S cotland-born Elton Justice spent three years of his life living in a country of the Far East (having previously lived in London). One day he posted the following about the country’s prime minister on his Facebook page: “He is an elected dictator.” Government authorities then set about ruining his life. “It was a constant psychological game of torment,” he tells me, “of building me up and knocking me down again. That over a period of three years is a really hard thing to handle. The plan was to have me dead.” Thanks to the intervention of the British authorities, he now lives happily with his boyfriend in the UK – the same boyfriend the Far Eastern government authorities used against Justice in their continued efforts to destroy him.
He has documented this turmoil in a book called Charlie, also the name of his late beagle – poisoned as part of the aforementioned campaign of demolition, a move the dog’s owner says “almost broke me”. The publication is quite an outpouring, how did he feel on finishing it? “It was a major feeling of relief, just putting it down in words. It was a huge weight off my shoulders – a kind of therapy.” The book is only a fraction, he says, of what he went through. At less than 100 pages, it is somewhat short. Why so, I ask, when enough happened for him to write something substantially longer? It was partly, he states, “about just getting it off my chest”. He also wanted the message out and quick, “to try and stop what has happened to me happening to other people”. He was not the only victim of the Far Eastern government authorities, he says, others were targeted too. He speaks of two British men, also both gay, who died of heart failure brought on by poisoning.
The specific country in which he faced his hardship is not named in Charlie – this was apparently at the advice of the publishers, in order to avoid libel. However, Justice says, readers may well work out where in the world the book is set from the mention of “chewing gum free streets” and other details. “You can kind of piece it together.”
When he returned to the UK he went to a GP, and told them what had happened. The doctor “was kind of speechless”, he recalls. He was referred to a psychiatrist too, “just to put my mind at rest – and my parents’ minds at rest”. How is he at the moment? “I’m fine now,” he says, before admitting to sometimes feeling scared about any of the nastiness of his past returning, and the consequences of the book he’s penned. “The best thing for me,” he states, “is that my partner is here now with me in the UK.” Also a victim of the regime that haunted him, his boyfriend is now “safe, away from it, out of it.” Justice says he feels the pair of them are being protected as much as they possibly can be, and that the visa process that should ensure his partner can remain in the UK is nearing completion.
Prior to the campaign against him, Justice worked very successfully in retail management – it is this that took him to the Far East in the first place. The campaign saw him fired from his job without explanation. He is back in work now, he says. It’s not what he was doing before, “but it’s still a management role”. Whereas he was staying at his parents’ home for a spell, he and his partner now have their own place. He’s getting back on his feet, he says, “getting life back up, and back into some sort of normality.”
Charlie is available now.
