The middle-class cult that tried to derail the justice system

Convinced ‘Nazis’ were out to ‘mutilate’ children, a self-styled judge and his acolytes tried to take the law into their own hands in Essex

Nestled in a leafy, quiet street lies an imposing double-fronted Victorian house that seems an unlikely nexus for a resolutely middle-class cult convinced the “country is going to be taken over by Nazis”.
But this is the London home of self-styled “chief judge” Mark Christopher, who this week was jailed for seven years after storming a coroner’s court to kidnap a senior coroner for “interfering with the dead”.
Christopher, 59, alongside former police officer Shiza Harper, her husband Sean Harper, and Matthew Martin, marched into Essex coroner’s court in Chelmsford, in April 2023, threatening to mete out “corporal punishment”.
Their target was senior coroner Lincoln Brookes, and when they realised he was not present, they then threatened coroner Michelle Brown, before the police were alerted.
The incident and fast unfolding investigation initially sparked additional concerns among senior police officers, because of the pending Coronation of King Charles III.
Martin, 47, from Plaistow, east London, was arrested at the scene, but Christopher, along with Shiza Harper, 45, and Sean Harper, 38, both from South Benfleet, Essex, were later arrested in Southend.
All four, who were sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court on Monday, were part of a bizarre “anti-establishment cult” that claimed “non-existent powers” to usurp the legal system, said Mr Justice Goss.
The judge said that Christopher, a convicted fraudster, was “intelligent, persuasive, manipulative and dishonest” and “preyed on the vulnerabilities of others”.
Christopher is believed to have gained hundreds of followers across the world since he created his “Federal Postal Court” or “Court of the People”, which, he admits, is modelled on American cult leader David Wynn Miller. As well as claiming that he had died during surgery before a miraculous recovery, Miller developed “Quantum Grammar”, a legal language that he said was the only true legal language.
Miller, who died in 2018, was part of the sovereign citizen movement, which includes anti-government activists, conspiracy theorists and tax protestors, and has a long record of financial scams. Christopher’s website, which went live during the pandemic, offers followers the chance to “eliminate your…mortgages & debts” – for a price.
His online university enables students “to overcome the tricks and traps of…courts, governments and corporations” and “the investment of this life-changing training is £7,449 Great British Pounds”.
Styling himself as “Global Chief Federal Post Court Judge & Plenipotentiary Judge”, Christopher states that he has jurisdiction over “any governments, courts and corporations”. His rambling videos can be found on YouTube and the darker recesses of the web, not least Rumble, the video-sharing platform that hosts Russell Brand and is popular among the American far-Right.
In one video, Christopher claimed to have been the template for Dwayne Johnson’s portrayal of an ancient superhuman in the Hollywood blockbuster Black Adam. Christopher also boasts that he “reversed” a fatal disease and that for £7.44 you can download his Kindle book on how to reverse diabetes, cancer, heart disease and auto-immune dysfunction.
His origins, however, are murky, although a purported passport states that he was born in Singapore in 1965.
A neighbour of his in London, who did not want to be named, said that Christopher had been living in the ground floor flat for a “long time” with his partner.
She said: “We used to see him riding around on his bike. He was a nice neighbour and we were fond of him. He used to do my garden, and we never had any problems with him. He did not have many visitors and kept a quiet profile.
“He never went into detail about what he did for a living but it was law-related stuff. Going after bad guys. He had conspiracy theories about companies doing illegal stuff.”
But Chelmsford Crown Court heard a different story, with Allister Walker, for the prosecution, stating that Christopher was “motivated by power and greed” and had “cult-like influence and control” over his followers.
He had appointed Martin as “sheriff and coroner” and Sean Harper was also a sheriff, with his wife Shiza “a postal inspector” and the group believed they were “entitled to enter any building… and to perform audits”.
The court was told that Lincoln Brookes began receiving a series of threatening letters couched in legal language from the group in 2022, but in 2023 they took a more “personal and direct” tone.
Christopher told the group that they were doing this because “their country is going to be taken over by Nazis (who) think they can… mutilate your children for surgery” and they must “whack them to death”.
The quartet, the court heard, then drove in two separate cars, both displaying the quasi-legal emblem of their organisation, armed with handcuffs and a photo of Brookes, with the intention to shut the court down and detain the coroner.
Only a last-minute family matter had prevented Brookes from being confronted by the group, and in a statement to the court, the senior coroner said that he felt “haunted” and was in trauma therapy. When his colleague Michelle Brown called him to warn him, Brookes had to pull over and now frequently has “nightmares about the incident”, which means he “can never feel fully safe”. Fellow coroner Brown said her life had “changed forever” and that she “was extremely scared and feared for my safety”.
Narita Bahra KC, representing the Harpers, said that they were in Christopher’s “thrall” and were now on a “trajectory of awakening”. They had been “pressured” to pay more than £30,000 in fees for online courses run by Christopher, including his mortgage elimination scheme. But Justice Goss said that they “remain committed to (Christopher) and his status”.
Martin, in his mitigation, said that he had been acting to tackle “state child trafficking” with the King’s approval and apologised for the effect he had on the two coroners.
All four were convicted of conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to commit false imprisonment. Christopher was also found guilty of sending a letter or email with intent to cause distress or anxiety.
Det Chief Insp Nathan Hutchinson, of Essex Police, said that Christopher was “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 that everything he was doing was legal”.
He added that investigators “had the challenge of cutting through this group’s ludicrous beliefs in order to identify the motive…and identify any wider threats, especially given concern about HM The King’s approaching coronation”.
Graham Baldwin, an expert in cults and psychological manipulation, says: “These seem intelligent, middle-class people. What marks people out with these groups is that they are often desperate, vulnerable or have problems in their lives, and these groups give them a sense of belonging and purpose.
“They are not marked by low intelligence but often people who are well educated, very often middle-class, and looking for some significance in their lives. This makes them vulnerable to exploitation.”
But Christopher is likely to hail his sentence as proof positive of his plenipotentiary powers. Remarkably, on his website, he notes: “Any persons wanting to hide their criminality…will be prosecuted and sentenced to a minimum of seven years.”
It would appear his prediction has come to pass.