He is the ex-banker born into Brazilian oil money who has become a YouTube hit with his videos highlighting life on the streets of the UK’s towns and cities – and ‘provoking’ members of the public.
But this week footage captured on camera by prolific social media film-maker Charlie Veitch was central to a court case – as a father who attacked him inside a ‘posh’ Manchester shopping mall was found guilty of common assault.
Mr Veitch told Wigan Magistrates’ Court how carpet fitter Bradley Webb, 31, lashed out – hurling shoes and a contactless bank card reader – after previously labelling the victim as a ‘paedophile’.
That jibe was said to relate to 44-year-old Mr Veitch’s relationship with girlfriend Laura Garside, 23, who had her hair pulled by Webb’s partner Robyn Laing, 28.
Mr Veitch, who was born in Rio de Janeiro to a Brazilian father and Scottish mother but is now based in Manchester, is not someone who shies away from confrontations.
He is one among many so-called ‘auditors’ who use their social media accounts to share videos filming everyday events and headquarters, as well as public protests and the deployment of police officers.
Mr Veitch, who used to work in finance and whose family made money in the oil industry, now has 531,000 subscribers to his YouTube account which features more than 2,400 of his videos.
Many of the clips shared on his account feature him doing walking tours of his adopted home city Manchester.
Much-followed YouTuber Charlie Veitch, 44, is pictured with girlfriend Laura Garside, 23
Mr Veitch featured in a 2014 BBC short film called That Man With The Megaphone
He now has 531,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, sharing scenes from the streets of Manchester and other UK towns and cities
They show him talking to rough sleepers, being greeted by fans who know him from his films and also being confronted by angry and evidently troubled street locals – amid concerns from critics that he is exploiting the vulnerable for online views.
In one video he takes viewers on a tour of central Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens, saying: ‘Not only the city that never sleeps, it’s also the crackhead capital of the world.’
He has also been exploring further afield, with one of his recent videos about a visit to Derby describing it as an ‘English City Enriched by Modernity, Knives and Tiktokers’.
Footage of a trip across the Pennines to Leeds carries the title: ‘Armed Police Destroyed, Pro Hamas Vigil & Rude Kid Gets Told Off.’
Another, from last month, is titled: ‘Menacing Lefto-Authoritarian Mass Immigration Britain.’
And one from the Merseyside town of Southport, where Axel Rudakubana murdered three young girls at a Taylor Swift-theme dance session last July, is titled: ‘Recovered Since the Enrichment? Anti-English Propaganda Shocker.’
He tells viewers: ‘I want to remind us all that we shouldn’t let the three girls murdered at that dance class die in vain.
‘We shouldn’t let all the little girls traumatised for life, with life-changing injuries – their suffering should not be in vain.
Footage has been revealed of the moment Mr Veitch was attacked in Manchester’s Trafford Centre shopping mall by Bradley Webb (pictured) who has been convicted of common assault
Rio-born, Edinburgh-educated Charlie Veitch has more than 2,400 videos on his YouTube page
‘We need to learn from it, build on it, put safeguards in place so that it doesn’t happen again as much as we can.
‘But I just don’t see that kind of leadership coming from the Government, I just don’t.’
His YouTube page describes Mr Veitch in his profile as: ‘Mathematical sentience complex trapped inside an over-clocked ape graphics card brain.’
It also quotes French philosopher Albert Camus as saying: ‘A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object.
‘But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.’
Mr Veitch has been described as a former conspiracy theorist, claiming in the past that the 9/11 terror attacks were faked by the US government.
He told the BBC in the corporation’s 2011 programme 9/11 Conspiracy Road Trip that he no longer believed that was the case.
The former finance worker joined ‘anarchist’ demonstrations in central London in April 2012, while being the founder of a group called The Love Police Academy.
Charlie Veitch (pictured) was interviewed for the BBC in 2014 by film-maker Mohnish Patel
A recent video of his from Leeds is titled ‘Armed Police Destroyed, Pro Hamas Vigil & Rude Kid Gets Told Off’
And he featured in a short BBC film in 2014, still available on the corporation’s website, called That Man With The Megaphone.
Director Mohnish Patel interviewed him about his street activism, megaphone in hand, including demonstrations outside financial service firms’ HQs – and filmed discussions with police officers questioning what he was doing.
In interviews from the home he shared with his then-partner, their five-month-old child and her four-year-old son from a previous relationship, Mr Veitch opened up about his background – and also his desire to challenge people.
He said then: ‘It’s balancing between my own personal insanity, wanting to do the Love Police stuff and my responsibilities as a parent.
‘There’s crossover, because if you love yourself and you love your kids, you want to fight the system.’
He described his upbringing as ‘safely middle class’, with a ‘sailor father and lawyer mother’ providing a ‘very happy childhood’ in which he ‘didn’t lack for anything’.
Mr Veitch told the programme: ‘I went to a good school. My parents never beat me. They didn’t divorce, they were together – so, no complaints.’
He told of going to the University of Edinburgh in 1998 to study business and finance, before realising he was more interested in philosophy and switching degrees.
Charlie Veitch was born in Rio, to a Brazilian father and a Scottish mother
But he did then go on, after graduating, to work for seven years in the financial sector.
He said: ‘Not having a clue what I was going to do with a philosophy degree, I fell back into finance – which was ironic because at the age of 12, I was ‘I’m not going to do finance’.
‘But then there’s all that pressure at 22, you don’t very much about stuff compared to be nowadays.’
He told of a change of approach after being made redundant in 2009, amid the fallout from the credit crunch and financial crash – becoming a self-proclaimed anarchist.
He was arrested on the eve of the royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton in April 2011 on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and breach of the peace.
Mr Veitch recalled in the BBC short film: ‘I thought, Charlie, you’ve always wanted to do something with philosophy and acting and filming – why don’t you film your activism? So I did. And then the Love Project was born.’
He later told the Manchester Evening News in 2015 after being blocked from recording footage outside the city’s Town Hall: ‘I film things because I like to, I consider myself a bit of a run-and-gun director. I also like exercising my freedoms which sometimes angers security guards.’
In the BBC documentary, he said: ‘I understand that most people for whatever reason aren’t interested in political, philosophical, anarachist, spiritual ideologies.
Bradley Webb was seen hollering abuse and hurling shoes towards Mr Veitch inside a clothes store after the 44-year old victim challenged him for shouting ‘paedophile’ outside
‘It’s over and above their heads or they think it’s crazy or it doesn’t tie in with their Beyonce, Rihanna, Justin Bieber everyday existence.
‘They become part of the background, get pushed around – so my message to people is to spend a bit of time working on yourself.
‘Spend a bit of time realising what it actually means on a spiritual, even from a philosophical level – what does freedom mean? What does being human mean? What does being conscious mean?’
And he also told of suffering not only death threats but also attempted scamming by someone who set up fake accounts in his name on Facebook and YouTube.
Mr Veitch said: ‘He wrote to me saying, ‘I’m going to kill you, I know where you live, I’m going to slit your throat’. I had to go to the police.
‘Part of me was like, ‘You’re a 15-year-old idiot living in your parents’ basement’ – but on the other side you’re going to take it slightly seriously. Because, can you imagine if the worst happens and you ignored the signs of it?’
His YouTube videos include footage of him being hit by some on the streets of Manchester, by people unhappy their portrayal in his widely-shared uploads.
And this week’s court case highlighted the moment Mr Veitch was subjected to an ‘unprovoked’ attack by a father in the city’s Trafford Centre shopping mall.
Bradley Webb and Robyn Laing were convicted in their absence of common assault, at Wigan Magistrates’ Court, for the attacks on Charlie Veitch and his girlfriend Laura Garside
Footage shows carpet fitter Bradley Webb, 31, turning on social media film-maker Charles Veitch at the Trafford Centre shopping mall in Manchester.
Webb was seen hurling abuse and throwing shoes towards Mr Veitch inside a clothes store after the 44-year old victim challenged him for having shouted ‘paedophile’.
Mr Veitch activated the camera on his mobile phone to film the encounter, with Webb picking up items from the busy Hackett store – including a contactless bank card reader and shoes.
Mr Veitch’s girlfriend Miss Garside, who suffered a bruise above her eyebrow and the bridge of her nose, was so traumatised by the attack she refused to leave her house for two weeks, Wigan Magistrates’ Court heard.
Mr Veitch told the court the ‘paedophile’ slur was aimed at him because he has a girlfriend half his age, saying: ‘It is such a disgusting thing to say. Some words cause violence and other haters could have attacked me.
‘We know situations where people have had their houses burned down for this allegation. I did not think there would be any violence. We were in a posh shopping mall. I thought I would tell him off and that would be the end of it.’
Details of the incident emerged at the court, where Webb and Laing, from Great Moor in Stockport, faced charges of common assault.
Both were convicted in their absence after they failed to show up and a warrant was issued for their arrest.
YouTuber Charles Veitch shared footage of the confrontation with Bradley Webb (pictured)
The assault occurred when Mr Veitch and Miss Garside were on a day out at the mall at about 1pm on July 23 2023.
Mr Veitch told the hearing: ‘I heard someone from behind shout ‘paedophile’ and I thought, ‘Someone is having a go’. It is an insult others have used against me as there is a 21-year age difference between me and Laura.
‘I have had other lads shouting such things at me – so I think, here we go, this is about Laura.
‘I turned around and said, ‘You cannot say that in public, mate’ – but he was saying, ‘What, what, what is your problem?’
‘I am saying, ‘Why did you call me a paedophile? You cannot just shout paedophile at people’ – but he took a step towards me and then I saw the female attacking Laura.
‘I was trying to save my girlfriend from the assault but he wanted to attack me. He tried to hit me with a big haymaker a right hook and kicked me in the gut.’
The couple were ushered into the Hackett store but Webb followed them inside and Mr Veitch began filming him.
The victim added: ‘He picked up an object and threw it at me. I said, ‘You attacked a girl, you should be ashamed, you horrible man’.
The attack, caught on camera, continued outside the store within the shopping centre
‘But he then threw a contactless card payment device at me. He said, ‘You and me come around the corner and I will get you’.
‘He was offering a physical fight away from where we were. Something like, ‘Let’s fight’.’
Miss Garside told the court: ‘We were walking when we heard a voice from behind us shouting, ‘Paedophile’.
‘My partner and I turned around and there was a couple there with a baby staring at us so we knew it was them.
‘We were in shock and asked why they said that. They immediately got their back up. The woman grabbed my hair with two hands and pulled it hard. I was terrified.’
A police statement from a Sgt Black who attended the incident read: ‘I was advised by members of the public and staff that Mr Webb and Miss Laing had been the aggressors and their behaviour was described as disgusting. The female victim was very upset and crying.’
In a police interview, nail technician Laing said she and Webb were on their way to a Wetherspoons pub for lunch when the incident occurred.
She told officers: ‘Bradley said the word paedophile in conversation and this guy, nearly 7ft tall, turned around and said, ‘What?’.
YouTube Charlie Veitch has told of suffering death threats and online scamming attempts
‘We were just having our own conversation but they assumed that Bradley was calling him a paedophile. He is a gobs***e and does not realise how loudly he talks.
‘She told me to ‘Shut up, you little chav’ and looked at him, at Bradley, in a nasty way.
‘We were just trying to leave with my baby but she kept getting closer to me. That is when I stepped closer and pushed her back. It is like, I flew at her, but I did not.’
Webb told officers: ‘They said I called them a paedophile and I told them to come outside away from my daughter.
‘He hit me on the nose and I lost my s*** after that and threw shoes at him. I did nothing but protect myself. It was self defence, to keep him where he was.’
Video footage released this week shows Webb angrily saying, ‘Come out the front and have it with me now – have it with me now’.
After hurling an object across the store, he adds: ‘My baby’s with me.’
In convicting the couple, District Judge Jane Hamilton said: ‘Throwing things in the shop was certainly not defensive at all.’
MailOnline has contacted Mr Veitch for further comment.
