Anyone who knows me reasonably well, my friends, online-subscribers & quite literally thousands of strangers, who have encountered me in all sorts of intimate photography situations over the last few months may be interested to hear that my 'first cut' pitch, that was over a year in the making is now finished.
I had painstakingly cut the film to 23 minutes, to fit Channel 4's specific broadcast requirements.
An intimate portrayal of injustice & cruelty, of sublime beauty & the harsh truth & turbulent time. A story of life in the Colne Valley, with my own trials & adventures at the centre of what was without doubt something of a unique direction.
It is finished now, as am I.

I am going to outline the key events in this time-line, which were impossible to predict. Homelessness, addictions of many forms, both acceptable to some & deplorable to others. Painful dependence, Bulemia, self-harm & even my own diet made up entirely of other peoples waste.

Skylarks, Badgers, Sunrise & set - it is finished now.

During early Summer I made residence in Lowestwood Mill along the canal at Linfit, it is both the oldest & most haunted former textile mill in the Colne Valley. It was my mis-fortune to be involved in so many run-ins with the authorities, particularly the Police, Magistrates & private security individuals, paid to make life even tougher for a guy like me.
It was after spending 22 hours in the cells @ Huddersfield Police Station that the events took a most unexpected twist.

Making my way from the Town centre, I couldn't help but notice the run-down house in Springwood (where I had once squatted with friends for over a month 8 years ago) & it appeared to be 'open'. A ply-wood board was leaning against a large hole in the side of the building, I had to take a look.

Feeling the call of nature, I moved the wood to one side, & beneath was a huge hole where there should have been a wall, but just wood which had rotted through completely - fallen drain-pipes & poor guttering creating constant damp.
I hollered loudly, but without reply. cautiously I went inside - there was no security at all. This badly run-down house with so many rooms on so many floors is large enough to house a very large family, being so near the town centre, with private parking & a garage would surely be able to command a substancial rent (albeit with some improvements).

The owner of this property is MR. ROY STOBBS, an electrician who was earlier this year convicted of offences including possessing pornographic images of children. Here is a  property he has left in a state that would attract any curious children, & Upper George Street has many families with youngsters, who play all around the gardens. I felt upon entering the large dining-room to the rear (Back Spring Street) nothing at all had changed in the 8 years since I had last been there.
As I wandered around, things hadn't changed at all - even the tap in the first floor bathroom, was still gurgling as it had done in 2002. There was so much clutter, & boxes of junk on the ground floor. More in the cellars It was not only a cat toilet, but definitely the small muddy footprints on the floorboards were a clear indication that someone had been curious enough to venture in already.

I felt very uncomfortable concerned that Mr Stobbs could go to such lengths to openly entice any daring young boys into this horrible property.  I spent the time investigating. The largest first-floor room roughly aproximates as an office, filing cabinets, table, shelves & the most rotten timber window frames, it is a wonder the glass stayed in. In fact it didn't just ask Joe.
At that time there were hundreds maybe thousands of copied DVD's. I regrettably paid little attention to them then. Hidden away in a cupboard, I found a 250 gig SATA hard-disk.

Without any further aplomb, I put the drive in my empty rucksack & decided to leave.
It was a few days later before I had the opportunity to do any data forensics on the disk, it contained 4 partitions which appeared to be blank. However using Hirens Boot Disk I was able to recover some valuable & important data.

The 'index.dat' file contains a complete history of every visited website. I followed just a single link to ensure the file/cookie integrity. It lead to a minimal page, with only a secure log-in, obscure & not humanly recognisable domain name - so why the SSL security on an anonymous/invisible nothing website?
Ding! alarm bells. I was able to recover thousands of images associated with the domain in various folders .
THESE WERE MOSTLY OF CHILDREN.
The images had been batch-processed with a distinctive green, & in & among were random, possibly 'camouflage' images of plants & houses & such - scrolling further down the long list of thumbnails, it was clear that this was actually child pornography.

Once I was able to find some 'concrete' dated word documents written by Mr Stobbs.

THAT REALLY WAS ENOUGH.

I was able to call upon a local journalist to pass the disk-drive to whoever deals with this
kind of investigation. I never wanted to be known for any part of this (or investigated for any alleged criminal activity connected hitherto) if I trespassed, so what ?
If removing the hard drive was theft - then take me to court,

just don't ever expect me to stand by, knowing what persons like Mr Stobbs are capable of. I would do it again, screw the consequences for me...if they trumped up trespassing into burglary - it would make no difference at all. I should not have to do the work of professional detectives. But in this case I did.

As a post-script to 'anonymously' passing on the data, I got the help of my somewhat younger & fitter friend Joe Barber to make the place secure, ensuring ABSOLUTELY no children could get in.
However it was reported to the police as burglary by Mr Stobbs & the fingerprints on the glass led them to Joe, who was more concerned for the safety of others than himself. By making this information public I hope neither Joe nor I will  go to prison, I realize the danger we are technically in with the authorities, But in our hearts we both know what we did at Upper George Street was the right thing to do.
The documentary truly ends here because my camera, tapes, laptops in-fact everything I owned in the world have now been stolen, along with the vehical I was living in.
So thanks a lot you bastards.