The Disintegration Of Dennis Rice

[Updates, two so far, at end of post]

It has been sad to see a former Mail On Sunday hack fall apart very publicly these past 48 hours. Dennis Rice, who styles himself Tabloid Troll – and still professes anonymity – has fallen apart in a welter of abuse, projection and obsession as he has sunk from gutter into sewer in his attempt to smear me with a malicious and defamatory accusation that I had mocked someone’s cancer condition.

So Dennis Rice looks to be anonymous ...

Anyone who has read this blog will know the effort I put in to go after Rice’s former colleagues who on a daily basis demonise the sick and disabled. The propensity of those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet to pretend that anyone with a disability is somehow either shamming or scrounging, or that incapacity is just laziness, gets very short shrift on Zelo Street.

But I will address Rice’s accusation directly: Nigel Pauley, showbiz correspondent at the Daily Star, commented on a photo which Rice asserted was of me that “I’d be in denial if I looked like that” and eagerly joined in with Rice’s assertion that I must be an only child by saying “they broke the mould”. Both of them gladly mocked someone for their perceived appearance, and without asking about their wellbeing.

So I turned it round on to Pauley, but there was no mocking of his condition. He and Rice had gleefully slung a bucket load of mud over the fence, and then when it got sent back, both howled long and loud. As it happens, I hope that Nigel Pauley gets back to his desk at the Daily Star, and before Richard “Dirty” Desmond’s hatchet men come round with another round of cuts. Long may he hack.

But Dennis Rice’s preposterous suggestion that I amend or pull the blogpost is going precisely nowhere. And his jaw-dropping “offer” this morning to trade off a deletion for a malicious and defamatory Storify he ran earlier is not credible – not after he spent much of yesterday evening trying to stir up support for his assertion that I was a “Vile Troll”. He can take that one and shove it.

And he should desist from trying to play the “photo theft” card: he used that photo which he claims to be of me without asking the copyright holder, or the photographer, first. There will be no climbing down from this blog at the behest of Dennis Rice. And, as he has been obsessively trawling the web and publishing photographs, stories and addresses, he cannot object when it happens to him.

So we're now looking for that photo of Dennis Rice. He doesn’t want it to be published. He has inferred that he would use physical violence against anyone who publishes it. He claims that he’s some kind of special case, because if his identity were revealed, it would put his life in danger. While publishing someone else’s photo and stirring up a hate campaign against them is of course fine.

Rice is a liar, a bully and a hypocrite. And he is reaping what he himself has sown.

[UPDATE1 1435 hours: I was sent an image which was claimed to be of Dennis Rice, which was included in the first version of this post. It was not, but was in fact of the late Rupert Hamer,  and as soon as I was alerted to the fact, it was removed immediately.

My apologies to the Hamer family and to any of his friends and colleagues who may have looked in. Unlike Dennis Rice, this blog is not in the business of peddling malice]

[UPDATE2 1740 hours: Dennis Rice has now threatened that the Army will be coming round to see me. Anyone think that even he would not make such a ridiculous suggestion? Think again.

There you have it - the threats continue. He threatened Rich Peppiatt, then he did the same to Tim Ireland, and that is not the first he's made against me. But, happily, Rice has also had a rare moment of candour, as can be seen here.

Quite apart from the malicious and wrong assertion of where the photo of Nigel Pauley came from, Rice states that I am "asking for a pic of TT (Tabloid Troll)". I have not made such a request: I've asked for a photo of Rice (twice). So Rice is now admitting that he is Tabloid Troll, despite all the denials, threats and abuse. I thank him for his honesty, and hope all who need to see that admission will have done so]