I sent the following email to Trevor following the revelation of Trevorgate a few days back.
Trevor [or whatever your real name is] - This is not hate mail. And it won't be long. I have like 5 minutes before I leave for work. You have been cut off the forum it looks like. You have been branded a fraud. Perhaps you are. I am sure you lied about at least some of what you stated - probably all of it. I am giving you one chance to honestly explain it to me. If you bother, and want me to, I will share it directly with the forum. It is a safe platform if you wish to use it. Likely no one will believe what you say now. But you could apologize - you owe that much to all these people who invested in you and your fictional writing. That's all I have to say. Ignore it. Answer it with 5 words or 500. Jeff
Two days later I did recieve a reply - I was surprised that I did actually. The first was followed by a second shorter, both below;
Jeff, I have had a fair amount of hate mail, deservedly, although putting "f" and "c" words into an email, along with a few others, isn't something I've ever done, and I know you haven't. I am pretty sure it's a criminal offence of sorts as well, though I won't be reporting it, merely deleting the emails and blocking the senders. I have no real excuse for what I did, and there isn't much I can say apart from sorry, which is far from being enough. There are a few issues in my life, apart from being a former jw, which I haven't totally dealt with. Again, I'm not using this as an excuse, but do you recall exactly where you were on April 15th 1989? Unless it's a significant date for you, I wouldn't think so, but curiously, as someone who doesn't remember exactly what he did a couple of weeks ago, I do. I was at this event http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/15/newsid_2491000/2491195.stm If you watch the video, I was sitting in the lower tier of the grandstand about 50 yards from the events that were taking place. We couldn't just see what was happening, we could hear it, and for a long time afterwards, years, I could hear the screams of pain and anguish in my head. It's hard to describe my feelings, watching 95 people, kids, mothers, fathers, die and being helpless to prevent it. I, and many others of the 53,000+ crowd present at Hillsborough that day have sufferred from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder since then. It doen't make the news much in the UK nowadays, even around the anniversary apart from in Liverpool, but none of us who witnessed it can ever forget. Of course, you might think I'm lying about this, and I wish I was, but I'm not. I just don't talk about it much, and none of the guys wh were with me that day, some of whom I still see every year on April 15th, do either, not even then. I've been to Liverpool's ground, where there is a permanent memorial, many times since that date, hoping to get ove rit, but I doubt I ever will. I used to be on a Hillsborough Disaster Survivors discussion forum, long before I was on JWD, and it was helping until the day someone posted a picture of the carnage with the caption "Liverpool fans getting what they deserved" underneath it. I was physically sick when I saw that, and I'm not violent, but if I ever found out who did that.. it's like saying the Jews deserved to be gassed at Auschwitz, very sick. The forum closed, and I decided to try and deal with my jw issues, not that they are anywhere near as bad as my Hillsborough issues. The disaster was influential in my becoming a jw in many ways, that verse in Revelation 21 "the former things have passed away", if only they would. I wasn't going to try and log in to JWD again anyway, so if I'm deleted it doesn't matter much to me. I did monitor the forum over the last couple of days periodically, but I'm not going to bother with that again. I'll try to find another Hillsborough forum I think, hopefully one that's better moderated than the last one. If you choose to share this, it's up to you, I won't know either way. I've removed JWD from my bookmarked sites now and won't be visiting again. One thing that you might mention to those who talked about coming here with baseball bats and "beating the shit out of me", any such action will be met with an immediate 999 call (equivalent of 911 in the USA), and even though we witnesss some curious legal decisions in the UK nowadays, I don't think that using "well your honour, I beat him up because he annoyed me on an internet chat forum" as a defence would cut much ice with a judge. Frankly, I'm surprised that those posts were allowed to stay up, I'm sure they break forum guidelines. The only person who sent me money was mouthy, and I've sent her a cheque for more than the amount received - it was a money order which she'd purchased, so there's no other way that I can return it, which she should get Tuesday or Wednesday. Thankyou Jeff for the gentle nature of this your email, something of a change from what I've been receiving, and goodbye. You will always have my respect, even if I do not have yours, which is more than I can say for those who sent threats or called me names like "transvestite", "alcoholic" or "sad" on JWD. warm regards Trevor
Jeff Another thing I should have said, and please share this with JWD, I have no intention of contacting anyone on JWD ever again unless they choose to contact me. Apart from the obviously necessary refund to Grace, and it isn't a rubber cheque btw, I won't be writing to anyone else, or emailing them. I can understand why some would be more than a little afraid of me doing that, but they have nothing to fear. I don't expect forgiveness, and I'm not looking for that, I just don't want anyone to be fearful on my account. I'm deeply sorry Trevor