots of them, but they're not of the Christian variety. Here he is in all his glory, looking like a character dreamed up by Harry Enfield.

Ames runs one of the strangest second hand car dealerships you're ever likely to come across this side of Arthur Daley.

For one thing, you only get to visit his Trident Cars "showroom" by appointment, and his website gives only a vague location off the Norwich Ring Road. The funny thing is, all the photographs of the cars in his "showroom" seem to have been taken at or near 18 Carterford Drive, which happens also to be just off the Norwich Ring Road, and is Ames's home address. In fact, here's Ames's plush showroom, right at the end of the Carterford Drive cul-de-sac.

But Steve is so much more than a second hand car salesman. He's the violent goon mate of the Holy Robert who snarled "I can do what I fucking well like" while committing an unprovoked assault against an antifascist during last week's tete-a-tete between three antifascists and twenty BNP members outside the Duke of Norfolk pub.

When he realised the cameras were out Ames backed off, probably because - being a frequent client of theirs - he realised that telling a court "I can do what I fucking well like" wouldn't go down too well.

Steve has form, you see, and a fair old bit of it at that.

Back in 2001 our Steve was up before the beaks for harrassing a girlfriend who'd dumped the hot headed hooligan, and only narrowly escaped a prison sentence. Just two years before the romantic racist had been convicted of harrassing two other women (we hope any females visting Ames's open air "showroom" at the end of that cul-de-sac take a burly escort for protection), and, as it turned out, Ames had been in court so often since the mid 80s he was probably on first name terms with the magistrates.

Having witnessed Ames's violent temper at first hand, we're not surprised that Ames is considered first rate material for that party of law, order and stalkers, the BNP, or that he's a mate of the unholy Robert West.

More is coming to light all the time on the unsavoury activities of Steve Ames, but to keep you going (and to give your weekend a lift) here's the Norwich Evening News's report of the hilarious case of the Rejected Racist and his "war of love" - just click the pic: