Quote from author: ""One thing I have never been able to understand is why an organisation like the National Black Police Association is allowed to exist. It is by its very nature racist - hoping to promote the interests of a group solely on the basis of the colour of its members. A police officer can lose his job if he is found to be a member of the British National Party, which in the past excluded non-whites. But the NPBA, which is solely for non-white police officers, is allowed to operate with impunity. Hardly seems fair, does it?""Source."Stephen Leather, who churns outs [sic] ebook and paperback thrillers, boasted at last month's Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival: 'As soon as my book is out I'm on Facebook and Twitter several times a day talking about it. I'll go on to several forums, the well-known forums, and post there under my name and under various other names and various other characters. You build up this whole network of characters who talk about your books and sometimes have conversations with yourself.'Leather was not ashamed. He crowed like a prize cock and expected his fellow crime writers to applaud his cunning.Jeremy Duns, a British thriller writer who exposes plagiarists in his spare time, found that Leather was nastier than that. When he wanted to fake an identity, Leather picked on Steve Roach, a minor writer who had made disobliging remarks about one of his books. Leather created Twitter ""sockpuppet"" accounts in the names of @Writerroach and @TheSteveRoach. Roach described on an Amazon forum how one account had '16,000 followers all reading ""my"" tweets about how much ""I"" loved SL's books'. He was nervous. He told Duns in a taped conversation that Leather was 'very powerful' and not a man to be crossed. Roach emailed Leather and begged to be left alone. Pleased that his cyber bullying campaign had worked, Leather graciously gave Roach control of the @Writerroach account he had created, to Roach's 'great relief'."Source.
