system of civil law has the potential to
effect fundamental change in the basis
of the relationship between the state and
the individual. (Kersey, 2010, p. 4)
Evidence that some Freeman ideas had entered
popular culture came in March 2011 when an
unspecified number of protesters espousing
Freeman-related concepts “tried to arrest a judge
after storming into a courtroom [i]n Merseyside
[located in northwest England]. The activists
went into the room at Birkenhead County Court,
while about 300 protestors gathered outside the
building” (Captain’s Blawg, 2011). A leaflet
accused both the court and the judge of
operating under maritime law, and that the group
was attempting the takeover in order to ensure
its Magna Carta rights (Captain’s Blawg, 2011).
Later that year (in August 2011), a newspaper
published an article about a mother and her
investigator who had been involved in the
manufacture and dissemination of false child-
sexual-abuse allegations against the father. To
the court, the investigator gave her name as
“Elizabeth of the Watson Family,” which is a
typical way that Freemen attempt to demonstrate
their sovereignty (by rejecting last names as a
form of corporate domination by the state
[Gardner, 2011a, p. 1 PA Media Lawyer, 2011,
p. 3]). Five days later in a London
Administrative Court, a man followed the same
pattern with his last name when providing it to
the judge. He called himself “Norman of the
Family Scarth (The Living Man)” (Williams,
2011). An author, Carl Gardner (2011a), noticed
the Freeman language and wrote a short piece
about it, and he was to reappear in a big debate
that occurred later in the year.
A fury of words about Freemen, however, came
forth after the Guardian newspaper carried
comments by two different bloggers who
attended the 2011 Occupy London protest. One
of them, Jon Witterick, wrote about his
resistance to debt collectors, which was partly
inspired by Mary Elizabeth Croft’s Freeman
book, How I Clobbered Every Cash
Confiscatory Bureau (Witterick, 2011). In a
second commentary, by a person who called
himself “commonly known as dom,” the author
wrote about the law as a prison that enslaves “by
a body of rules and statutory instruments” that
surround items such as one’s birth certificate and
automobile registrations (commonly known as
dom, 2011).
Then people involved with the British legal
system jumped in. On the same day as the
Guardian commentaries appeared in print,
Adam Wagner—in a UK Human Rights blog—
responded to them. He revealed that, during the
previous month, he had served on a jury in
which the defendant fired his legal team and
attempted to defend himself using Freeman
principles. The jury, however, found him guilty
of seven out of eight charges of car theft
(Wagner, 2011, p. 2). He then identified some of
the debt-payment-refusal and Freemen rhetoric
that came out of the Occupy London protests,
but he concluded,
“This stuff” is dangerous and it does
people harm. The common link between
the get out of debt and freeman articles
is that both promote the idea that if you
believe hard enough that the financial or
legal system does not exist, or is a
gigantic fraud, then your problems will
disappear along with the system….
These ideas are most attractive to
desperate, vulnerable people who are
going through terrible times in their
lives. They are also classic conspiracy
theories…. (Wagner, 2011, p. 2)
Wagner called his blog entry “Freemen of the
dangerous nonsense” (p. 1).
The next response to the Guardian articles
appeared—also on the same day—in a legal blog
written by someone who went by the pseudonym
Legal Bizzle, and it was scathing. He called the
opinions expressed by “commonly known as
dom … utter woo,” adding, “But ‘educating’ a
protest movement who [sic] frankly need all the
genuinely legal help they [sic] can get, in this
risible shite? That’s not ‘lawful rebellion,’ it’s
irresponsible” (Legal Bizzle, 2011a, p. 4).
The day after the two Guardian commentaries
appeared, the paper published a response by Carl
Gardner that also was critical:
The love freemen show for magic texts,
incantations and ritual is not just funny:
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 9
effect fundamental change in the basis
of the relationship between the state and
the individual. (Kersey, 2010, p. 4)
Evidence that some Freeman ideas had entered
popular culture came in March 2011 when an
unspecified number of protesters espousing
Freeman-related concepts “tried to arrest a judge
after storming into a courtroom [i]n Merseyside
[located in northwest England]. The activists
went into the room at Birkenhead County Court,
while about 300 protestors gathered outside the
building” (Captain’s Blawg, 2011). A leaflet
accused both the court and the judge of
operating under maritime law, and that the group
was attempting the takeover in order to ensure
its Magna Carta rights (Captain’s Blawg, 2011).
Later that year (in August 2011), a newspaper
published an article about a mother and her
investigator who had been involved in the
manufacture and dissemination of false child-
sexual-abuse allegations against the father. To
the court, the investigator gave her name as
“Elizabeth of the Watson Family,” which is a
typical way that Freemen attempt to demonstrate
their sovereignty (by rejecting last names as a
form of corporate domination by the state
[Gardner, 2011a, p. 1 PA Media Lawyer, 2011,
p. 3]). Five days later in a London
Administrative Court, a man followed the same
pattern with his last name when providing it to
the judge. He called himself “Norman of the
Family Scarth (The Living Man)” (Williams,
2011). An author, Carl Gardner (2011a), noticed
the Freeman language and wrote a short piece
about it, and he was to reappear in a big debate
that occurred later in the year.
A fury of words about Freemen, however, came
forth after the Guardian newspaper carried
comments by two different bloggers who
attended the 2011 Occupy London protest. One
of them, Jon Witterick, wrote about his
resistance to debt collectors, which was partly
inspired by Mary Elizabeth Croft’s Freeman
book, How I Clobbered Every Cash
Confiscatory Bureau (Witterick, 2011). In a
second commentary, by a person who called
himself “commonly known as dom,” the author
wrote about the law as a prison that enslaves “by
a body of rules and statutory instruments” that
surround items such as one’s birth certificate and
automobile registrations (commonly known as
dom, 2011).
Then people involved with the British legal
system jumped in. On the same day as the
Guardian commentaries appeared in print,
Adam Wagner—in a UK Human Rights blog—
responded to them. He revealed that, during the
previous month, he had served on a jury in
which the defendant fired his legal team and
attempted to defend himself using Freeman
principles. The jury, however, found him guilty
of seven out of eight charges of car theft
(Wagner, 2011, p. 2). He then identified some of
the debt-payment-refusal and Freemen rhetoric
that came out of the Occupy London protests,
but he concluded,
“This stuff” is dangerous and it does
people harm. The common link between
the get out of debt and freeman articles
is that both promote the idea that if you
believe hard enough that the financial or
legal system does not exist, or is a
gigantic fraud, then your problems will
disappear along with the system….
These ideas are most attractive to
desperate, vulnerable people who are
going through terrible times in their
lives. They are also classic conspiracy
theories…. (Wagner, 2011, p. 2)
Wagner called his blog entry “Freemen of the
dangerous nonsense” (p. 1).
The next response to the Guardian articles
appeared—also on the same day—in a legal blog
written by someone who went by the pseudonym
Legal Bizzle, and it was scathing. He called the
opinions expressed by “commonly known as
dom … utter woo,” adding, “But ‘educating’ a
protest movement who [sic] frankly need all the
genuinely legal help they [sic] can get, in this
risible shite? That’s not ‘lawful rebellion,’ it’s
irresponsible” (Legal Bizzle, 2011a, p. 4).
The day after the two Guardian commentaries
appeared, the paper published a response by Carl
Gardner that also was critical:
The love freemen show for magic texts,
incantations and ritual is not just funny:
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 9
