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Hi my name is Dizzy aka Tony Crothers Chairman of the United Cabbies Group.
Firstly my apologies for bringing this to your forum but as there has been a lot of derogatory comments about me, most of them lies and untruths, and I felt it necessary to come on and give my side of the story.
I see you have had the pleasure of meeting London Uncensored. Let me tell you a bit about him first.
His name is Mark Thomas and he is a green badge London Taxi Driver from Essex. He used to be a big supporter of the UCG but for some reason has turned against us and now spends his time trying to attack us. Why has he done this?
Well the only reasons we can think of is because he didn't get his own way. Let me explain...
Firstly, as you may know I am one of the moderators on the LTDF forum. I am not the administrator like he says, although I do have a very good relationship with the Admin and he usually backs me 100%. The LTDF forum is independant of any trade organisation but it's no secret that many of the members are also UCG members. There are however regular members of all the other trade orgs on there and that is the way we like it. It would be a very boring place if we all agreed on everything.
All members are free to voice their opinions and as long as they abide by the rules and treat their fellow members with respect they are free to do so. Nobody has ever been banned or removed for their opinions.
We have a regular member of the London Cab Drivers Club on the forum and he is a well respected and valuable member. I will not disclose his name, and I admit I don't always agree with his postings but I respect his right to have those opinions. Mark Thomas used to be a Committee member of the LCDC and left them because he didn't get his own way there. He then turned on them and has since done some dispicable things to the members of that committee. This involves phone calls to them, putting on ethnic accents and threatening to do sick things to their wives.
Anyway, whilst on the LTDF Mark Thomas started posting derogatory and disrespectful comments to this member which resulted in this member calling him a nutter and telling him not to talk to him anymore. I think you can get the flavour of them by some of MT's postings on here.
Mark Thomas demanded that we remove this member from the forum. This member always treats other members with respect and we have never felt the need to take any action against him or any of his posts.
So we refused to bow to Mark Thomas's demands.
Another incident which we feel was the reason he turned on us is because he was summonsed to Palestra to have his license reviewed for his conduct on various occasions and for calling the Director of LTPH a '[edited by admin]' in an email. MT demanded that the UCG organise a demonstration outside whilst this review was taking place.
We refused because we most certainly do not condone verbally abusing those in authority, and this was something we felt we could not defend.
So Mark Thomas turned on us like a spoilt child who doesn't get his own way. There may be other reasons but only he can tell you what they are.
Since then he has tried every trick in the book to attack us. Countless emails to us and our committee members, some of them quite sinister. For instance, one of our committee members was Jimmy Thomas who also runs The Anderson Shelter website, he has been constantly bombarded with emails that are just downright sick, nasty and abusive.
Jimmy's father was knocked down and killed by a number 10 bus on Kilburn High Rd some years ago.
Mark Thomas has sent him emails and tried to post on the Anderson Shelter using names such as 'Kilburn & the High Roads' and 'Number 10 Bus'.
Jimmy also lost his wife of over 40 years a few months ago to cancer. Mark Thomas even ended one of his emails 'Give my love to your wife'.
So you can see what a sick depraved individual he really is. But I suppose you have guessed that anyway by now. All these emails have been saved, in fact we have a whole dossier on stuff that Mark Thomas has said and done and these could well one day be sent to the police. He cannot say he hasn't asked for or deserved it.
He has also turned on other members of the London Taxi trade who have tried to help him.
He sent emails to everyone, and I mean everyone, such as Mayor Boris Johnson, countless MPs, leaders of all the other trade orgs, Bosses at TfL and LTPH disclosing personal details about our members that were told to him in confidence, and also plenty of stuff that just isn't true.
He has also spent plenty of time trying to dig up details of our committee members and normal members past achievements, to try and discredit them by claiming they are frauds. A complete waste of time if you ask me but seeing as he has only got 1 friend (which by the way he also turned on not long ago) he probably can't think of anything better to do.
So let me now dispel some of the lies he has told about us.
He says The UCG are a limited company and this is in fact one thing that is true, although he seems to suggest that it is somehow illegal or immoral to do so and we have done it to rip our members off.
We started a limited company to a) protect ourselves from any lawsuits, and b) because we are now a subscription based trade org we needed to be able to set up a business bank account.
However what he doesn't understand is we are a 'Not for profit' Limited company and there are no dividends to the directors, of which I am not one, and a quick check of Companies House will prove this.
If I was in this to make money don't you think I would have named myself as one of the directors? In fact I have given up 000s of hours unpaid and I do this purely for my love of the London Taxi trade and my pride in being a Taxi driver.
EDL.
It is true a few of us went on an EDL march back in 2009, long before the UCG was formed when we were just merely Taxi drivers, but Mark Thomas has twisted this to tell everyone that we are all regular EDL members and Racists and Facists etc.
Let me tell you the truth about this...
Back in 2009 a member joined the LTDF forum and posted a link to the EDL website which was organising a big march against terrorism on our streets, to be held outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.
This was not long after our soldiers were abused on their homecoming march in Luton and the London bus and tube bombings were still fresh in our minds. Any one of us could quite easily have been killed by those and indeed one London Taxi driver lost his wife. UCG Secretary Lee Osborne's wife was pregnant at the time and had a hospital appointment on that day. Her friend and regular travelling companion was in the next carriage to one of the bombers. So you can see why were all so alarmed by this.
Up until then I had never even heard of the EDL, so after reading their website which catergoriacally stated that they WERE NOT a racist organisation a few of us decided to attend. I honestly thought it would be attended by 000s of people, similar to the 'Ban the bomb and 'Stop the war' marches a few years earlier.
When we got there the main speaker was indeed a black guy, and there were many other ethnic groups there including Blacks, Asians, Seihks and Jews etc.
We were there in support of our country and against terrorism. We were not there in support of racism. I am not a racist but I am very patriotic and will always defend my right to be so.
But that doesn't Stop Mark Thomas trying to twist it to his own ends.
I am not a member of the EDL, or any other political party, and never have been. The only politics I get involved in are Taxi trade politics.
I simply went on one march against terrorism and anything else is untrue. Some now say the EDL are a racist organisation and whether that is true or not I do not know, but it was most certainly not the reason I attended.
If Mark Thomas keeps making these allegations against us we will be forced to take legal action.
He also likes to paint me as a facist dictator, but the truth is the UCG is a democratic organisation where every full member gets a voice and a vote, and it is they who decide what action we take. I simply act on their wishes.
There have also been a few others on here making allegations against me, namely Terrycab1966 and GBC.
What they haven't told you is some of the things they have got upto on the LTDF.
Both have come on time and time again under different names with the sole intention of disrupting our forum.
GBC single handedly destroyed our Karma system and forced us to vet every member before entry is allowed. At one point he was even arguing with himself using different names.
They think that because they do it under a different name each time they are entitled to do so, but they would be wrong.
Running a forum with approx 350 regular members each day is not an easy job and order must be kept.
Very few get banned, but it seems to be these same members time and time again, and that surely tells you something does it not?
I also notice there have been calls for Mark Thomas to banned from this forum. For the record both he and GBC deleted their own accounts from the LTDF, only Terrycab1966 has been banned under various aliases.
So that is the true version of events and anything else is a lie.
Thank you for your time and keep up the good work.
Dizzy.
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