Inside the bizarre world of 'cult' leader and self-styled judge who claimed he could cure cancer and malaria... but is now behind bars for trying to kidnap a coroner at a council office in Essex
Daily Mail, UK/November 7, 2024
By Tom Rawstorne
As the leader of an anti-establishment cult who built a devoted following based on his ability to defy the authorities, Mark Christopher has had a very bad week or so.
Last Monday, the self-appointed Chief Judge Of England And All Dominions was jailed for seven years by the very judicial system that he claimed to have jurisdiction over.
At the same time the 59-year-old was branded ‘manipulative and dishonest’ and accused of preying on those with money problems.
Which is something that Sean Harper and his wife Shiza, a former special constable with the Metropolitan Police, have first-hand experience of.
This middle-class couple became ‘disciples’ of Christopher, and handed over almost £30,000 to him on the understanding that he would be able to eliminate their ‘unlawful’ mortgage.
Instead, not only is their £500,000 home now being repossessed, but they too now find themselves behind bars having followed their leader in a madcap plan to kidnap a coroner.
Last April the trio, accompanied by a fourth follower, Matthew Martin, descended on the council buildings in Chelmsford, Essex.
Arriving in cars and hi-viz jackets adorned with the group’s insignia, their intention was to shut down the coroner’s court, arrest Lincoln Brookes, the county’s senior coroner, handcuff him and take him to the police station.
Their motivation? As the self-appointed leader of the group, Christopher claimed to have power over all ‘governments, courts and corporations’, and a coroner’s court ‘coup’ was just what was needed to prove his worth to his worldwide followers.
In preparation, days earlier he had rallied his so-called ‘sheriffs’, telling them in an online rant that he expected them to take part and to administer ‘corporal punishment’ if needed.
‘You are doing this because the country is going to be taken over by Nazis,’ he told them. ‘Nazis that think they can kick your door down and mutilate your children for surgery ... you have no option but to get a bat and whack them to death.’
So in thrall were Harper, 38, and his wife Shiza, 45, from South Benfleet, Essex, and 47-year-old Martin, the 6ft 5in ‘muscle’ of the unit with a past conviction for possessing an offensive weapon, they willingly went along with the plan.
But when they arrived at the council offices, Mr Brookes – by sheer fluke – was not there that day. So in the end it was the intruders – not their targets – who ended up being arrested.
Following a two-week trial in July they were all found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment.
Christopher was also convicted of sending threatening letters to Mr Brookes with intent to cause distress or anxiety. He was jailed for seven years.
A consultant psychiatrist had pronounced him mentally stable, finding no evidence that he was thought disordered or showing symptoms of a psychotic nature.
His ‘disciples’, meanwhile, each received sentences of 30 months.
Sentencing him, Mr Justice James Goss told Christopher: ‘On all the material before me and having observed you through ten days of the trial and your interaction with your co-defendants I am satisfied that you are intelligent, persuasive, manipulative and dishonest.
‘Your group preys on the vulnerabilities of others, particularly those in financial difficulties and whom you are able to persuade to pay you considerable sums of money and do your bidding.’
And what the Mail can today exclusively reveal is that it is not the first time Christopher has cashed in in such a way.
Ten years ago, posing as a minister from an American ‘church’, he held seminars promoting so-called ‘cleansing water’ that was billed as a cure for diseases including HIV, cancer, autism and malaria.
Undercover journalists working for the BBC came across the self-styled ‘Reverend’ while investigating Miracle Mineral Solutions, or MMS.
The term describes substances containing sodium chlorite, which at high concentrations is used as household bleach. But some have falsely promoted it as a cure for a wide range of illnesses – despite medical experts warning that drinking it can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, and life-threatening low blood pressure due to dehydration.
Footage captured of Christopher showed him preparing the solution, in the sitting room of a house somewhere in the UK, while claiming: ‘What we’re making here is enough to cure 800 people of malaria.’
At the time medical experts accused Christopher of ‘selling false hope’, branding his actions ‘appalling and immoral’.
When later challenged over his claims, Christopher refused to comment beyond saying he had ‘no idea’ what the reporter was talking about, and never faced any charges.
During his recent trial he was similarly tight-lipped, declining to give evidence and refusing to even stand when asked by the judge during sentencing.
Such silence is in stark contrast to his normal approach.
Online, on his own website and on video-sharing platforms, there are endless hours of Christopher – bald, bearded and surprisingly eloquent – holding forth.
Yet understanding what it is he actually believes is far from straightforward.
Cult watchers say Christopher’s teachings are closely linked to ‘sovereign citizen’ movements. These typically comprise anti-government activists and conspiracy theorists who do not respect the law of the land, instead claiming extraordinary authority for themselves.
Such groups have rules that mimic the structure and language of conventional law, but twist them to assume their own pseudo-legal powers.
Christopher called his group the ‘Federal Postal Court’ or ‘Court of the People’ – modelling his approach on that of American cult leader David Wynn Miller.
Miller, who died in 2018, variously claimed to have been abducted by aliens, to own the patent on the US flag and to be the elected King of Hawaii.
But he is best known as the creator of ‘Quantum Grammar’, a syntax-heavy version of the English language using unorthodox grammar, spelling and punctuation that he claimed constituted the only ‘correct’ form of communication in legal processes.
To most it is incomprehensible gobbledegook – and those who have attempted to use it in real courts of law in the US are said to have done so with zero success.
But it has not stopped its adoption, particularly among those looking for loopholes when faced with officialdom or trying to avoid taxes or debts, or, as during the pandemic, to challenge fines and new regulations.
Christopher, who refers to himself by the name Mark Kishon Christopher, describes his work as follows: ‘I am a chief-federal-postal-court-
Which, presumably, followers are going to struggle to swallow now he’s in prison – where he’ll remain for the foreseeable future.
Exactly why Christopher acted in the way he did is unclear. But the prosecution during his trial claimed it was simply down to ‘power and greed’.
Reportedly born in Singapore in 1965, little is known about his background.
With no evidence of a conventional job or means of income, home was a rented council flat in Forest Gate, east London, where neighbours viewed him with suspicion.
‘He was an oddball,’ one told the Mail. ‘He was also a loner. And he seemed to judge you without knowing you. He complained about the state of the area and I thought, “Why don’t you move then?” He was a nuisance. Not in a threatening way, just annoying.’
What is known is that in 1995 Christopher was convicted of forging an insurance document with intent to deceive and handling stolen goods.
He next cropped up in 2014 when he was caught on camera posing as a minister with the Genesis II church, espousing the benefits of ‘cleansing water’ and requesting donations of £285 per person who attended his seminars.
His other services come at a price too: There’s an online ‘university’ course comprising 28 hours of recorded webinar footage and two, 30-minute Zoom calls teaching how ‘to overcome the tricks and traps of courts, governments and corporations’. The cost? A snip at £7,449.
He also has 280 paid-up members on the Patreon subscription service website, which advertises membership at £8.50 to £17.50 a month. There’s even a £7.44 e-book on how to reverse diabetes, cancer, heart disease and auto-immune dysfunction.
Other services offered include the ‘elimination’ of mortgages and debts.
‘Can you imagine living a life without a mortgage in just 3 months? DM me for info,’ he wrote.
Which is, presumably, how the Harpers were hooked. Sean Harper was a personal trainer and his wife a university graduate who had worked in financial services in the City.
The court was told that they’d paid Christopher almost £30,000 after he promised to help them to clear their mortgage because it was ‘unlawful’.
It is claimed they were then ‘groomed’ by him, and were given formal roles within the group.
Harper, a black belt in jiu-jitsu, was appointed a sheriff of the Federal Postal Court, and given the task of arresting people on Christopher’s behalf. His wife was a postal inspector, which she believed entitled her to enter any building that accepted post, to check it out.
Meanwhile Martin, a father to a young daughter, had his fees waived in return for his training as a sheriff.
He told the court that Christopher had ‘saved him from bad influences in his life’ and explained he’d been acting to tackle ‘state child trafficking’ with the King’s approval.
Christopher’s targeting of coroner Mr Brookes began in 2022 with a series of bizarre letters.
The court heard some of the correspondence was labelled as an ‘affidavit’, with references to ‘the penalty of perjury’.
Emails followed in April 2023, but the group was considered to be low risk.
That obviously all changed on April 20 last year when they arrived at the council offices at Seax House in Chelmsford.
They’d travelled in a car bearing a large, printed crest on the side with the words: ‘Chief-judge: Mark-Kishon: Christopher. Sherriff-Coroner: England & all dominions.’
By luck, Mr Brookes was absent on the day having been diverted by a last-minute family matter, so they instead entered the courtroom being used by fellow coroner Michelle Brown, demanding she find her colleague. They told her they had seized the court and accused her of ‘interfering with the dead’.
A fracas ensued and the group eventually left, with Martin arrested in Chelmsford and the three others later detained by police in Southend-on-Sea.
Both coroners told the court that they had been badly traumatised by the incident, which had left them feeling anxious for their safety and had affected their work.
‘I regularly have nightmares about the incident and the suspects attending my home,’ said Mr Brookes.
Narita Bahra KC, for the Harpers, said the couple had been ‘in thrall’ of Christopher and had been ‘indoctrinated to believe (he) was a judge who had the power to serve warrants’.
While the couple were said to be undergoing an ‘awakening’, they denied they were members of an ‘anti-establishment cult’, stating that Christopher was their teacher and they went to the court with him to ‘stop the fraud’.
Speaking afterwards Detective Chief Inspector Nathan Hutchinson, of Essex Police, described Christopher as a charismatic radicaliser.
‘He’s very good at manipulating people – people with debts, people with problems have come to him, they’ve signed up to his online courses and believed everything he was doing was legal,’ he said.
‘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.’
And he added: ‘While we appreciate freedom of opinion, this group’s ideologies are nothing more than nonsensical intimidation and oppression with no regard for the law.’
Or in the case of Christopher, no regard for any laws other than those he had himself invented.
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