16 August 2012
Paul Martin is a BBC-linked journalist who I exposed as a fraud last month, in a major investigative feature. Although a freelancer, Martin has been described by Newsnight as “our correspondent” at least once. The problem is that Martin has a bad habit of using false identities and making up stories, as my article showed.
Since this story got out, Martin (whose real name seems to be Paul Cainer) has been trying to cover his tracks. I concluded my feature saying:
What appears to be Martin’s Facebook profile has one “friend” listed as “Paul Cainer.” Both profiles appear to be rarely used, with only small handfuls of contacts. “Paul Cainer” is “friends” with the British ambassador to Israel Matthew Gould, the Israeli settler Itamar Marcus and Alan Mendoza, co-founder of the neoconservative think tank the Henry Jackson Society.
Martin/Cainer has since then deleted, or made private his “Paul Cainer” Facebook account. Unluckily for him, I anticipated he might do such a thing, so took these screenshots. His “Paul Martin” Facebook account is currently still public.
This was a truly clumsy effort on Martin’s part. His LinkedIn page is still up (at the time of writing). And besides, as my article showed, I have far more solid evidence proving that he was known as Cainer in South Africa.
Despite all this, the BBC seems to be sticking by their man. As a freelanceer, it remains to be seen whether or not they will employ him again.
That’s not the end of this story though. Stay tuned to EI for more on this.
