Covid: Cinema & Co flouted ban to show conspiracy film

Anna Redfern was served with a council closure notice on 18 November

A cinema that was ordered to close after breaking Covid rules flouted the ban to premiere a film by the son of conspiracy theorist David Icke.

Swansea's Cinema & Co was ordered to shut by a judge after boss Anna Redfern breached several Covid regulations.

Redfern, 45, was also fined £15,000 and given a suspended prison sentence for contempt of court.

But she admitted showing a film making serious unfounded allegations against the NHS after the first court order.

Directed and produced by Mr Icke's son Jaymie, it makes several baseless accusations against NHS doctors and nurses, including that they are deliberately killing elderly people in hospitals in order to "boost the numbers" of people dying of Covid.

The film was described as "completely false", "pernicious" and "dangerous" by the head of research for the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

Redfern told BBC Wales: "If the BBC has any concerns regarding the content of the documentary's premiere we screened A Good Death? I suggest that they discuss them with the production company.

"Firstly, Cinema & Co does not practise censorship.

"Secondly, caring for my mother at the end of her life and reflecting upon my own mortality, I have given a great deal of consideration as to what constitutes a 'good death' and found the film very thought provoking."

After this article was first published, the film's director Jaymie Icke contacted BBC Wales to defend the film's content.

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David Icke is infamous for his belief that he is the son of God and that the Royal family are shape-shifting lizards.

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube suspended his accounts in 2020 for posting misleading claims about the pandemic.

Facebook said David Icke's official account published "health misinformation that could cause physical harm"

Before the second court hearing, which ended with her narrowly avoiding Christmas behind bars, Redfern was interviewed by another of Mr Icke's sons, Gareth, on his video streaming service, and said it would be a "pleasure" to host the premiere of the "eye-opening" film and that she was doing it to "disseminate real information".

After receiving a court order to close, the cinema reopened on 1 December for a festive screening of Santa Claus: The Movie.

Four nights later, it hosted the "world premiere" of the Icke family's conspiracy film.

The cinema's media spokeswoman, Jacquelyn Haley, who was at the screening, has shared articles on her Twitter and Facebook accounts - alleging with no evidence - that Covid is caused by 5G phone signals, vaccines have caused more deaths than the virus, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is responsible for murder due to "deaths caused by the vaccines".

She also said that if parents allowed their children to be vaccinated then "you don't deserve your children".

In a video taken at the cinema after the film aired, Ms Haley implored people to "watch the film and share it far and wide".

The cinema opened a day after a judge ordered it to close

Also present at the screening was Wesley Garner, from Morriston, Swansea, who was one of three people fined more than £2,000 earlier this year for travelling to Liverpool during lockdown to heckle staff at a school for getting tested for Covid.

On his public Facebook page, Mr Garner makes unfounded claims that "there is no pandemic", that the vaccine is made of "5G" phone signals, and has compared the vaccine roll out to "genocide".

In a Facebook video filmed and broadcast live from the cinema by Mr Garner, Redfern is seen serving customers while Jaymie Icke explains their "truth movement" had been "crying out" for people like the Swansea businesswoman who "refused to back down".

The following week, however, Redfern admitted being in contempt of court and promised the judge her "stand" was at an end and that she would comply with the local authority.

Callum Hood, head of research at CCDH, said: "What is really dangerous about the film that the Icke brothers have put together and put on at this cinema in Swansea is that it is painting hardworking NHS doctors and nurses as deliberately setting out to murder patients strictly in order to push up the numbers of the Covid pandemic, which is a complete reversal of what's actually going on in the NHS."

Mr Hood is an expert on the Icke family, having studied David Icke's behaviour for decades.

"I think this is a fairly typical piece of conspiracy theory propaganda about Covid, in that it took real moving stories about people who've lost loved ones during the pandemic, but then tried to turn it to the purpose of conspiracy theories by claiming that they have been deliberately killed in order to push up the numbers of people dying with Covid," he said.

"That was what was particularly pernicious and dangerous about it."

Redfern has received more than £61,000 in donations since she first received a closure notice after a crowdfunding page was set up by former Brexit Party and Abolish the Welsh Assembly candidate Richard Taylor.

Redfern told the BBC she intended to use the funds to "educate and empower others to claim their universally declared human rights back" and to take her family on holiday, while the rest would be spent on activities such as "free film screenings for all schools living in poverty".

At the latest hearing, Redfern's barrister Jonathan Gwyn Mendus Edwards told the court his client did not run the business for profit and was living off £30,000 in savings. District Judge Neale Thomas said he was "sceptical" of this claim.

In May 2019, Cinema & Co went into insolvent liquidation and Companies House records show Redfern then incorporated a new company at the same address named "Cinema & Go Ltd".

Swansea council said last month that the cinema had also received more than £52,000 in Covid-related grants since the start of the pandemic.

Officers are assessing whether any of the grant conditions have been breached and "whether any of the grants should be recovered".

On her public Facebook page, Redfern has previously shared anti-vaccine content, including one post which made unfounded claims that children were being "coerced" into being injected with 'an experimental vaccine", and that children had a "100% chance of surviving Covid-19".

Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that up to 10 December there have been two deaths involving Covid in children under 14 - a boy and a girl - out of 9,102 in Wales. There is no evidence that vaccines have contributed to any death in Wales.