Benjamin Pell (also known as "Benji the Binman", born December 1963) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

man who is known for having raked through the

dustbins A waste container, also known as a dustbin, garbage can, and trash can is a type of container that is usually made out of metal or plastic. The words "rubbish", "basket" and "bin" are more common in British English usage; "trash" and "can" a ...

law firms A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise consumer, clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and Obligation, respon ...

representing prominent people in search of incriminating or compromising documents that he could sell to the press.

Activities

An adherent of

Orthodox Judaism Orthodox Judaism is the collective term for the traditionalist and theologically conservative branches of contemporary Judaism. Theologically, it is chiefly defined by regarding the Torah, both Written and Oral, as revealed by God to Moses on M ...

Tom Leonar
"Benji the Binman cleans up"
telegraph.co.uk, 22 March 2002 who was once a trainee lawyer, he (initially) failed his law exams at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1986 which he was expected to pass. He later gained a

third-class degree The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...

, but could not gain employment with a law firm. Pell pretended to be following a legal career for eight months until his family discovered the truth. Pell began his activities in uncovering discarded newsworthy documents, classified as theft, around 1997. The documents he found have been involved in several court cases and led to many newspaper stories, including ones involving

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

, All Saints and the 'cash for questions'

libel Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

case between

Mohamed Al-Fayed Mohamed Al-Fayed (; arz, محمد الفايد ; born 27 January 1929) is an Egyptian-born businessman whose residence and chief business interests have been in the United Kingdom since the late 1960s. His business interests include ownership of ...

and Neil Hamilton. He said in 2002, "I was never interested in the political stuff. I was a showbiz animal, and my showbiz stuff was top quality. ..You'd get more money for a little nib about Hear'Say than you'd get for anything about Gordon Brown and David Blunkett." In the case of Elton John, Pell had hacked into the computers of organisations connected with the singer and looked through the rubbish of John Reid Enterprises,Steve Bogga
"Hacker stole secrets of stars from dustbins"
''The Independent'', 14 March 1998 the company of his former manager.

Piers Morgan Piers Stefan Pughe-Morgan (; né O'Meara; born 30 March 1965) is a British broadcaster, journalist, writer, and television personality. He began his Fleet Street career in 1988 at '' The Sun''. In 1994, aged 29, he was appointed editor of the ...

at the

Leveson Inquiry The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal, chaired by Lord Justice Leveson, who was appointed in July 2011. A series of ...

in 2011 admitted buying documents for stories from Pell while editor of the ''

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...

'', including Elton John's discarded bank statements, and said that such behaviour was on the "cusp of heunethical". Pell's activity was referred to as "binology". For seven years, Pell monitored Justice Eady, sitting in on all his cases and forensically analysing his every judgement. Pell said: "Court 13 is not Eady's domain, it's my domain. I hope Eady is terrified of me. He should be."

Documentary and court cases

Pell was the subject of a

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

television documentary Television documentaries are televised media productions that screen documentaries. Television documentaries exist either as a television documentary series or as a television documentary film. *Television documentary series, sometimes called d ...

''Scandal in the Bins'' (2000) produced by

Victor Lewis-Smith Victor Lewis-Smith (12 May 1957 – 10 December 2022) was a British film, television and radio producer, a television and restaurant critic, a satirist and newspaper columnist. He was executive producer of the ITV1 Annual National Food & Drin ...

. Another documentary—reportedly in production at around the same time—produced by Iain Jones, led Pell to claim in 2001 that John Mappin had fraudulently misrepresented his claim to be able to make a movie about Pell, and had "hoodwinked" him out of nearly £80,000. The following year Pell successfully sued Mappin, whose family founded the

Mappin & Webb Mappin & Webb (M&W) is an international jewellery company headquartered in England. Mappin & Webb traces its origins to a silver workshop founded in Sheffield . It now has retail stores throughout the UK. Mappin & Webb has held Royal Warrants ...

jewellery firm, and recovered his £77,750; Mappin had said he could commission a "well-connected Hollywood film-maker", but Jones had turned out to be a

hairdresser A hairdresser is a person whose occupation is to cut or style hair in order to change or maintain a person's image. This is achieved using a combination of hair coloring, haircutting, and hair texturing techniques. A Hairdresser may also be refe ...

.Tom Leonar
"Benji the Binman wins back £77,500"
''The Daily Telegraph'', 20 March 2002 The court ordered Mappin to pay Pell's legal costs and interest on the money he had been given. According to an interview Pell gave at this time, he ended his regular bin-searching activity in February 2001.

Damages

In 2003, he won

damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...

of £125,000 in an out-of-court settlement from the ''

Sunday Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'', which had falsely accused him of providing the IRA with information, and

slander Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...

against Mark Watts, the journalist who had verbally accused him of the same act. Watts wrote a book about Pell titled ''The Fleet Street Sewer Rat'', published in 2005. He has been prosecuted himself and was only fined £20, due to his claim that he lived off a weekly £10 payment from his father despite the estimated £100,000 a year he was earning from selling documents to newspapers. He has asserted that it was about £25,000. He was mentioned regularly in ''

Private Eye ''Private Eye'' is a British fortnightly satire, satirical and current affairs (news format), current affairs news magazine, founded in 1961. It is published in London and has been edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. The publication is widely r ...

'', which nicknamed him 'Benji the Binman'.

Later life

Pell was regularly found during the 2000s in the

Royal Courts of Justice The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is a court building in Westminster which houses the High Court and Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The High Court also sits on circuit and in other major cities. Designed by Ge ...

taking notes on

trials, in which he has a particular interest, and is well known to the

Queen's Bench The King's Bench (), or, during the reign of a female monarch, the Queen's Bench ('), refers to several contemporary and historical courts in some Commonwealth jurisdictions. * Court of King's Bench (England), a historic court court of common ...

jurists. From June 2017, following the

Grenfell Tower fire On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. 72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escapin ...

he took an active interest in the issue of unsafe cladding on high-rise tower blocks affecting 500,000 residents in the UK, using the tribunal system to complain about issues with the building in Slough where he lives.

Death of brother

His older brother, Daniel (Dany), was killed in a road accident aged 21. In reference to this, he once said, "Everything I was asked to do, I would have to do double. It was a sort of way of compensating for the loss of my brother".

References and sources

References

Sources

* Tim Adams
"Benjamin Pell Versus the Rest of the World"
, ''Granta'', 87:21 (2004) {{DEFAULTSORT:Pell, Benjamin 1963 births Living people Alumni of University College London British Orthodox Jews Media law Place of birth missing (living people)