Two men charged over series of arson attacks on 5G masts
- Reference: 1777374868
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2026/04/28/5g_belfast_arrests/
- Source link:
Detectives arrested the men and secured charges on Monday. They are [1]accused of being involved in the attacks which took place between 2023 and 2025, primarily in the west Belfast area.
Neither of the accused was named. One of the men, 45, was charged with eight counts of arson and conspiracy to commit arson, while the other, 46, faces one charge of the same crime.
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Both individuals are set to appear before Laganside Magistrates' Court on Monday, May 25.
[3]
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The PSNI would not reveal the names of the two men and declined to comment on whether these charges were issued in connection with an earlier case involving two males of a similar description.
Brothers Michael and Darren Clarke, [5]reported at the time as being 45 and 44 years old respectively, were both charged in September after being tied by police to arson attacks on 5G masts in the west Belfast area.
[6]
Police also [7]said around the same time that the spate of mast attacks was possibly "conspiracy-driven" and caused approximately £4 million ($5.4 million) worth of damage.
Since 5G masts started popping up across the UK and Europe in 2019, the surrounding conspiracy theories gathered a healthy following.
The prevailing falsehood about the masts was that their radiation can cause cell mutations in humans, leading to diseases such as cancer and even COVID-19.
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The radiofrequency radiation used by the masts is not powerful enough to damage DNA, and there is no established link between adverse health conditions and telecommunication masts.
But many won't let science get in the way of a good story. The Register has covered lots of tales over the years about people who believe they're doing society a service by torching the 5G towers.
In the south of France, two monks infamously tried to damage a mast in 2021, but ended up [9]inflicting minimal damage with an incendiary device.
A year earlier, Vodafone UK had a particularly torrid time cleaning up after a series of attacks targeted its masts, including those servicing a Birmingham Nightingale Hospital established to meet the increased demand on the NHS.
[10]FAA sets 2024 deadline for preventing 5G crash landings
[11]Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it
[12]5G masts will be strapped to lampposts and traffic lights – once £4m project figures out who owns them
[13]Conspiracy theorists claim victory in Brighton and Hove as council rejects plans to build 5G masts
Then CEO of Vodafone's UK business, Nick Jeffrey, described the arsonists as "deluded conspiracy theorists."
He said the masts provided critical services to local communities who at the time may have had to say their final goodbyes to family members over the telephone due to COVID-19-related social distancing measures.
"Burning down masts means damaging important national infrastructure," [14]said Jeffrey in 2020 "In practice, this means families not being able to say a final goodbye to their loved ones; hard-working doctors, nurses, and police officers not being able to phone their kids, partners or parents for a comforting chat.
"Arsonists, please think about what you are doing and stop. Imagine if it were your mum or dad, your gran or grandad in hospital. Imagine not being able to see or hear them one last time. All because you've swallowed a dangerous lie."
A separate incident in Liverpool led to one man receiving a [15]three-year prison sentence for attacking a Vodafone-owned mast he thought was serving 5G signals, but was just a 4G mast that had to be upgraded. ®
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[1] https://www.psni.police.uk/latest-news/two-men-charged-connection-attacks-5g-masts-belfast
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2afDZpGOet6NFU0TrGk6U0QAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afDZpGOet6NFU0TrGk6U0QAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33afDZpGOet6NFU0TrGk6U0QAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://belfastmedia.com/5g-mast-attacks-brother-refused-bail
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44afDZpGOet6NFU0TrGk6U0QAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8ryrm39pgo
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33afDZpGOet6NFU0TrGk6U0QAAAE0&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/22/french_monks_5g_arson/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/10/faa_2024_altimeter_deadline/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/28/anti_5g_usb_stick/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/09/5g_mobile_masts_lampposts/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/15/brighton_and_hove_5g_masts/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/15/vodafone_chief_speaks_out_birmingham_phone_mast_torched/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2020/06/09/arsonist_sentencing/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Deal
Bacofoil make some exceptionally good aluminium foil with a diamond pattern. If folded correctly into a stylish helmet it can prevent them negative 5G waves affecting your brain.
[So I am informed]
Maybe…
…they just hate Vodafone?
What I really hate about these folks...
... is the smug self-righteousness with which they surround themselves and justify their actions. They genuinely believe they are cleverer than everyone else because they read some bs on the internet and believed it, but that's just proof that they're gullible maroons. "Do your own research" never actually means do research, it means "unquestioningly believe liars". See also: anyone who has ever used the word 'sheeple'.
Re: What I really hate about these folks...
"Do your own research" is like "Roll your own encryption".
You've got to be a fecking idiot to think that you're somehow better than a group of experts.
Re: What I really hate about these folks...
" They genuinely believe they are cleverer than everyone else because they read some bs on the internet and believed it "
There is an irony that they believe this shit on the internet then burn the thing that provides that internet to them.
Technical insight
Say I am a conspiracy theorist who believes that 5G causes Covid.¹ How would I identify a 5G mast and tell it apart from, say, 4G, or a VHF repeater?
Asking for a friend and so on.
¹ Stupid, I admit. Everybody knows it's the other way around.
Re: Technical insight
4G masts tend to be taller than 5G masts, as they cover a larger area...
Re: Technical insight
You are thinking of mmWave masts. Normal 5G masts use the same frequencies and cover the same area as 4G masts.
Re: Technical insight
Look for the Jolly Roger flying from the uppermost antenna.
Re: Technical insight
Look for the extra G to tell a 5G mast from a 4G mast.
Re: Technical insight
Would such a person be bothered if they accidentally torched a 4G mast by mistake? I'm guessing if it looks like a cellular mast of some kind, they would probably consider it fair game.
Re: Technical insight
The problem with torching a 4G site is that they are probably going to take the opportunity to replace it with 5G (or at least make the site 5G ready)
Re: Technical insight
Connect an RF signal analyzer to the output. Look at the constellation. 4G is upto 256-QAM. 5G can go upto 1024-QAM. Use an attenuator to protect the signal analyzer.
Sheltered life
In a previous life I was in the emergency services. One thing I took away from it, being exposed to all levels of society, is that there is that there are *a lot* of nutters out there. Easily half the population, by my reckoning.
Anyway, I've been brushing up on my Molotov cocktails and now I'm off to join my Capuchin monastery in Southern France.
Re: Sheltered life
"Easily half the population, by my reckoning."
It's well known that half the population are below average median.
Re: Sheltered life
Moved into a house a few years ago. Lovely rural town near an RAF base. The neighbours are all quite nice and ordinary people, been friendly ever since I moved in, each do favours for the other, etc.
Was having a chat with the neighbour's adult daughter. But then she tried to switch mid-conversation to some nonsense about "chemtrails". I just bowed out with the get-out-clause of "Well, I don't know enough about that" to save me having to have a stand-up argument where I called her a stupid bint. She also touched on the 5G and I was already disengaged by then so I was outta there.
Same person, I was talking on the phone to her about her mother's medical condition and she spouted off some huge, long, complicated medical term for whatever her latest ailment was, and I said "I don't know what that is, but I'd love to have that in a game or Scrabble". It then took me nearly 20 minutes to explain to her what I meant.
It does surprise me, more often than it really should, quite how many people are dumb as hell.
Re: "It does surprise me, more often than it really should"
Nobody ever went bankrupt by underestimating human stupidity. (Also, the one natural resource that will never run out.)
Re: Sheltered life
There is a nice story doing the rounds that Matt Le Tissier, football pundit and now conspiracy theorist, having an argument with Grok about conttrails
He starts out by a asking why some contrails are more persistent. Grok rightly (for once!) explains that with dry air the contrails disappear quicker than with damp air. Le Tissier then challenges the answer as possibly showing government influence (what? this is the anti-woke Grok!)... Grok repeats the explanation, adding that conspiracy theorists might claim otherwise... Le Tissier sees red and starts arguing with the blameless Grok
Ignoring the conspiracy theories there's still a case on aesthetic grounds. The things are just downright ugly but siting gets a free pass around planning permission
Not true, or at least I can point to an example where this is not true
https://www.suffolknews.co.uk/sudbury/news/nothing-good-in-this-village-20-metre-phone-mast-refused-9461809/
If you have no chance of stopping street cabinets, CCTV, traffic measures, electricity pylons, and all kinds of other nonsense, crossing even things like AONB and SSI, no way is a pole that looks like a streetlight mast going to be stopped by just aesthetic grounds.
I notice someone keeps planting those 'street lamp' type masts upsidedown!
Siting is mostly a laws-of-physics thing related to propogation and cell/network structure. A village close to my cousin is on the coast with a ridge behind it. The villagers whinge about the lack of a decent mobile signal but object to the siting of an antenna anywhere where it can be seen from anywhere in the village.
Idiocy is its own reward.
LOL
Imagine going into a Northern Irish prison and telling the other inmates you think mobile phone masts give you Covid.
I hope they pack plenty of Vaseline, they're gunna need it!
Dunning Kruger, anyone?
That is all.
I did manage to shut up one of the COVID-5G nutters.
We were in a small village shop queued up at the counter, and without any prompting he started ranting a load of crap. To start with I just quietly said I wasn't interested. That just got him raising his voice and poking his finger at me. I repeated that I wasn't interested at which point he raised his voice louder and came out with "I'm telling you..."
That was enough. I've got quite a loud voice when I want to use it - not quite parade ground, and responded with "You're telling me fuck all. Now piss off. Instant silence and smiles all round.
Re: I did manage to shut up one of the COVID-5G nutters.
I'll take "things that never happened" for 500, Alex ;-p
Section them
Under the mental health act. Obviously delusional and a risk to themselves and/or others.
They can then hopefully get the professional help they very much need.
5G radio waves are different than generic radio waves /s
5G radio waves are different than generic radio waves and MI5 and BBC newsreaders are plotting to assassinate me %
Deal
It's not how you deal with 5G. If you are near it you just have to make a cross with your fingers and point at it. You can also throw a bulb or two of garlic at it to reduce satanic waves back to background noise.