Highland Titles - Peter Bevis Caught Lying About Conservtion Work

Back in the day, Highland Titles MD Peter Bevis would from time to time weigh in personally to defend his dodgy enterprise. Nowadays these efforts are continued by the ‘anonymous’ site highlandtitlesscam.com, which affords a fig leaf of deniability if things are said that shouldn’t have been.

We are grateful to a reader who turned up the following on archive.org. Even if Peter Bevis had not published the blog in his own name (scroll to the end of the blog - Posted 17th August 2012 by Peter Bevis), the superior, patronising, unpleasant tone is quite unmistakable to connoisseurs.

An archive of the blog can be seen HERE, and there is a pdf file copy HERE.

There are a number of aspects of this piece that perhaps merit comment, but for the moment we’ll focus on just one.

We were impressed that in a relatively short blog the word ‘lie’ or ‘lying’ is used no less than 14 times (count them) in dismissing the concerns raised by Robin Cunninghame Graham. Could there perhaps be some message the author is trying to get across? (Other than that the author is hell-bent on fuelling a defamation suit.)

This typically pungent paragraph caught our eye: “Another naughty lie, Robin. … They [our customers] see for themselves the 10,000 trees that we planted last year and the thousands of trees planted in previous years. … You can tell lies on your web site. Everyone who reads your lies and subsequently visits Keil Hill will immediately have proof of your lies.”

Just to let us know that wasn’t a typo, Peter Bevis repeats essentially the same claim in different wording further on: “What you meant to write was “I have absolutely no idea about the 10,000 trees planted at Keil Hill last winter because I live in Spain. …””

Note, The article was posted 17th August 2012.

Which creates a problem, since in their 5 Year Plan published in 2014, Highland Titles wrote of 5,000 trees planted over the first 5 years.

This year, according to Highland Titles' local representative Stewart Borland, the figure has reached around 8,000 trees.

This figure of around 8000 trees planted is confirmed on a Highland Titles Facebook post from 17 September 2015. Archived HERE



All very commendable, except it means Bevis’s rebuttal of Cunninghame Graham’s concerns in 2012 was a perfectly shameless lie. After 8 years at Keil Hill, Highland Titles’ plantings haven’t totalled the number Bevis claimed were planted just in winter 2011/12. From Highland Titles’ own later figures, the actual rate of planting over the first 5 years was on average 1,000 trees/year. Bevis inflated this by a factor of 10, likely reasoning that no one was in a position to count the plantings and contradict him. At that time Bevis was in all likelihood making more money from his EHIC operation than from Highland Titles and didn’t give much thought to how his lie would hold up in the future.

This should serve as a cautionary tale to anyone tempted to take the word of Peter Bevis seriously. Sadly we know from past experience that it won’t – his advocates will continue to find excuses for him or otherwise turn a blind eye.





More Highland Titles Fake Sock Puppet Support

In our last post we found that a sock puppet had used the name of famous author Val McDermid to post nice comments about Highland Titles, when in the opinion of the real Val McDermid they are "charlatans and scammers", a view we fully support.

Now on the pro Highland Titles website highlandtitlesscam.com (does anyone actually really believe HT are not in control of this website?), we find another sock puppet posting flattering comments in support of Highland Titles, while pretending to be "Nature of Scotland Awards". This is an award scheme run by the Royal Society For The Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The page with the comment is archived here - https://archive.is/rp9x1#selection-1691.0-1723.123

The Fake Sock Puppet Comment

When asked on Twitter, the RSPB who run the awards scheme immediately confirmed that they did not post that comment.

RSPB  Twitter Question And Answer

That makes two recent comments showing support for Highland Titles, positively confirmed as being fakes made by sock puppets. One might wonder how many of the other nice comments about Highland Titles plastered all over the internet, are in fact also fakes?

There are other suspicious comments, who for instance would believe that the National Trust would take the time to post a comment (June 21, 2015 at 12:45 am) on that same page giving mountaineering advice? That really does not seem very likely does it?

Or the coincidence that someone calling themselves Chas Mac Donald would post such nice comments when there is also a Chas MacDonald, owner of the Clan MacDonald Worldwide Facebook page who has criticised Highland Titles heavily on several occasions.

Or that someone calling themselves Amanda would post scathing, possibly libelous comments, about Rob Gibson MSP, when there is an Amanda Moffet of Scotclans who is a known fierce critic of Highland Titles? Rob Gibson has noted his dislike of schemes like that run by Highland Titles, and Highland Titles have used a fake newspaper article using fake quotations from Mr Gibson to falsely bolster their image.

There are comments supporting Highland Titles which have been made using sock puppets, that is proven, and there are many other highly suspicious favorable comments.

Did Highland Titles post any of them? In my own opinion, taking into account my knowledge of how they operate and their past behaviour, there is little doubt, but as there obviously cannot be absolute proof, you'll have to make up your own mind.