Youtube refuses to remove videos posted by convicted Nottingham stalker Alex Belfield
Belfield's channel remains live more than a week after he was jailed for five and a half years
Last updated 29th Sep 2022
Youtube is resisting pressure to remove a channel owned by convicted stalker and former radio presenter Alex Belfield, despite the central role of his videos in the harassment of at least eight people.
Styling himself as 'The Voice of Reason', Belfield, 42, formerly of Mapperley in Nottingham, has amassed a following of 360,000 subscribers on YouTube, with his channel drawing in 62 million views to date.
Belfield was jailed for five and a half years on September 16 at Nottingham Crown Court, having been convicted of four stalking charges. He was taken to court by a total of eight victims, including prominent broadcasters like Jeremy Vine.
Jurors found that Belfield caused ‘serious alarm or distress’ to two victims, with the Mr Justice Saini agreeing that Belfield had ‘weaponised the internet’ during a campaign of harassment which involved emails, phone calls and extensive use of sites like Twitter and YouTube.
In his sentencing remarks, Mr Justice Saini said:
“Your stalking consisted of use of repeated email communications, social media content on Twitter, and creation and publication of YouTube videos on your channel The Voice of Reason in which you commented in highly negative and often abusive terms about the complainants.
“As you described in some of your videos, your aim was to “haunt” your victims.”
"A relentless harassment campaign"
One of Belfield’s victims, videographer Ben Hewis, described how he was subjected to “a relentless, multi-pronged intimidation and harassment campaign that has left me psychologically and emotionally drained”.
He also outlined how Youtube videos were a part of the harrasment
In his victim impact statement, Hewis wrote: “From his very first email and in the majority of communications thereafter, he used my wife and children as his main weapon to terrify, intimidate and blackmail me.
“He regularly told me I’d lose my family home and on multiple occasions said that he had hired solicitors or private investigators to find out where I live.
“In multiple videos published on his YouTube channel he stole my family photos and used them alongside his vile rants and assaults on my character, calling me a bad parent for not giving into his intimidation, promising to ‘hound’ me for the rest of my life.
“In one video he wrote ‘liar’ across my two-year-old son’s face and used that as a thumbnail on a video seen by hundreds of thousands of people.
"The photos he used were of some of the happiest moments of my life - my son’s christening, our first family holiday - now they will forever be tainted by his abuse.”
Broadcaster Iain Lee was also hounded by Belfield over a period of around a decade.
"There is so much hate on his channel.... that is dangerous, that is life threatening... that could prompt someone to kill themselves.
"As we heard in the court case, several people came very close to suicide. I came very close to suicide.
"He used his platform on YouTube, with hundreds of thousands of followers, to terrorise people... to spout hate, to spout lies, to spout racist, homophobic, transphobic and biphobic stuff.
"He knew his army of followers would latch on to everything he said and would go out and act on his words.
"Belfield could not have existed without YouTube... the fact that his channel wasn't taken down when he was found guilty is incredble."
When pressed on whether or not it would be removing Belfield’s channel following his conviction YouTube would not comment.
However, in a statement, a spokesperson for the company said: “Monetization on the Voice of Reason channel remains suspended for violating our Creator Responsibility policy.”
“If we see that a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, community, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community.”
Who is Alex Belfield?
Alex Belfield started his career in local radio, working in commercial radio before hosting regular shows on BBC Radio Jersey and BBC Radio Leeds. He courted controversy from the very beginning.
During a show on Capital Gold in 2006, Belfield used the expressions "dirty little tart" and "dirty little slapper" to describe a news story in which a single mother had given birth to triplets. The station was forced to issue an apology.
In 2010, Belfield was reprimanded by BBC bosses and suspended for making lewd on-air comments about a BBC weather presenter.
Belfield opened his YouTube channel in 2007, initially focusing on uploading interviews with actors, entertainers and musicians, as well as reviews of TV and theatre shows.
This changed abruptly in 2020 when Alex adopted his ‘Voice of Reason’ persona and started uploading videos disparaging his former colleagues at the BBC. As the Covid-19 pandemic hit, his videos started skewing heavily towards conspiracy theories.
He also started uploaded content in which he mocked many of those he would later be convicted of stalking.
Presenter Stephanie Hirst told Nottingham Crown Court she was the target of a video uploaded by Belfield, after she spoke about her transition to Pink News.
“It was completely transphobic, targeted towards me… just all of it is a parody of me” she told the court.
“It’s degrading. It made me feel worthless. It’s a constant soundtrack inside your mind. I have had nothing but support from the general public – the British public – and all of my friends and family
“It was constant – there was no escape from it. It was heartbreaking.”
Videos made by Belfield targeting Stephanie and several other victims involved in the court case remain live on YouTube.
"For ten years I thought it was just me"
Belfield's continued existence on YouTube raises wider questions about the responsibility social media sites have for the content uploaded to their platforms.
YouTube claims to have strong measures in place for tackling harrassment and bullying on the site, however victims of Belfield have questioned whether his abuse was taken seriously.
Iain Lee said: "Those videos being up there means people will be able to discover them today, tomorrow, in ten years time if they stay up there.
"Those words will still have that same effect... he had hundreds of thousands of followers who believed him. That can only grow if those videos stay up there.
"I don't think YouTube realise how big this Alex Belfield case is. For ten years I thought it was just me.
"I think once a human being at YouTube looks at this... they have to take it down. I'm really sure they will... but maybe I'm being too optimistic."
YouTube says it has previously removed videos from Belfield's Voice of Reason channel, including for breaches of its harassment policy.
In 2019 YouTube removed a channel belonging to singer Austin Jones following his admission to exchanging sexually explicit videos with underage girls.
At the time the website claimed it would remove videos made by convicted criminals "in some cases".
YouTube terminated two channels owned by singer-songwriter R Kelly last year following his conviction for sex trafficking, claiming to have acted "in accordance with our creator responsibility guidelines".
When asked about whether this same standard would apply to Belfield's 'Voice of Reason' channel YouTube would not comment.
The video sharing site also claims to limit the audience of videos which come close to breaching its policies on hate speech or harassment, but are deemed not to actually break the rules.
YouTube could not say whether those limits apply to content uploaded by Belfield.
We also asked YouTube whether it had anything to say to those who were harassed by Belfield via videos uploaded to their platform. YouTube would not comment.