A man who has pranked some of the country’s most prominent figures whilst raising thousands for charity has looked back on his career.

Simon Harris, 38, will be well known to many in Southend as the man behind the schemes which duped Katy Hopkins into believing the M25 had been shut for a fitness race and getting The Sun newspaper to run a fake story about a child in a cow onesie being banned from a vegan children’s birthday party.

Having taken inspiration by shows such as the BBC’s The Day Today he set up his fake news organisation Southend News Network in 2015 which originally poked fun at the local council. Soon it was the vehicle for his most widely known pranks.

He has also been a serial fundraiser for charitable causes having set up the Essex is United group which in partnership with Essex County Council which has raised over £90,000 for refugees escaping Ukraine.

Looking back on his early days Mr Harris said it was the incident with Katie Hopkins in 2016 which really kicked things off.  

He said: “One day I started noticing the traffic I was getting to the site was absolutely crazy. The reason that it was going through the roof was that Katie Hopkins was on LBC news reading the Southend News Network article word by word, line by line in front of however many millions listening to the radio show.

“It took her about half an hour to realise she’d been had. It was hilarious and shocking that somebody in her position with her listeners and all her staff had been twigged.”

He added: “The site itself had a long history of winding up people. There have been times in the past where Tommy Robinson was sharing Southend News Network stories about banning bikinis on the beach not realising its only warm enough to do that in Southend for two weeks every year.”

In recent years he has focused his efforts more on raising money for charity having run campaigns for not only Ukrainian refugees but also for vulnerable people at the height of the pandemic and those relying on free school meals.

He has sometimes combined this with his pranking, having raised £25,000 with the deliberately misspelt ‘Help Are Own First’ campaign for Afghanistan refugees during the takeover of the country by the Taliban last year.

Echo: Simon Harris has helped raised over £90,000 for the Ukraine crisisSimon Harris has helped raised over £90,000 for the Ukraine crisis

It worked as both a worthy cause and to parody those suggesting the UK help its own residents first before aiding refugees.  

With Facebook now cracking down on many fake news websites, Mr Harris says he sees his more straight-forward charity work being the norm for the time being.

Further stunts were not ruled out, however.

He said: “I think the amount of generosity shown so far has been amazing. The thing that worries me is that as time goes on, I don’t want that generosity to decrease.

“The fundraising will definitely continue. The problem with the prank side is that’s it’s a bit like when Ali G decided to stop being Ali G. He couldn’t go and interview people anybody anymore because they knew who he was.

“Southend News Network hasn’t been updated for a while because people know its fake now, it almost lessens the impact. My future for the time being is keeping up the fundraising.”

He added: “It was vital over the covid pandemic to package public health messaging in a way that other can’t reach. I can see my future carrying along this route combining satirical elements with real issues to get people paying attention.”

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