Michael Shrimpton

Shrimpton studied at University College, Cardiff (now Cardiff University)[2] and was called to the Bar by Gray's Inn in November 1983.[3] He practised law as a barrister and sat as a part-time immigration judge.[4][5]

In 1998, Shrimpton chaired the Rolls-Royce Action Committee and Crewe Motors, two failed attempts to buy the British car manufacturer Rolls-Royce Motors from Vickers; the sale was made to Volkswagen.[6][7]

Shrimpton represented the five defendants in Thoburn v Sunderland City Council, the "Metric Martyrs" case of 2001–2002. The barrister argued that, despite the passage of the European Communities Act 1972, traders were still legally permitted to use imperial units. His argument that the Weights and Measures Act 1985 had implicitly repealed the European Communities Act was ultimately rejected by the court.[8][9]

In 2002, Shrimpton was the Immigration Appellate Authority adjudicator in what became Chen v Home Secretary, a landmark case in European Union citizenship law. In an unprecedented move, Shrimpton referred the case directly to the European Court of Justice, bypassing the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. Shrimpton's written decision was lauded as "brave" by British peer and journalist Adrian Berry, and has been credited with ensuring that justice in the Chen case prevailed.[10][11]

As a result of Shrimpton's child pornography charges (see below), in April 2013 the Bar Standards Board revoked his ability to participate in cases involving children. Following his November 2014 conviction for a nuclear bomb threat hoax, the Board completely suspended him from practice pending conclusion of professional misconduct proceedings.[12][13] In 2018 the Board concluded that he should be disbarred for the bomb hoax and possession of indecent images.[14]

According to Bill Rammell, a contemporary of Shrimpton's at University College, Cardiff, Shrimpton was a member of the Conservative Party when he was elected president of the students' union in 1981. He soon defected to the Social Democratic Party, then a few months later to the Labour Party, and finally joined the Socialist Workers Party by 1982.[2] He contested the 1987 general election in Horsham and the 1989 European Parliament election in West Sussex as a Labour candidate.[15]

After being passed over for the Labour candidacy in the 1997 Uxbridge by-election, Shrimpton defected once again to the Conservative Party.[2][15] At the time, he attributed his decision to Labour's becoming too "centralised and overriding the wishes of local constituency activists". Prime Minister Tony Blair characterised Shrimpton's departure as "odd"[2] and Labour spokespersons stated that it was "just a simple case of sour grapes".[15] Years later, Shrimpton would claim that he left Labour over the issue of European Union membership.[16]

Since 1997, he has been a member of the Aylesbury Conservative Association.[17] He also served as chairman of Watermead Parish Council.[4][18] In 2002, he was co-chairman of the Bruges Group,[19] of which he was a director from 15 June 2001 to 13 December 2002.[20]

Shrimpton is particularly noted for his claims concerning his role in the intelligence community and for his theories on the infiltration of British society by German spies and saboteurs.

Shrimpton describes himself as a "national security and intelligence specialist".[1][21][22] He claims that his address is the headquarters of an international intelligence network[23] and that he has travelled the world on intelligence assignments, with contacts in the CIA, FBI, MI6, Pentagon, Chinese intelligence, and the British Parliament.[5] He credits himself with a role in several intelligence successes, including the capture of Osama bin Laden.[24]

According to Shrimpton, Germany re-established its Nazi-era intelligence apparatus, the Deutsches Verteidigungs Dienst [sic] (DVD) in 1945, and has since used it to wreak economic and political chaos abroad.[25][26][27] The DVD is supposedly responsible for the assassinations (often via "weaponized cancer") of Hugh Gaitskell, Ross McWhirter, Airey Neave, Ian Gow, John Smith, James Goldsmith, Christopher Story, Anna Lindh, Jo Cox, Mohandas Gandhi, and John F. Kennedy,[16][28][29][26] as well as for the sinking of the Russian submarine Kursk and for the Japanese tsunami of 2011.[30][26][21] Shrimpton further claims that German spies have infiltrated MI5, MI6, and GCHQ[26][27][25] and have controlled Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, and the British prime ministers Clement Attlee, Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson, and Edward Heath.[16][28][29][26] Many of these claims are laid out in his book Spyhunter, published in 2014 by June Press, and in his articles for Veterans Today and UKIP Daily.

Shrimpton has also written or campaigned on issues and theories relating to Euroscepticism, organized paedophilia, global warming, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370, Barack Obama's parentage and citizenship, the disputed status of Gibraltar, and coproxamol and its role in the death of David Kelly.[29][4][31][32][33]

Police and court officials and the mainstream press have generally rejected Shrimpton's claims as grandiose conspiracy theories that he uses to bolster his reputation and to ingratiate himself to those with real power.[29][27][30][26] He is known to police forces across the United Kingdom as an "intelligence nuisance".[34][22][35] Shrimpton denies that he is mentally ill or a compulsive liar,[5] and a psychiatric evaluation at his 2014 bomb hoax trial showed no criminally relevant evidence of mental illness. His defence counsel nonetheless suspected him to be suffering from a developmental or personality disorder such as autism or narcissistic personality disorder.[25]

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