Response to convicted armed robber Daniel Levi’s article

Comments

1. ---

   Phil

   7 September 2015, 03:23

   I really don’t understand Daniel Levi, had you researched Sam Antar re the Antar Eddies, Crazy Eddies and exposed him of a previous criminal background he would agree with you.

   If Levi and indeed his mate Chris Oil want to dig themselves a deeper hole, well that’s up to them. As a member of the undebentured press I’m sorry to say it pretty much goes with the job. Doesn’t mean I agree with it, far from it. It’s more that it is regretfully inevitable.

   I found that out the hard way, working in company recovery. you will always get flak knocking someone off their perch, I learned to get a thick skin, but it doesn’t half make you cyncial.

   As always it is a beautiful world, just a shame about some of the people. If you work in the true free press, or in company recovery and you want a friend, best you get a dog

2. ---

   DUCK AND DIVE

   7 September 2015, 05:17

   Having had a PLC go tits-up owing me a five figure sum of which not even 1% could be salvaged from the liquidation, I envy those creditors who managed to get 15% back from you. Looks like an honourable effort.

   I know nothing about recreational drugs but assume the key word here is “legal”. No doubt, many legal mood/mind altering substances are open to abuse and the proportion of fatalities from abuse of legal highs looks lower than the fatalities from alcoholism or heavy smoking.

   So, I’m still searching for the meat in Levi’s article. He clearly wasn’t able to accuse you of anything illegal, nor reveal any criminal record. The nub of his essay seems to be that you described your legal company as carrying out “general trading” when he thinks there should have been a category for “distribution of legal highs”.

   Does Levi think that his “revelations” are a match for your serious exposé of his criminal and violent past? LOLz.

3. ---

   Gary Newman

   7 September 2015, 06:31

   Duck and Dive,
   Very much agree – struggled to see how he could so outraged that someone had a company selling something that was perfectly legal, and by the sound of it possibly still is even since the clampdown on some legal highs (methedrone etc).
   You can buy stimulants such as Pro Plus (caffeine) in most chemists and am sure plenty of us on a long journey stop for a quick double espresso at the motorway services!
   You also have supermarkets selling alcohol and tobacco, which we all know are harmful!

   If something is legal then people will make money from it – including large multinationals (the US alcohol companies around 80-90 years ago would have been breaking the law by selling when prohibition was in place for instance!).

   Given the amount of fuss about all this anyone would think that someone had robbed a bank – oh, hang about i think someone did, or similar…

4. ---

   MrMoto

   7 September 2015, 06:43

   I had a “chuckle chuckle” reading it, it was certainly written in a very dramatic manner, pictures and all. It was written in a very “Daily Mail” tone!

   I don’t think selling legal highs is right, but I am sure if you tore through my past there would be some stuff you would think I’d done wrong too.

   All the writers on Shareprophets know how tough it is for you writers. When you do the write of journalism you do, you’re gonna get some shit.

   When you kick a hornets nest, sometimes you get stung.

5. ---

   Jonjo

   7 September 2015, 09:07

   Selling drugs of any description is disgusting. Ben Turney should hang his head him shame. Interesting to see Gary N backing up Turney. One shareprophets blogger backing up his mate.
   Apart from selling chemicals which are poison to students, teenagers what I find incredible that Turney hasover
   2 dozen failed business ventures to his credit. So the editor who has a history of business calamity and was selling what Levy described as physoactive substances, to teenagers, which turney boasted about how if you “Dabble in class A’s” our smart drugs for clubbers are for you blardey blah. And this is the guy running this website a bloody drug dealer. Its disgraceful Legal highs are killing children. Turney should be sacked.

6. ---

   Troyska

   7 September 2015, 10:02

   My my my. The saga goes on.

   I am not going to stand in judgement here, as I did not over Dan’s past.

   The only observation I offer is below. I am sure that none of us are 100% proud of our past, to various degrees so before we cast judgement on others…

   “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones”

7. ---

   dasv

   7 September 2015, 10:56

   hmmm website selling legal highs. It’s not exactly quality earnings! high legal/political risk ;)

8. ---

   Gary Newman

   8 September 2015, 03:11

   Jonjo,
   All comes down to what is legal and what isn’t though at the end of the day – there are lots of things that we know are harmful and potentially kill people (even to the extent of food stuffed full of harmful fats, preservatives etc) yet you can buy them in a supermarket (tobacco and alcohol being the examples i gave earlier).
   Certainly no expert on legal highs other than what I’ve read about them in newspapers etc, but there definitely seem to be degrees of ‘badness’ and if the ones that Ben’s company sold are still legal then I doubt they were on a par with some of the real nasty ones that are now illegal.
   Also, as I mentioned you can buy Pro Plus over the counter, the sole purpose of which is to act as a stimulant – in the same way that some will buy things that help them sleep.

   Morally some may not like it – in the same way they object to other products that can legally be sold – but from a legal point of view I can’t see that Ben did anything wrong, and thought the article that he was responding to was highly sensational in a way designed solely to true and damage his reputation by the way it was written and illustrated, without actually having an awful lot of substance to support such an extreme stance by the author of it. Just my opinion as someone who makes their living from journalism (outside of the financial stuff I write).

   I wonder, if a legal high company was listed on AIM and people knew it was going to rocket, how many would avoid it from a moral point of view…

   Just my opinion of course.

9. ---

   handybrownone

   8 September 2015, 03:54

   Jonjo. What a stupid thing to say. “Selling drugs of any description is disgusting”. I work for a pharmaceutical company – we make drugs and we sell them. Am I disgusting? Is AstraZeneca disgusting? We put chemicals in our body all the time. Drugs are chemicals. Depending upon what they are they are regulated to different extents. Food is regulated – certain preservatives are allowed and certain ones are not they are all chemical. Herbals are regulated, alcohol is regulated – it is a chemical it is ethanol there are regulations about the content of methanol and other contaminants etc etc. I don’t know what Ben was selling but I think instinctively I don’t agree with it. “Legal Highs” are a misnomer as in fact it is something that is not illegal as no -one has developed a law for it. So to say it is legal gives the appearance of being approved or sanctioned. It is just not “illegal”. Having said that it could be something that is specifically allowed by legislation. I don’t know what it was and so I have no basis to say either way. Also I cant be bothered to find out as it is all non-news.

10. ---

    DD

    8 September 2015, 04:39

    Let’s boil this down ; did Tom know about Ben/Mathew before he was hired?
    Did Tom complete full DD on him before hire?
    Is Ben comfortable writing about somebody’s past, hiding his own ? ( No longer hidden !)
    It just makes the web site here a little less credible, if not DL clutching at legal straws…..
    Interesting.

11. ---

    Tom Winnifrith

    8 September 2015, 04:51

    DD

    Your question was answered in the DL piece. I did not know.

    I have ordered a full independent enquiry at some cost and will publish the results in full here and that will decide Ben’s future. Frankly in terms of how a company responds I think we have demonstrated utter integrity and transparency, rather more than many listed companies.

    Tom

12. ---

    DUCK AND DIVE

    8 September 2015, 08:26

    A full independent enquiry? FFS, anything for a headline. Who (apart from Levi) cares whether Ben sold legal drugs? And who (apart from Levi) cares whether he presided over some businesses which went tits-up? I thought that was the minimum qualification needed to work here.

13. ---

    Floernce2

    9 September 2015, 02:49

    I am a health worker. I assure you hat these drugs are killing young people. Its a travesty that some on here are writing that it’s ok because they’re legal. A disgusting attitude attempting to defend their blogging colleague.

    Full marks to Mr Winnifrith for his common sense in organizing a fully independent enquiry into Ben Turney and his drug dealing past. I see that Ben has now partially admitted that he did sell this poison. Maybe now he’s beginning to understand that just as raping your wife in certain muslim countries is legal that morally it is just plain wrong. Reprehensible.
    Someone who has been marketing drugs that wreck so many lives and has made so many companies bankrupt is employed by shareprophets.
    Clever people using legal loopholes to justify selling damaging drugs to people, by employing chemists to alter the chemical code is testament to the lengths unscrupolous people will go to to deal the drugs. The same way those selling the drugs now backtracking in a rear guard action write that it was all “legal”

    It’s dreadful to think that any people are prepared to sell these kind of drugs to youngsters.

    There is no defence.

14. ---

    LeviTation

    9 September 2015, 10:11

    I’m on a massive comedown right now so I just can’t deal with this.

15. ---

    J P Spaghetti

    9 September 2015, 17:11

    L – very funny!

16. ---

    wildrides

    9 September 2015, 23:31

    Oh pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase……………………….get off your moral high horses the lot of you . Ben did nothing illegal , unlike Desperate Dan who actually went to prison . His failed business experience as a young man will serve him well in spotting the business mistakes of others . I would like to look in some of your cupboards and see what skeletons you have hiding inside . If he has no substantial criminal record then you are simply conducting a witch hunt . Any employer can easily and cheaply check their employees criminal history ………. job done.

17. ---

    DUCK AND DIVE

    10 September 2015, 03:37

    I think it’s immoral that Florence can’t even spell her own name. So many young people who were too lazy to learn the educational basics end up jobless, hopeless and in need of legal highs to delay suicide.

18. ---

    wildrides

    10 September 2015, 04:45

    I find gratefruit , turkey , chicken and peanut butter make a nice legal high . All high in tryptophan ……….the precursor to seretonin manufacture in the old noggin box . Does not improve your spelling though ……….. unfortunately . Try it ….you will be floating off the ceiling in a few days .

19. ---

    johng

    10 September 2015, 06:46

    Ciggys kill countless more people than any ‘legal high’ does. Same goes for Alchohol. Does that mean corner shops, supermarkets etc are all ‘disgusting’ ?

    A convicted robber trying to get on his high horse as payback, and making out some moral equivalence against Ben is scraping the barrel personified