therealchannylunt

[therealchannylunt]

Will the Real Chantelle Lunt Please Stand Up! Part 4

An Exposé in four parts

THE POST, Liverpool

In the final part of this exposé we take a look at Chantelle Lunt’s judgement in aligning herself with The Post Liverpool to further her narrative in personally attacking and undermining the reputation of prominent Black women who have either disagreed with or rejected her because of her self-promoting agenda.

The controversy surrounding Laurence Westgaph began with an article published by The Post Liverpool on 8th February 2025. It has been suggested that Chantelle Lunt herself was the instigator of this piece but there is no evidence to show this was the case. What is not in doubt is that she colluded with The Post to write a follow up opinion piece on 15th February 2025. This piece recounted her version of events and her alleged efforts to bring Westgaph to account. However, it is clear from her headline alone (“Women in high places have closed ranks around Laurence Westgaph for too long”) that her real intention was to seize the opportunity to malign the reputations of a number of prominent Black women in the city and to portray herself, once again, as the lone voice of reason and rectitude within a complicit Black community whilst simultaneously claiming that an unidentified but often referenced community thought the same as she. Her narrative was filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, not only in relation to Westgaph, but about a number of prominent Black females in Liverpool, which were covered in Parts 2. and 3. 

When The Post decided to publish the on-line article – which it described as a piece of investigative journalism – on the appointment of Laurence Westgaph by National Museums Liverpool more than four years after the event and eight months after his tenure in the position had ended, it contained nothing by way of actual evidence that wasn’t already known at the time of his appointment. What it did contain were a number of anonymous allegations. It remains to be seen whether these allegations can be validated or if they continue to be unsubstantiated. But it appears at present that any source The Post refers to is characterised as either too scared of Westgaph or too scared of losing their job to come forward. Whether this should be considered to be unfortunate or convenient for The Post is open to interpretation.

But whatever the outcome for Westgaph, it is irrelevant to why The Post would allow Chantelle Lunt to exercise her agenda against other prominent Black women in her opinion piece without checking – perhaps investigating? – the veracity of the claims she makes, which have been shown to be full of inaccuracies and contradiction but which their writer of the original article would unquestioningly, yet unsurprisingly, go on to describe as a “brilliant and brave piece”.

But the bigger question is why Chantelle Lunt would align herself to The Post.

What is The Post, who is The Post, and what is it to Liverpool?

“Jane had been contributing for about seven months when she’d first met Herrmann, at a post-work happy hour on St. Patrick’s Day, her second day in the office (at Babe.net). “It was supposed to be a couple of innocent beers,” she said recently, “but it turned into a complete mess.”

At some point, she recalled, Herrmann started talking to her. “I was just thrilled that this cool guy with a British accent who had written for the Sunday Times thought I was special.” Jane described drinking more, and browning out for periods, until finally, she continued, “I woke up in his apartment the next morning at 6 a.m. I can’t find my wallet, I can’t find my shoes, I can’t find my underwear,” she paused. “And that was the story of me losing my virginity.” She never thought of their relationship or that encounter as anything other than consensual.

Herrman disputes details of her account. “This is a grossly distorted version of what happened, from someone who was a friend of mine for well over a year,” he said. “Almost none of what she says matches what happened that night, and it directly contradicts things she has said and written before.” [The Cut, June 23rd 2019]

Let this serve as an introduction to Joshi Herrmann, otherwise known as Janos Eichner, the founder of Mill Media, publishers of The Mill (Manchester), The Post (Liverpool) and The Tribune (Sheffield)

Joshi also serves as editor-in-chief.

Joshi is from Surrey, not Liverpool. His business is based in Manchester, not Liverpool. Joshi tells us that he is a Manchester United fan. It appears that none of the writers on The Post are from Liverpool either (although one might be from Wirral). There is no obvious allegiance to the city of Liverpool. Joshi based his business in Manchester and subsequently saw a gap for his business in Liverpool and Sheffield with Glasgow in the pipeline. And yet The Post feels it is their place to tell us how concerned we should be about the things that concern them about Liverpool.

Joshi claims that The Post adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) Editor's Code of Conduct. However, it would seem that The Post is not registered with IPSO, which would suggest that they are not really Press, not proper journalists, or certainly not ones that play by the rules the others are obliged to follow. This gives them freedom to write whatever they want without fear of sanction. It is akin to having a car and, as the driver, never getting your car MOT checked and certificated but always claiming that you abide by the MOT standards when you drive it around the roads with the other cars. Except in this example the authorities could still take action.

Joshi used to work with Jack Rivlin, founder and CEO of the Tab. Joshi had worked on the Tab with Rivlin at Cambridge when it was essentially a student news website. After graduating from Cambridge, he spent four years at the Evening Standard followed by two years in New York as editor-in-chief of the Tab as it tried to crack the US market. Babe.net launched in 2016 as a vertical of the Tab. Joshi became its’ editor-in-chief too.

Jane wasn’t the only young staffer who experienced Joshi’s nonwork-related and highly inappropriate attentions. “Having relationships with people I worked with was a dumb mistake,” he has said. “Before the #MeToo moment, I hadn’t thought through the potential ways in which those relationships can affect more junior colleagues, even if you don’t directly manage them. I regret doing it and I learned from it.” At Babe.netthings got very messy. One junior colleague felt that sometimes his influence was stronger than it should have been, especially as he was one of the few men working at a women’s publication. “The portrayal of being a woman or woman-identified person on Babe was very much through the lens of what Joshi, and by extension the female editors that he had hired, wanted it to be…. All of our content just felt very male gaze-y to me. [The Cut, June 23rd 2019]

He wasn’t the only one though. This from the same The Cut article:

A few days after I hung out at babe.net’s offices,the staff went out to drink together to toast departing team members; Rivlin, the CEO, had decided to shutter the U.S version of The Tab in order to reallocate the money to the cresting babe.net. He was in town to say good-bye to his staffers. The night was an aggressive one. “I didn’t pay for my own drinks the whole night,” staffer Chloe recalled. “I was drinking a lot,” she said, “and browning out.” At some point, she and everyone else ended up back at the company apartment in Williamsburg that Herrmann and Rivlin shared. Chloe found herself dancing with Rivlin and eventually making out with him until another co-worker intervened. One staffer told me that the encounter made her, and the other staffers, deeply uncomfortable.

“We were both drunk, and it was obviously very embarrassing for both of us,” said Rivlin. “It was a mistake, and as the senior member of staff, I should not have let that happen.”

The young staffers started to realise that the dynamic was all wrong. A group of five of them decided to organise to raise their grievances, and they had many. One had told her managers that the content they wanted her to produce forced her to perform as a caricature of a Black woman. Her managers apologised and told her she didn’t have to, but the damage was done.

They wrote a letter to their managers outlining their perception of racial and gendered power imbalances at the publication, along with their concern over the porousness of boundaries at babe.net. Part of that letter was included in The Cut article:

“There is a significant lack of divide between professional and personal relationships — and it would be one thing to be friends if out-of-work relationships didn’t come into play once in the office, but it’s very apparent that they DO. …

Sexual misconduct has no place in any office, especially not one that consists primarily and specifically of young women, for young women. How can we expect to be convincing thought leaders — especially around consent and sexual violence — among women ages 18 – 24 when that is the demographic subject to most attention or contact in our own workplace?”

They included in their letter an intention to get unionised.

According to The Cut investigation, the company decided that the best way to proceed was for Joshi Herrmann himself to run individual meetings with each signatory lasting ninety minutes each. He went through each of the matters raised by the letter and delivered the outcome of his deliberations verbally at the end of that week. Unsurprisingly, Joshi – the guy who headed up the process – found that most of the claims were baseless. There was nothing to see here. Rivlin maintained that Joshi Herrmann was the appropriate person to conduct the hearings, that the girls all trusted him and that he treated them all extremely fairly. Three of the five quit very soon thereafter.

Eventually it all imploded. The reported US $10million raised by Rivlin from investors – including a reported US $5million from Sun owner Rupert Murdoch – melted away. He managed to recoup US $1million for them when he sold the dregs of the operation.

But none of this is to claim an equivalence between these players and Laurence Westgaph. That is not the point. The point is to highlight the fact that Chantelle Lunt feels comfortable enough with all of the above to align herself with Joshi Herrmann and The Post simply to attempt to damage the reputation of prominent and respected Black women by jumping on the coat tails of The Post’s article on Laurence Westgaph.

She is enraged by Westgaphs behaviour (not enough to affect the very friendly relationship she maintained with him for more than a year after she became aware of his previous history, as detailed in Parts 2. And 3.) and by National Museums Liverpool for not acting on their knowledge of that 20-year-old history, and by Black women who, she declares, enabled him. But Joshi Herrmann and all of the above? Not so much.

There is also irony in the fact that The Post staff have no problems with Joshi Herrmann because he has stated he is a changed man now, just a few short years after his behaviour which he describes as “dumb”  and because “He regrets what happened, but he also believes the experience informs the way he runs his current business” [The Guardian 28th July 2024], but they have huge problems with NML because they appointed Westgaph 20 years after his behaviour resulted in a conviction. No consideration there that NML may be entitled to be just as forgiving as The Post staff are.

One of their wealthy financial backers is Mark Thompson, currently chief executive at CNN and formerly Director General of the BBC when the Jimmy Saville scandal broke cover. 

A scathing report into the BBC's handling of a shelved Newsnight exposé of Jimmy Savile revealed a culture of "suspicion and mistrust" at the corporation, riven by factions and in-fighting with "rigid management chains" that rendered it "completely incapable" of dealing with the scandal when it was exposed… Newsnight's investigation into allegations of child sex abuse by the late Jim'll Fix It presenter was abandoned last December… described as “one of the worst management crises in the BBC's history".

Former BBC director general Mark Thompson, now chief executive of the New York Times, was spared particular criticism in the Pollard report. It said there was "no reason to doubt" Thompson's testimony that he had not focused on the controversy and had not read other media stories about the aborted Savile investigation. [The Guardian, 19th December 2012]

No reason whatsoever. As Joshi has indicated previously, there’s nothing to see here. Certainly not as much as NML appointing an historian over four years previously, whose tenure ended eight months ago and who had a spent conviction from 20 years previously. But it is what it is. These paragons of so-called journalistic virtue still get to determine what our newsworthy diet should be. Twas always the case, although in Liverpool, at least The Sun gets short thrift.

And if we can’t rely on the moral compass of these people then surely, we should be able to rely on a declared left wing local firebrand activist to see us right? But apparently not. It seems there is too much invested on the self in self-centred. All of the above only serves to highlight the contradictions apparent in Chantelle Lunt’s self-serving narrative.

For someone in public office this behaviour, particularly the unfounded public attacks on other prominent Black women, certainly doesn’t align with the Nolan Principles of public life, where selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership should be exhibited at all times. As previously indicated, these baseless attacks by Lunt have encouraged further unwarranted attacks and harassment against these women from others on several social media platforms. 

The claims in The Post article about Laurence Westgaph may turn out to be undeniably true, but that is yet to be seen, and any potential prosecution may have been seriously jeopardised by the actions of Chantelle Lunt.  Centring herself and her grievances as an abused women in their story, has not only virtually eradicated the voices of the women the story was originally about, but it may also have seriously jeopardised any chance of these allegations ever coming to court or Laurence Westgaph ever getting a fair trial.  Like the prominent Black women Chantelle Lunt has tried to spuriously link to this story, that has resulted in them being attacked by others across social media, Laurence Westgaph has also faced attacks across social media.  Whatever her reasons, the fact is Chantelle Lunt as a Black woman aligned herself with a media company that has senior male officers who have been accused of inappropriate relationships and sexual misconduct with young impressionable female interns, dismissing the #MeToo Movement as a ‘moment’. What also beggars’ belief, is why Chantelle Lunt would also align herself with media company who have also been accused of racial and gender imbalances and forced a staff member to perform as a caricature of a Black woman.  These are not the actions of a Black leader, Black educator, or Black activist.

So we pose the question we started with again. Will the real Chantelle Lunt please stand up? 

[therealchannylunt]

Image is of late-night Direct Messages and Voice Notes from Chantelle Lunt to Laurence Westgaph- from his Facebook post

Will the Real Chantelle Lunt Please Stand Up!

An Exposé in four parts.

Part 3.

In Part 2. we looked at how Chantelle Lunt used allegations made in The Post Liverpool against local historian Laurence Westgaph to attack and undermine the characters and reputations of other prominent Black women in a follow-up opinion piece. She claimed she had rejected the very notion that Westgaph had any place in representing and working with National Museums Liverpool following his appointment in August 2020 as historian in residence. She claimed she had subsequently cut all ties with him and that groups she led would not work with him. She publicly rebukes NML for appointing him with a spent conviction for having sex with a 15-year-old girl 20 years earlier when he was in his early twenties – Westgaph had received a community order – and not requesting an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check. She called NML in 2020 to raise her concerns. In 2022 she claims she told the Head of NML that she had personally taken action and that it was important that NML did the same. Otherwise, she states, the head of NML might one day have to answer for the fact that she knowingly did nothing.

Her opinion piece accused prominent Black women of either actively defending Westgaph or doing so by remaining silent. In effect, she accused them of being his enablers.

Part 2. of this exposé looked at the motivations for such claims and the re-framing of a narrative that sought to give them credence. So, recalling that the only ‘actual evidence’ she can produce is that Joanne Anderson committed the heinous crime of sitting down with Westgaph for a discussion on Slavery Remembrance Day in August 2021, let’s have a reminder of what action regarding the matter Chantelle Lunt was taking around this time.

She claims that because she only had a small profile in the summer of 2020, she had put her feelings about the matter aside and continued to “…campaign in a space dominated by this man who was not only linked to some of the most prominent organisations in the city but also most of its Black leaders.”  She allowed herself to continue to campaign in that space (in order to build her profile) but from others she demanded mea culpas.

A year later, in the summer of 2021, her recently incorporated group were told she had decided they would not work with Westgaph. It took more than a year after she had raised her concerns about him with NML to get to this point. This was the same summer that Joanne Anderson had sat down with Westgaph and gets viciously attacked for it.

In the same interview with Meeting of Minds in July 2021 referenced in Part 2., she talks about Liverpool’s relationship with slavery:

“We were a wealthy place because of slavery. If you look around our city centre you would be hard pressed not to find a building that wasn’t funded by a slave owner or someone who benefitted from colonialism, so everything we see – most of the major parks, most of the major monuments – even a lot of our roads are named after, you know, former slave traders and this is something that, you know, there’s a lot of activists and historians like Laurence Westgaph who has been talking about this for many years, but it’s only really gathered momentum because of Black Lives Matter and Liverpool only seems to have taken a look at its history because of Black Lives Matter…”

Not only singing Westgaph’s praises just a month before Joanne Anderson sat down with him but actually suggesting that the work of “a lot” of activists and historians like Westgaph who had been doing this work “for many years”, hadn’t made any headway until Chantelle Lunt and BLM came on the scene. Can it really be co-incidence that it was not long after this, after being admonished for passing Westgaph’s work off as her own, that she ceased all communications with him?

Although NML are the target of the original piece by The Post and Chantelle Lunt has essentially accused them of being enablers in relation to Westgaph, she has been more than happy on a number of occasions to sit down with them for a “cozy chat”, including for a podcast Series on Protest in 2021 and a speaking appearance marking an International Women’s Day event for National Museums Liverpool in March 2024 – whilst Westgaph was still in place and by which time Lunt claims to have learned a lot more about both the allegations against him and about NML’s alleged enabling, and 3 years after Joanne Anderson sat down with him.

But the worst examples of this hypocrisy are from the personal messages she is sending to Westgaph around this time which Westgaph has publicly released in reaction to her claims to show that their relationship continued on the friendliest basis. None of them are in relation to the claims made by her or The Post about Westgaph but they absolutely reveal the level of hypocrisy being undertaken. Chantelle Lunt has since complained about these private messages being released but there is no other way to fully demonstrate the rancorous nature of her claims about women in high places closing ranks around Westgaph.

The first is a voice message Lunt leaves Westgaph on WhatsApp. It is just after his appointment and after attacks have come in from the political Right criticising the appointment. Lunt has asked Westgaph about his conviction and he has explained the circumstances to her. He then sent her a series of screen shots of an exchange of messages between himself and a friend who had given evidence which gave further context.

As can be seen, from Westgaph’s first post of voice messages and texts between them both - all of the communications happened after Chantelle Lunt first logged her concerns about Westgaph in May 2020. Most were after she claimed she found out about the details of his GBH conviction. Most were even after she claims she decided that her newly incorporated campaigning group would not work with Westgaph. They were after the time that she claims Sonia Bassey MBE was risking her career and accolades by “defending” Westgaph. And the last of them, in September 2021, were a month after Joanne Anderson sat down with Westgaph for which Chantelle Lunt feigns outrage. All of the tours she refers to and attends

(including “Loved the tour today, top form as always…” 21st May 2021; “Great tour today!” 18th July 2021)

were a year after she supposedly found two things strange “about him” on her first tour, one of which was that he was a man with something to hide. But the evidence demonstrates that at the time – rather than with five years of convenient hindsight - she thought his tours were great.

At no stage throughout this interaction does it seem remotely like she has any issue with Westgaph. It is damning in terms of the entire thrust of her narrative in The Post.

Laurence Westgaph has subsequently posted another sequence of messages between them, but predominantly from Lunt to him. These messages reinforce the reality. In them she constantly requests help from Westgaph to essentially do her work for her, for example asking him to explain things she doesn’t understand but doesn’t want to do the research herself or asking him to write reports for her that she can use as her own. She asks him to provide her with the ammunition to defeat people she is in social media spats with. She speaks in very disparaging terms about the Halewood constituents she is supposed to represent. On a number of occasions Westgaph tells her he has deadlines of his own to fulfil, very little time to prepare presentations and so on but will do his best for her. But she persists, at one point asking him to spare her an hour to listen to a radio interview she has given, for which he had provided her with much of the information she needed to answer questions, simply so he could comment on how well she had done. She was clearly, throughout this period when she says she had huge concerns about him and when she was supposedly at odds with other women who were “protecting” him, desperately seeking his approval.

In this entirely friendly exchange, which is over a period of more than a year, Chantelle Lunt provides unsolicited information about her son, as people who are friends will do regarding their children. These snippets of information are fairly innocuous. But contextually they evidence the fact that her narrative is false, that she remained as friendly, or more so, with Westgaph than the women she now castigates for supposedly “protecting” him. But she has chosen to ignore the dismantling of her narrative that this exchange provides and has decided instead to accuse Westgaph of going after her son, of harassing her and her family and of stalking. She is going about convincing her followers of the same. This is on the basis that Westgaph has released these messages, which includes unsolicited information about her child, which she provided to him at the same time as she maintains she had informed National Museums Liverpool he was a danger to children. The obvious question her followers need to ask themselves is what kind of person would pass on information about their children to someone they had previously claimed was a danger to children?

At one point, when Westgaph had attended an event Lunt had asked him to speak at, she messaged him afterwards to thank him for coming, followed it up with a voice message, then messaged again to ask him who it was who had attended with him and the question ended with a pair of wide-open eyes emoji. When he told her it was his (13-year-old) son, she told him he was a handsome lad. All normal and friendly, perhaps. But one can only the imagine the four-year spin that would be applied to this exchange had it been the other way around.

A number of people are commenting on-line that Chantelle Lunt is posting videos doubling down on the narrative that she was never friendly with Westgaph and that her interaction with him was on a strictly business basis. This is clearly not true and points to the fact that she used The Post article on Westgaph to undermine the woman she felt rejected by in her own subsequent The Post opinion piece.

Lunt also displays her tendency towards hypocrisy in her attack on Michelle Charters.

Understandably, the honours system is and always has been a politically contentious method of acknowledging public service, or dis-service, and this contention is not confined to acceptance by people of colour. In her X take down of Michelle Charters, Chantelle Lunt references an article identifying numerous people of colour who have regrettably accepted a state honour. None of these people are singled out by Lunt. Her personal attack regarding the acceptance of an OBE is reserved exclusively for Michelle Charters. But then none of those other people have a connection to National Museums Liverpool and had not openly disagreed with Chantelle Lunt’s position or methods regarding Laurence Westgaph. Michelle Charters had done so, and as with other Black women who had publicly disagreed with Chantelle Lunt, like Sonia Bassey MBE and former Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson, it appeared she was determined that there was a price to be paid. And it was to be paid in the form of a full-on public smearing of Michelle Charters’s character, clearly intended to be an exercise in public humiliation whilst simultaneously whipping up the “followers” against her. She displays the negative responses from the comments section of the post announcing the news of the award of the OBE to highlight the outrage and encourage the pile on. But then, isn’t that exactly what ‘X’ is for? Elon has made that very clear. The following is an example of Chantelle Lunt’s populist style:

“…The frustration felt by the community of seeing people who stand on the platform of anti-racist activist, you know, they really hold that space of being decolonial and the first time the palace, you know, reaches out with a breadcrumb, um, a little medal or a souvenir, they’re reaching out for it and saying, yeah, and legitimising a lot of the palace’s brown washing…” [X, 19th June 2024]

There’s a lot more. It’s a 9 minute 20 second rant that, as they say in Elon’s circles, plays to the base. Leaving aside for the moment her apparent ignorance of who decides who the recipients of these honours ought to be – spoiler alert, it aint the royal family – let’s take a look at just a few of those she is talking about, if too coy to name. Let’s see who else her rationale applies to.

Dr Gee Walker, OBE. Anthony Walker’s mother. According to Chantelle Lunt’s narrative “the community” feel frustrated that the mother of a boy murdered in a racist attack and who has thereafter campaigned relentlessly against racial intolerance has, at the first opportunity, felt the need to reach out to grab hold of a “breadcrumb”, a “little medal or souvenir” and is either so craven in her desire to have three letters after her name that she relegates the pain and loss of her son to an afterthought or is so stupid that she doesn’t realise that all she is doing is giving legitimacy to the palace’s brown washing. Seriously? Anthony Walker’s mum? That’s how “the community” feels? Well, it depends which community Lunt believes she’s speaking for and who that community is comprised of.

Doreen Delceita Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, OBE. Stephen Lawrence’s mother. Surely there are people within this “community” in Liverpool that Chantelle Lunt speaks for who know all about the pain of having to fight for years for justice for loved ones who have been taken from them. And yet that “community” supposedly feel frustrated that in the midst of her ongoing anguish Doreen Laurence could not resist reaching out for a breadcrumb, a souvenir, just to help the palace with their brown washing. Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993. Chantelle Lunt began her activism some 27 years later but 4 years into it felt qualified to lecture the likes of Doreen Lawrence on her behaviour.

Patrick Vernon OBE. Patrick was awarded an OBE in 2012 for his work in tackling health inequalities for ethnic minority communities in Britain. Since 2010 he has been leading the campaign for Windrush Day and in 2018 kick-started the campaign for an amnesty for the Windrush Generation as part of the Windrush Scandal which led to a government U-turn in immigration policy. But, according to Chantelle Lunt, should be castigated for reaching out for a breadcrumb.

Sam Beaver King OBE. Otherwise known as Mr Windrush. Labour Councillor and first Black Mayor of Southwark. Set up The Windrush Foundation. Described by Jeremy Corbyn as a legend when he died. And, according to Lunt, apparently frustrated “the community” by reaching out for a breadcrumb. Perhaps “the community” also feel frustrated by his very surname?

There are many more. This critique comes from a person who self-identifies as an academic. But the nature and tone of her attacks have the strong odour and naiveté of student politics. These people would have thought long and hard about the pros and cons of acceptance. But what gives Chantelle Lunt the right to publicly humiliate them?

The virulent attack on Charters is another attack on a Black woman, fuelling further controversy surrounding Lunt. For someone in public office this behaviour certainly doesn’t align with the Nolan Principles of public life, were selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership should be exhibited at all times. These baseless attacks by Lunt have encouraged further unwarranted attacks and harassment of these women from others on several social media platforms.

Being a police officer is also an establishment authority role. Chantelle Lunt made a free choice to join the police. Surely, given their stance on Black activists accepting “little medals”, many in this unidentified “community” would consider the decision to join the police to be just as suspect. And yet she still utilises her short time as a trainee to give the impression that she has lots of experience in the role and should therefore be the go-to-person when it comes to discussing policing and Black people or policing and women. And would it be fair for “the community” to be frustrated at her jumping at the chance to wear a “little medal” around her neck as Deputy Mayor or perhaps as future Mayor at the first opportunity? Have they no issue with the grasping of that particular breadcrumb? Or would Chantelle Lunt decide for them that this is simply a false equivalence? She has also demonstrated that no matter how disdainful she is of Keir Starmer and his Labour Party she is not so principled that she would turn down the opportunity to raise her profile further by becoming a Labour Party Councillor. Or constantly ‘slag off’ Liverpool City Council but jump at the chance to put herself front and centre when invited by the Council to showcase Eurovision.

Chantelle Lunt’s action in hypocritically and falsely calling out these well-respected Black women is unedifying to say the least. It is borne of self-interest. She has said her aim is to bring the community together. How do such actions help to achieve that? Her methods are divisive and she sees only one beneficiary. Chantelle Lunt. Fortunately, she has miscalculated.

In one of her many interviews, she was quoted as saying:

"A democracy means having opposing opinions and being able to voice your opinion, and being able to disagree…” [Liverpool Echo, 22nd January 2022]

Of course it does. But mounting phoney attacks with no identifiable objective other than to assuage one’s pique is not that.

Someone once said, “Trust is fundamental, reciprocal, and pervasive. If it is present, anything is possible. If it is absent, nothing is possible.”

It is hard to trust someone who acts this way.

In Part 4. we will look at Chantelle Lunt’s collaboration with The Post Liverpool and at how she positions herself to the political Left whilst simultaneously whipping up those on the right to make her attacks. A case of the ends definitely not justifying the means.

[therealchannylunt]

Chantelle Lunt Deputy Lord Mayor of Halewood Town Council

Will the Real Chantelle Lunt Please Stand Up! (Part2)

Part 2.

In Part 1. of this exposé we looked at how an article on Laurence Westgaph in The Post Liverpool in February 2025 was followed up by an opinion piece written by local activist Chantelle Lunt in the same on-line publication. This opinion piece was an inaccurate and contradictory re-framing of her actions from the summer of 2020 onwards in relation to Westgaph and was used as an opportunity to maliciously attack other Black women she had decided she had issues with. Part 2. looks at some of those contradictions, the reasons those attacks were fermented and how they subsequently played out.

The attacks on Westgaph and National Museums Liverpool that followed his appointment in 2020, stoked mainly by extreme right-wing sites like Brietbart News, caused discord. Some activists and prominent members of the community spoke out against the rush to condemn and against trial by social media. It should be remembered that at this time the issue was a spent conviction from more than 20 years earlier. Others declined to comment either way, not wanting to get dragged along by what they saw as a lynch mob mentality, but also reluctant to voice explicit support for Westgaph without all of the information.

Nailing Jelly to The Wall.

In this 2025 written opinion piece in The Post Liverpool, Chantelle Lunt is literally “projecting backwards” to go after Black women in prominent positions who she felt slighted by over a period of time from 2020 onwards. Sonia Bassey MBE is a case in point. Bassey is one of those people who declined to engage with Chantelle Lunt beyond initial conversation when she first parachuted into L8. According to others in L8, in those early days Bassey had taken a dim view of Lunt’s clashes with a number of community members, posting videos attacking them and getting into very public social media spats. Some of these were with elders within the community who had been active for many years before Lunt had been born. It was observed that it was painful to watch these elders having to try to defend themselves from social media attacks and this cemented the rejection of Lunt by many in L8, including Bassey. And it seems Chantelle Lunt doesn’t handle rejection very well.

It also transpires from reports that on a later occasion Bassey challenged Lunt on Twitter for not crediting Westgaph for work of his Lunt was using whilst giving the impression it was her own. It was known that Lunt contacted Bassey to say how much this disclosure had upset her and how she had tried on a number of occasions to contact Westgaph to explain but he hadn’t got back to her. This was some time after his appointment by NML, when he was supposed to be persona non grata, and after Lunt says she had called NML with her concerns about his appointment. Others confirm that Bassey declined to return her calls and the invitation to engage with her. It seems this rejection has resulted in Bassey finding herself shoehorned into the middle of Lunt’s opinion piece in The Post, accusingly titled “Women in high places have closed ranks around Laurence Westgaph for too long.”

“…back in 2020, the online critics of Westgaph’s hiring were harshly rebuked by some local Black leaders, particularly regarding the statutory rape charge…”

“…Sonia Bassey MBE – a decorated community leader and then-chair of the museums RESPECT group, of which Westgaph was also a member – engaged with critics of NML’s tweet, dismissing the accusations as defamation against a Black man.”

“It felt like a message was being sent to Liverpool’s Black community: that this wasn’t the moment to break ranks. Surely a woman as high profile as Bassey would not risk her career and her many accolades to defend this man if he wasn’t innocent?” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

A quick internet search and conversations with people in L8 show that it is not true that in 2020 Bassey was the then chair of RESPECT at NML. She wasn’t. But saying that she was is an attempt to give currency to the suggestion that this was motivation for Bassey to “protect” Westgaph. In fact, she wasn’t appointed to the position until 2021. But the truth doesn’t assist with Lunt’s narrative. And although Lunt claims to have disapproved of people belonging to groups which included Westgaph, she herself did up until at least 2022.

People are clear that Bassey’s criticisms were directed at the on-line racist abuse being aimed at Westgaph and the wider community in 2020 and that she was openly disdainful of the trial by social media bandwagon. They are clear that she made no attempt to defend him for having sex with a 15-year-old girl 20 years earlier. People are also clear that Bassey would not recognise the fact that she has a “career” to risk. She is not in any paid role in the city. She volunteers her time for charity and community organisations. (We will see in Part 3. what Chantelle Lunt thinks of Sonia Bassey and others accepting that particular accolade).

In 2025, with the benefit of hindsight, Lunt goes on to say:

“I quickly realised that my actions were out of step with the wider activist scene, where many were standing firmly behind Westgaph. It became clear to me that as an activist with a far smaller profile, I would have to put my feelings and personal traumas aside and campaign in a space dominated by a man who was not only linked to some of the most prominent organisations in the city but also most of its Black leaders.” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

This smacks of self-interest. What did her profile have to do with any of this? And why does she claim that she had no option but to put her principles aside because her campaigning profile was more important than the issue she’d made a formal complaint about? It actually sounds more like a retroactive excuse as to why she maintained contact with Westgaph throughout this period.

“It had been over a year since I first raised concerns about Westgaph to the museum… By this time, I was campaigning with a recently incorporated group. One of the first decisions I put forward to fellow members in one of our earliest meetings was the need to draw a clear boundary: It was agreed that we would not work with Laurence Westgaph.” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

This was in the Autumn 2021. On the one hand it comes as no surprise to learn that she went to a meeting with a decision she had already made. What isn’t clear is why she hadn’t drawn a clear boundary for herself in 2020 but had instead continued to interact with Westgaph on a very friendly basis. And she didn’t draw a clear boundary for other groups until 2022:

“It wasn’t until the summer of 2022… that I took further action… I removed Westgaph from a small group of campaigners I adminned….” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

So, two years later they are still connected.

And here is another contradiction. Lunt claims in the article that a woman who had told her that she did not want to share space with her, and who Lunt claims was using a Black wellbeing group to discredit the allegations against Westgaph, verbally attacked her at an event and was so angry she had to be “dragged” away by her partner:

“This moment made me reflect on a police briefing I had attended about sexual harassment in the workplace – specifically, how perpetrators of abuse recruit and manipulate women in positions of authority to defend them against allegations. It appeared that Westgaph was surrounded by well-respected women of all races who were ready to protect him from any accusations that came his way, meaning he had to do very little to defend himself.” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

Notwithstanding the asinine but vindictive nature of this observation, if Lunt cannot recognise how offensive such a blanket slur is – against women she is targeting for either rejecting or simply not agreeing with her – then it should be up to others to help her recognise it. But here is the contradiction. The passage above is bestowed with gravitas: We are given to understand that it was a serious police briefing to help officers recognise this and other aspects of sexual harassment which Lunt and her colleagues paid close attention to in order to help them in their role and careers. Except she has previously reflected on this “training” and given another version of it elsewhere.

“In another incident, Lunt and her colleagues undertook sexual harassment training, which was described to them as ‘the biggest reputational threat to the force’.

‘In the training session, no one was really bothered. We all knew that we were just doing it to protect ourselves, to be able to say, ‘Look at this great training package we have on offer.’

During the session, Lunt says that an older officer made a sexual comment towards a young female PCSO who was unable to find a seat in the busy room. ‘The sergeant was there and he just laughed along with it,’ she says” [The Stylist, 2021]

Evidently, which version gets told depends on the audience and the impression she is trying to convey at any particular time.

Another Black woman who Lunt has repeatedly attacked on social media is former Mayor of Liverpool Joanne Anderson.

But in an earlier interview with Meeting of Minds in July 2021, when asked about how Anderson being of mixed race but identifying as Black played into her being recently elected as the first Black Woman Mayor in the UK, Lunt spoke for some time about the colour of a person’s skin (her own included) influencing how they saw the world, how their experiences might give them empathy with other marginalised groups, etc. She then warned about tokenism and the importance of scrutinising someone to see what they are about before finally giving her view on Anderson.

“It’s important to scrutinise leaders, to say ‘OK, you’re Black, you identify as Black but what are you about, which is what I kind of did with Joanne. I took a lot of time to see what her policies were, to see what her interests were, to see you know, what motivated her and from what I’ve seen she’s someone who aligns with my views, she’s someone who, you know, isn’t ashamed to talk about her racial identity, she sees the issues facing the Black Community…” and later “…You get a feeling for celebrities and politicians who, although they are Black and they will, you know, use their Blackness to get into a position of power, they don’t want to rock the boat so they won’t really talk about any of the issues affecting Black people. I don’t get that feeling from Joanne. I get – she’s from L8 (she isn’t and has never claimed to be) – so she’s got a very, well, I get the feeling, I don’t know her, she’s got a very strong sense of community, and I think she’d be hard pressed not to want to support the Black community in Liverpool…” [Meeting of Minds interview with Chantelle Lunt, July 2021]

Less than a month later this changed when Lunt joined and sought to put herself front and centre of efforts to stop an arms fair taking place in the city. As Lunt had previously identified, Anderson was in opposition to the arms fair taking place. But both hers and the council’s hands were legally tied as she made clear:

“Liverpool Mayor Joanne Anderson has said she and the council she runs is powerless to stop a controversial arms fair from going ahead in the city in October.

The city leader said she is 'appalled' the event is being held in the city, but said the council has no legal ability to stop it.

Mayor Anderson spoke at a cabinet meeting this morning to explain that she and the council have found no way to stop the event from taking place.

In a statement, she said: ‘AOC Europe 2021 raises serious moral and ethical questions. I am appalled that this event is being held in Liverpool – in one of our buildings. Many of you have been in touch with me to outline, in no uncertain terms, your views. I am a pacifist, and I have been consistently clear that I am in absolute agreement with you.

However, the inescapable fact is that it is lawful, and we have no public powers to stop it. In the same way, we are powerless to stop other people who are not welcome in our city like the far right, from being in our city, unless they break the law.

I have sought extensive soundings from our legal team, but based on their expert advice, regrettably there is nothing that I as Mayor, or the council, can do to prevent this event from taking place’.” [Liverpool Echo, 27th August 2021]

This wasn’t enough for Lunt. The social media attacks came thick and fast. At one stage Lunt uploaded a 10 thread tweet she had written citing what she considered to be Anderson’s failings. It was nasty and personal, and it appears it has since been removed. It brought much racist commentary to Anderson’s feed. When Lunt posted in support of Dianne Abbot and called for protection of our Black politicians, Anderson responded that this was ironic given that the only time she had received racism on her social media was when Lunt brought it to her page. Anderson felt compelled to respond with her own 10 thread tweet highlighting the positive things she had achieved. But still the attacks came on all manner of issues Lunt was connected to.

In March 2022 Lunt appears to have orchestrated a story that “A Labour establishment ‘memo’ is barring left-wing black activist Chantelle Lunt from participating in the ‘Liverpool against Racism’ festival next month, according to sources in the city.” [The SkwawkBox, March 2022]

She was quoted as saying:

“They’ve not given any excuse for it… An issue that’s often raised in this area is that Black people are often ignored and that’s not on, we have as much right and as much voice in the fight against racism as anyone.

As for me personally, I’ve more than proven that I’ve been fighting racism for a long time as a police officer and as an activist. So no, there’s been no reason given and I doubt there will be.”

Of course, there was no ‘memo’ and no evidence is provided to demonstrate that there was. When they were writing of the Liverpool Labour Establishment, they meant Anderson. As Mayor, she had set up a Liverpool Against Racism Festival which people could contribute to by hosting their own events and logging it onto the Culture Team website. Word soon got around that Lunt was fuming because she felt she was worthy of a personal invitation to speak and had not received one. She refused to accept the real reason. She references this rejection in The Post Opinion piece:

“At this time, I noticed I was receiving fewer invitations to cultural events in the city” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

As for the assertion that she has more than proven that she has been fighting racism for a long time as a police officer and as an activist, she doesn’t say in comparison to who. Even if she fought racism from day one in the police force, that amounts to a maximum period of 9 months. By her own account, at the time she said this she had been an activist for 22 months. These Black women she was attacking had been at the forefront of activism for decades.

Nonetheless, she decided that Anderson had to pay a price, and the opportunity arose with The Post article about Westgaph:

“…The Post’s investigation caused an immediate storm and was clearly being shared on WhatsApp groups across the city. But I was struck (she means disappointed) by how muted the online reaction was. Very few community or political figures in Liverpool shared the article on their social media or condemned the damaging abuse…”

“There were no public mea culpas by public figures who had happily appeared at events with Westgaph or joined him for cosy interviews… (although she writes ‘public figures’, she only intends to name one. One that was no longer a public figure but a private citizen) – including former mayor Joanne Anderson, who sat down with him on Slavery Remembrance Day in 2021 for a ‘poignant conversation’ which was shared by Liverpool City Council on its YouTube account...” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

The hypocrisy and spitefulness of this petulant paragraph will become apparent in Part 3. Anderson was not a woman in high place when Lunt was accusing her, along with Bassey, of remaining silent following The Post article. Nor was she a community or political figure. She was no longer a public figure as she longer held public office. Nor was there any evidence that she had even seen this on-line article or made a conscious choice to remain ‘silent’ as a private member of the public. Her life had moved on. Lunt’s clearly hadn’t. She chooses to use these conscious inaccuracies to satisfy her lingering feelings of what she sees as righteous indignation. More of the same will be revealed in Part 3.

The only ‘evidence’ she can produce is that Anderson committed the heinous crime of sitting down with Westgaph for a discussion on Slavery Remembrance Day in August 2021. When trying to nail jelly to the wall, the hope is that at least some of it will stay up there and create the desired impression, in this case an unfavourable one. To continue the metaphor, it is clear that the only result here is a floor full of jelly and a wall full of nails.

In Part 3. we will discover the rank hypocrisy employed by Chantelle Lunt whilst simultaneously trying to destroy the characters and reputations of other Black women.

[therealchannylunt]

Chantelle Lunt during her time at Merseyside Police.

Will the Real Chantelle Lunt Please Stand Up! (Part1)

An Exposé in four parts.

Chantelle Lunt is a name that may resonate across Merseyside and beyond in activist circles. Rising quickly since 2017/18 from a Merseyside Police trainee officer to activist during 2020, Lunt has emerged as a public figure representing the Labour Party as a Knowsley Councillor and Deputy Mayor for Halewood Town Council in 2024. 

Lunt's activism is deeply rooted in her personal experiences, giving authenticity to her involvement in various campaigns. Her ability to position herself at the forefront of issues, often leveraging media attention, has helped her build a notable profile. However, her journey has not been without controversy. Critics have pointed to contradictions and inconsistencies in her actions, questioning her motives and the authenticity of her advocacy. This four-part expose delves into the complexities of Lunt's journey from Merseyside Police trainee to a public figure as Labour Party Councillor in Knowsley and Deputy Mayor for Halewood Town Council, exploring both her achievements and the criticisms she faces, particularly in relation to her activism and undermining Black people and the Liverpool 8 Black community.

Part 1. A Paragon of Selfless Activism or An Agent of Chaos with A Narrative Driven by A Self-Promoting Agenda?

Many people, particularly within Merseyside Black activist circles, will by now be familiar with the name. The 923 voters who elected her as the Labour Party councillor for the St Gabriel’s Ward on Knowsley Borough Council in May 2024, beating the Green Party candidate by 71 votes, will be aware of her role there, as should all of her constituents. A cursory glance at her social media would support the view that she appears to be a committed representative at the local level. She is also Deputy Mayor of Halewood Town Council.

Her on-line postings highlight that many of the campaigns she aligns herself with have resonance with her direct lived experience and this gives authenticity to her involvement in the causes she cares about. Her voice is loud. She is not inarticulate. She has passion.

She has somewhat skilfully built her own personal profile by understanding that positioning yourself front and centre, for example regularly contacting The Liverpool Echo with stories around the issues you are trying to highlight, can easily and quickly – as has been the case – bring you to the attention of other outlets, including TV, who have you at the top of their list as their go-to-person for any of those issues. Once there, you have to be able to speak confidently and demonstrate at least a passing familiarity with the subject, and she clearly does. That, most reasonable people would argue, forms a significant part of successful campaigning.

If we were in a fight, we needed help with, then on the face of it, Chantelle Lunt appears to be a person we might want to have on our side.

So why are more and more people pointing to her contradictions and inconsistencies and increasingly asking, “whose side is she on, apart from her own?”

The Background

By her own account, Chantelle Lunt only became an activist in May 2020 after seeing news reports of the protests following the murder of George Floyd in America [This Triggered Millenial (sic) blog 18th February 2025]. The account places her in her second year at university when she had this epiphany. Other accounts suggest it was right after she quit as a trainee police officer [Activism, Drama and HipHop at HideOut (HideOut 2022)]. However, she was a trainee police officer for a relatively short period at some point during 2017/18. She claims she left the police as a result of the racism and misogyny she witnessed. In any case, she apparently hadn’t felt any need to be politically active prior to May 2020. Whilst still a university student she decided that rather than join any existing Merseyside community efforts which sought to highlight, oppose and resist racism in its many forms, she would start her own organisation, Merseyside BLM Alliance. Her Bio from a speaking appearance marking an International Women’s Day event for National Museums Liverpool in March 2024 (more on the significance of this in part 3.) states that she established Merseyside BLM Alliance “…when BLM was moving out of the news cycle.” However, this seems to be somewhat at odds with her account that she founded it just after George Floyd was murdered, for it was that horrific event that demonstrably reinvigorated the BLM movement, not Chantelle Lunt.

Nonetheless, this confidence in her own abilities encouraged her to parachute into Toxteth (Liverpool 8) to engage with the local community there from a position of leadership. By her own admission it didn’t go smoothly, and she made mistakes. She doesn’t identify what these mistakes might have been. But activists from within the L8 community point to the distinction between confidence and arrogance and the fanciful notion that they needed someone from outside of their community to show them the way and rescue them. She says, “Despite being Black, I was treated as an outsider and regarded with suspicion by many – something I hadn’t responded to well initially.” [This Triggered Millenial (sic) blog 18th February 2025]. She suggests this was because the tight knit community was wary of outsiders. What she seems unable to acknowledge is that what that community in particular would be most wary of is an ex-police officer parachuting into their midst to lead them, as well as the notion that they had been standing idly by waiting to be led. In her own words, speaking about Toxteth in 2020 Lunt said “I would say the relationship has broken down and the police have a lot of work to do if they want to engage and gain the trust of the Black community” [Liverpool Echo, 3rd July 2021]. So, the notion that people are rejecting her as an outsider and not responding well, is also fuelled by her use of Liverpool 8’s Black community as a platform for media coverage. Lunt was not even born when the Toxteth Uprisings took place. 

Not responding well to the reaction probably refers to what some people recall as her subsequently labelling L8 as homophobic. Naturally, this didn’t go down very well either.

People relate that they were put off by her self-promoting style. Typical was an article she wrote in July 2020 titled: Why are we not talking about Institutionalised Police Racism in the UK? She contradicts her headline with her first sentence.

“Institutionalised racism is a term often thrown about when talking about the police force.”

If it’s often a term thrown about when we are talking about it, how are we not talking about it? The truth is people were talking about it regularly and widely. And because it has manifested itself on an ongoing basis people continue to do so.

She goes on to relate her own experiences of racism within the police, as well as highlighting high profile cases. Most of what she writes is easily agreed with. It’s of a decent length and contains detail. But she then states:

“I am often asked why I don’t talk in much detail about my experiences of racism within the police force. The short answer is, I am frightened.” 

Her final sentence of the same article is a direct contradiction of that:

“I am tired of being the only person in the room talking about police racism, but if I have to use my outside voice, I will.” [This Triggered Millenial (sic) blog, Chantelle Lunt July 9th 2020]

Lunt's journey as an activist has been marked by numerous contradictions and controversies and her approach has often been seen as self-promoting and divisive. It is easy to see why people turned away from her and this self-promoting attitude. Trying to connect in L8 whilst telling people that she was the only one talking about police racism was not a smart thing to do. People there quickly saw through it. They saw that she was simply trying to make a name for herself by putting herself front and centre of each issue. As one local said, “Sometimes what she had to say was ridiculous and contradictory. Sometimes it was spot on. But even when she was saying the right things, you couldn’t shake the feeling that it was for the wrong reasons. It all just seemed performative rather than real.”

Chantelle Lunt relates that during this time she was told that if she wanted any success advocating for Black Lives on Merseyside then she must work with local historian and key figure (her emphases) in the L8 community, Laurence Westgaph [This Triggered Millenial (sic) blog 18th February 2025]. She doesn’t identify how that “success” would be measured nor why, for that matter, advocating for Black people on Merseyside should be measured in terms of success for Chantelle Lunt. In a later ‘X’ takedown of Michelle Charters, Head of Liverpool’s International Slavery Museum, for Michelle’s acceptance of an OBE [‘X’, 19th June 2024], Lunt muses on the establishment accolades she herself might be offered “…in 30 years’ time, when I’m Michelle’s age” and insists that she will turn them down. Many will consider this to be a laudable position to take. But it also demonstrates that she clearly has a vision for the trajectory of the Chantelle Lunt project and believes that in 30 years’ time Merseyside and beyond will consider her to be entirely worthy of such accolades. But she has also said that the work she does will hopefully mean there will be no need for activists in 10 years’ time [LJMU Chantelle Lunt profile]. Presumably because Black people who have been fighting it most of their lives haven’t really been trying or working as hard as Chantelle Lunt.  In a society steeped in the constructs of racism since the 17th century, when it was used to codify slavery [Rugemer, 2013], this could also be seen as a dangerous mix of arrogance and naivety (more on the attack on Michelle Charters in Part 3.).

Talk of The Devil (or quite possibly not): Laurence Westgaph

This is where things get messy. Confused. And certainly, even more contradictory. Whether through culpability or not, the part unwittingly played by Westgaph in Chantelle Lunt’s unfounded and hypocritical attacks on a number of respected Black women has caused chaos, as intended. On 8th February 2025, The Post Liverpool published an on-line article titled “Laurence Westgaph was a known abuser. Why did National Museums Liverpool look the other way?” Westgaph had a spent conviction related to having sex with a 15 year old girl he had met in a nightclub twenty years earlier when he was in his early twenties.  He claimed he had believed her to be older (as, evidently, had the club door staff and bar staff). The judge acknowledged that the girl gave every impression of being older and Westgaph received a community sentence. The article makes it clear that this was well known when Westgaph was appointed in August 2020.

It isn’t clear why an article regarding this matter wasn’t published until February 2025 when Westgaph’s tenure had, in fact, already come to an end in June the previous year. The article claims that new, anonymous, allegations had come to light during his time with NML. They wrote: “As one serving staff member put it to The Post, ‘How do I bring young people in [to the museums] when there’s this monster here?’” But The Post didn’t publish that apparently pressing concern until 8 months after his tenure had come to an end. It is not the intention of this piece to carry out a postmortem or critique of that article. It may turn out that there is substance to the many (mostly anonymous) allegations made therein. Or it may not. Neither is it the intention of this piece to mount a defence of Laurence Westgaph.

On 15th February 2025, The Post Liverpool followed up with an opinion piece written by Chantelle Lunt. It is mostly a retrospective of her version of events and the apparently brave part she played in trying to bring Westgaph to account. This is the piece that requires scrutiny as even a cursory reading reveals inconsistencies and contradictions that cannot all be down to a helpfully fuzzy memory or sloppy research, not for one who self-identifies as an academic. It seems to be a deliberate re-writing of events with a malevolent intent as its main purpose. She followed this up three days later with a slightly re-written piece for her own blog.

She says she first met Westgaph in the summer of 2020 when she attended one of his popular walking tours devoted to the history of Liverpool’s role in the slave trade. The subsequent passage is typical of her smoke and mirrors approach:

“While it was clear he knew his Black history, two things struck me about him that I hadn’t expected. The first was the surprising fact that his tours were attended primarily by older white people. The second was just how guarded he was. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but he regarded me with the same cautious air I had encountered when I was a police officer, off duty, and told people what I did for a living. I don’t think I’m merely projecting backwards when I say Westgaph felt to me like he was a man with something to hide.” [Opinion: The Post, 15th February 2025]

In her later re-written piece, she adds after “older white people”:

“He was a well-styled man in his early 40’s and I had expected his tours to appeal to a younger, more diverse audience.” [This Triggered Millenial (sic) blog 18th February 2025]

Why was it surprising to her that this tour was attended primarily by older white people? Should they not be made aware of the slave history of the city? How is Westgaph responsible for the demographic composition of the people who booked onto that or any other of his tours? And what evidence from her experience of this one tour led her to the conclusion that this applied to all of his “tours”, plural? She slips this in as fact, when it is in fact based on nothing more than her imaginings. And why does she feel the need to categorise this as being “about him”? In this retroactive piece, although she couldn’t quite put her finger on it (evidently), she chooses to regard his cautious air towards her as an indication that he was a man with something to hide. Her later interactions with him completely undermine this frankly ludicrous assumption. She fails to recognise the more obvious explanation. It is highly likely that as a “well-connected… key figure” within L8 circles he would know all about her “mistakes” and would be aware of her previous role as a police officer making him as cautious of her as everyone else in those L8 circles.

She says that this was around the time he was appointed by NML and that because children go to museums his appointment didn’t sit right with her. So, she called NML to log her concerns. In the summer of 2020. Again, this is a total contradiction of her later interactions with Westgaph and NML, which, together with the hypocritical nature of her attacks on other Black women, will be highlighted in Part 3 of this 4-part exposé.

NEXT: In Part 2. we explore why Chantelle Lunt feel the need to attack other female Black activists and look at the part rejection plays in her narrative.