Cruel anti-vaxxers at school gates exposed: Former school governor runs group that has picketed 100 schools and targets pupils with Covid jab conspiracy theories
A former school governor is running an anti-vax group that has picketed over 100 schools, the Daily Mail reveals today.
Francesca Dill is behind Outreach Worldwide whose 50 UK 'chapters' target pupils with dangerous conspiracy theories.
The 32-year-old mother has posted social media footage of herself telling children the Covid jab is 'deadly' and could leave girls infertile. She also claims falsely that 'many' deaths of youngsters are being covered up.
Her group, which includes a veteran teacher, youth mentor and a social worker, also 'serves' head teachers with 'notices of liability' if they allow pupils to be jabbed at school.
Spreading misinformation: Francesca Dill (centre, foreground) on a march in protest against coronavirus vaccinations for youngsters. The 32-year-old mother is behind Outreach Worldwide whose 50 UK 'chapters' target pupils with dangerous conspiracy theories. She has posted social media footage of herself telling children the Covid jab is 'deadly' and could leave girls infertile
Keely Knight (above), a hairdresser who previously worked as a mentor for vulnerable children, is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda outside schools. She is one of the most trusted lieutenants of Outreach Worldwide leader Francesca Dill
Health experts and teachers said Miss Dill's 'poisonous' falsehoods were putting lives at risk and that the school pickets should be banned.
The Mail investigation also reveals that:
- Outreach Worldwide plotted to sabotage Covid testing by urging backers to mass-order free lateral flow kits every 24 hours so that stocks run out;
- It boasts about how one school picket slashed vaccine uptake and led to pupils yelling at health staff: 'You're killing children, don't have the jab.'
- One supporter broadcast the addresses of chief medical officer Chris Whitty;
- The group's leaders have campaigned with a singer who leads groups of children outside schools in giving renditions of his anti-vax rap.
Ex-charity worker's lurid tales about how people have 'gone blind' from the vaccine
Keely Knight previously had mentoring and safeguarding responsibilities at a charity offering counselling for young people with learning difficulties
A hairdresser who previously worked as a mentor for vulnerable children is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda outside schools.
Keely Knight is one of the most trusted lieutenants of Outreach Worldwide leader Francesca Dill.
Miss Knight, 33, was filmed bombarding pupils in London and the South East with lurid claims about the jab's potential side-effects.
In one clip she told children people have 'gone blind' from the vaccine and claimed she knew someone 'whose leg was amputated'.
When a boy asked what the likelihood was of serious side-effects, she replied 'very high'.
She previously had mentoring and safeguarding responsibilities at a charity offering counselling for young people with learning difficulties.
She did not respond to a request for comment.
Our shocking expose comes amid growing concern about anti-vaxxers turning schools into the front line of their sickening fight to spread misinformation.
The Association of School and College Leaders revealed last month that 79 per cent of schools it surveyed had been targeted by anti-vaxxers, mainly been through emails threatening legal action.
But staff have been threatened with physical harm and protesters have invaded some school sites.
One told the Mail that Outreach Worldwide picketers told 12-year-olds that the jab would poison them.
When David Collins, head teacher at Knole Academy in Sevenoaks, Kent, confronted them, Miss Dill asked him why he was facilitating the jab 'knowing that children are dying?'
She added: 'Parents aren't happy with your leadership, If a child dies, how are you going to feel about it? Because they will, and it's your fault.'
Miss Dill, who has a teenage son, lives in Brixton, south London, where she served as parent governor of a primary school in 2013.
Using the name Cheska she manages the main Outreach Worldwide groups on the messaging app Telegram and multiple sub-groups that organise school pickets.
The Department of Education has said it is doing everything in its power to counter the spread of untruths and has provided guidance to all schools on how to manage vaccination-related protests in liaison with the police, NHS and town halls.
Dr Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the school of medicine at the University of Leeds, said there was no evidence that a single child had died in the UK because of the vaccine, which had been subject to robust efficacy and safety trials before being administered.
'The idea that it could cause infertility is particularly insidious and absolute rubbish,' he said.
'It is a poisonous rumour based on an assumption that an undergraduate biology student could tell you was wrong.
'How many billion doses of the vaccine have been given out? I think one or two of them may have got pregnant afterwards.'
He said it was a 'complete fallacy' to say the vaccine did more harm that the virus and pointed out that vaccines were the way out of the pandemic.
'These people are causing immense harm by targeting kids and parents,' he added. 'It should be made illegal for them to campaign outside schools.
'Parents are already anxious, and all this does is breed uncertainly and more anxiety about the vaccine.
'These groups are on the extreme end, but their views trickle down and you find many reasonable people refusing the vaccine after being scared by these people.'
Peter Kyle, Labour Party schools spokesman, branded the anti-vaxxers 'quacks' who 'spew bile and fake news into children's faces'.
He said: 'If these people were around 350 years ago they would be calling for Galileo to be burned at the stake for saying the Earth went around the Sun.'They want scientific expertise and knowledge to be driven out of the way we govern our country.'
He added: 'They want to send us back to an era where superstition determined our fate. We can have no truck with them.
'If these people had their way, millions of people would have died and that's only in the last year or so.'
Facebook, which owns Instagram, removed the Footsoldiers4Freedom Facebook page and several of the Outreach Worldwide Instagram posts after being contacted by the Mail.
The social media giant is continuing to investigate the Outreach Worldwide account.
In videos posted online Miss Dill denied being against vaccinations, saying she did not count the coronavirus jab as a vaccine.
Approached for comment, she said: 'Outreach Worldwide is a human rights organisation with a Christian ethos.
'We're dedicated to educating and empowering the local community and we are just concerned about informed consent. We are not anti-vaccine. We've never been anti vax.
'But we believe that informed consent is really important.'
Miss Dill added that she denied providing any false or misleading information, and was simply exercising her 'lawful and democratic right to publicly inform others of their right to make choices'.
But a video shot outside a school in Walthamstow, north-east London, shows her telling girls they could end up 'really sick' if they get the jab, adding: 'It is deadly for your health.'
She warns another group that there is a 'real possibility' that taking the vaccine will leave them unable to have children.
To other teenagers she says: 'Hey ladies, you won't be getting the Covid jab will you? It's important that you don't.
'They're going to be trying to give you the Covid-19 injection at school and you need to say no to it – it's really quite dangerous.'
She also encourages children to take off their masks, claiming they are bad for their health.
Anti-vax rapper's 'Pied Piper' tour of the UK urging, 'Don't tek di vaccine'
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
A rapper has become the 'Pied Piper of anti-vaxxers' as he tours the UK performing his rap urging schoolchildren not to get the jab.
Extraordinary footage posted online shows Jamaican born Edward Freeman, who uses the name Remeece, leading dozens of children in school uniform along a road singing his song, 'Don't tek di vaccine'.
Carrying a megaphone, he gets the pupils to join in the with lyrics calling vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna 'you tools, you fools'.
Extraordinary footage posted online shows Jamaican born Edward Freeman (pictured), who uses the name Remeece, leading dozens of children in school uniform along a road singing his song, 'Don't tek di vaccine'
In another Facebook video, he performs to a group of around 50 children outside a school, in which he declares 'the vaccine is killing people'.
After his performance he is mobbed by the youngsters who pose for selfies, fist bump him and repeat his song. One schoolboy tells him: 'I won't get the vaccine 'cos of you.'
Mr Freeman's trips to spread false and dangerous myths about the vaccine have taken him from Cornwall to Glasgow, videos posted on his social media accounts show.
The ex-male model, PR worker and nightclub operator, is the key figure in an anti-vax and anti-lockdown group called Footsoldiers4Freedom.
On his website, amidst a string of conspiracy theories, he also has a sideline selling anti-vax merchandise, including hoodie tops emblazoned with his slogan for £45. Mr Freeman did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr Freeman's trips to spread false and dangerous myths about the vaccine have taken him from Cornwall to Glasgow, videos posted on his social media accounts show. He is pictured at a protest in central London on October 16
Fanatics tells pupils: The vaccine will poison you
By TOM KELLY and JACOB DIRNHUBER for the Daily Mail
Protesters from the Outreach Worldwide group told 12-year-olds that the Covid vaccine would 'poison' them, a head teacher has warned.
Knole Academy in Sevenoaks, Kent, was targeted by demonstrators this week.
Headmaster, David Collins, 47, went to confront those waiting at the schoolgates. Footage shows the group's leader Francesca Dill then asking him why he was facilitating the jab 'knowing that children are dying?'
She added: 'Parents aren't happy with your leadership. If a child dies, how are you going to feel about it? Because they will, and it's your fault.'
Mr Collins told the Daily Mail the protests were 'totally inappropriate' and called for police action to remove trespassing campaigners.
Knole Academy (above) in Sevenoaks, Kent, was targeted by demonstrators this week. Headmaster, David Collins, 47, went to confront those waiting at the schoolgates. Footage shows the group's leader Francesca Dill then asking him why he was facilitating the jab 'knowing that children are dying?'
The demonstrators claimed they were on a public road, but the headmaster said the area was part of the school site.
'These people clearly do not have the best interest of students at heart', he said. 'They were telling 12-year-olds that the vaccines will poison them, and in my mind that's totally inappropriate.
'If you've got a problem with that, take it up with the Government, don't start approaching children. Three of them in particular were quite rude and unpleasant, and refused to leave when I said they were trespassing.
'It shouldn't be left to us, I don't think it should be the role of any teacher to end up having to confront protesters and keep them away from the school.
'Ultimately, it's a police matter as soon as they come on the school site. We'll do it because we have a duty to protect the children in our care, but it's not really what we've signed up for.
'The funny thing was they had a yellow sign saying, 'Beep if you hate the vaccine' or something – but the only car to beep it was one of theirs. They drove past over ten times – it was a bit tragic.'
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