Cult members jailed for storming court and trying to kidnap a coroner

‘Cult’ members who tried to kidnap a coroner for ‘detrimental necromancy’ have been jailed.

Mark Christopher, 59, Matthew Martin, 47, Shiza Harper, 45, and Sean Harper, 38, appeared at a coroner’s court with rigid handcuffs, branded hi-vis vests and an image of senior Essex coroner Lincoln Brookes on April 20 last year.

The group, known as the Federal Postal Court or ‘Court of the People’, accused him of performing necromancy – the supposed practice of communicating with the dead to predict the future.

He had previously received a series of bizarre letters before being told that ‘corporal punishment may be administered’.

Mr Brookes said the emails, which claimed to be warrants ‘for seizure of goods and persons’, as ‘troubling’ and ‘upsetting’.

In his sentencing remarks, the judge Mr Justice James Goss said: ‘There is and can be no doubt that your intention was to shut down the coroner’s court, arrest and detain the coroner, handcuff him and take him to the police station.’

Matthew Martin, 47, Sean Harper, 38, Mark Christopher, 59, and Shiza Harper, 45 (Picture: Essex Police)

Mr Christopher, ‘who lay at the very heart of these offences’, was sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiracy to kidnap and falsely imprison Lincoln Brookes, senior coroner for Essex.

His three co-conspirators – Mr Martin, 47, Ms Harper, 45, and Mr Harper, 38 – have been jailed for 30 months each for conspiracy to kidnap and commit false imprisonment.

Mr Christopher was also found guilty of sending threatening letters with intent to cause distress or anxiety, for which the judge handed him a concurrent 18-month sentence for malicious communication.

Mr Brookes wasn’t at the coroner’s court when the group arrived and demanded to know where he was.

He was attending a relative’s medical appointment at the time, and was told not to come to work as ‘these are the people from the letter – they’re coming to get you’.

Essex area coroner Michelle Brown said the group came into her courtroom and the leader ‘kept demanding that I find and get Mr Brookes’.

The judge, Mr Justice Goss, told jurors while summing up evidence in the case that the Christopher was the ‘self-appointed leader’ with the title ‘chief judge of England and all dominions’.

He said Martin was a ‘sheriff and a coroner’, Sean Harper a ‘sheriff’ and his wife Shiza Harper a ‘postal inspector and auditor’.

Martin, who represented himself, said he was ‘here to save younglings’ and ‘we find younglings tied up in places like underneath Asda supermarkets’.

Each were ordered to pay a £228 surcharge and handed a restraining order banning them from entering any courthouse in England and Wales without prior appointment.

They have also been banned from contacting either Ms Brown or Mr Brookes.

In a victim impact statement read out in court by prosecutor Allister Walker on Monday, Mr Brookes said: ‘I regularly have nightmares about the incident and the suspects attending my home.’

Ms Brown told the court on Monday: ‘I do believe I will never feel safe… I wake up at night thinking I can hear someone trying to get in, then I sit up all night.’

Detective Chief Inspector Nathan Hutchinson, of Essex Police, said afterwards: ‘Whilst we appreciate freedom of opinion, this group’s ideologies are nothing more than nonsensical intimidation and oppression with no regard for the law.

‘Christopher told the group that they could take control of an active court, make arrests, and threaten public servants who were just trying to do their job supporting the people of Essex.’

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