Hold onto your hats, guys and gals, because I recently heard a rumour that will make parents’ Whatsapp groups everywhere Blow. Up.
Alright, I’m being dramatic, and I have to state from the outset that there is absolutely no evidence to back up these rumours. But why let the truth get in the way of a good blog post?
Anyway, according to social media, Mr Tumble – the cuddly chap with the shiny red nose who does Makaton on kids’ TV shows – has a criminal record.
Whuuuuuttt?
How could this be true? Mr Tumble, or Justin Fletcher as he is known when he’s not on the telly, has been a kids TV show favourite since the late 1990s. He first appeared as Mr Tumble in 2004 which means he has been entertaining our children as this character for over 20 years!
The parents in my kids’ school Whatsapp group (this is genuinely where I first heard the rumour) were losing their minds with this, but no one could say for sure whether or not it was true.
So I did some digging, didn’t I? Because that’s what I do.
I’ll explain where this all came from below, but it’s only fair to Justin Fletcher to say at the outset that the rumours of him having a criminal record are completely unfounded. He’s innocent, guys, put your pitchforks away.
Where the Rumour Came From
As with all things ridiculous, this rumour came from social media. Well, that’s how it spread, anyway.
There are a few sources that contributed to it, from ‘fan theories’ on reddit to real news stories that have been misinterpreted by people who only read headlines.
For example, one ‘fan theory’ – and I use inverted commas because I can’t believe a grown adult can be a ‘fan’ of Mr Tumble – suggests that Mr Tumble sends Justin to meet the children with additional needs because he is not allowed to go near them himself. This is something that happens in the TV show. It’s Justin that meets the kids, and Mr Tumble watches their meeting on his Tumble Tapp, which is like an ipad.
This is obviously a joke, because Mr Tumble and Justin are the same person, just in and out of character, but it’s in pretty poor taste.
Then there was the genuine news story about a man who was found guilty of sexual activity with a minor. The man was from a place called Tumble, in South Wales. So what headline did the papers go with? “Tumble man guilty of sexual activity with 14-year-old girl”
They must have known what they were doing.
Next there was the satirical news site The Rochdale Herald, which published a story about Mr Tumble not having a valid enhanced certificate from the Criminal Records Bureau allowing him to work with children. Justin Fletcher did, but Mr Tumble did not. This is obviously a spoof article from a spoof site because a made up character cannot get a CRB check done… but the internet takes these things and runs with them.
Last on the list, although there may be more examples, is another man called Justin Fletcher from Florida, USA, who is on the sex offenders register. There is literally a photo of the guy on the site though, and he looks nothing like the kids TV entertainer of the same name, so it’s very obviously a different person.
So it looks like a combination of jokes, hoaxes, and cases of mistaken identity all contributed to the rumour that Mr Tumble has a criminal record.
However the rumour started, it’s complete nonsense.
Why Rumours Spread
It’s incredible to me that so many people heard this rumour and chose to believe it without doing the slightest bit of research.
I debunked it in about 10 minutes of Googling.
I think people quite enjoy the ‘breaking news’ element of stories like this. They almost want it to be true. Humans love a gossip. We love being the one who knows something before other people know it. We love telling stories and getting reactions.
Add social media to the mix and a story can go from a single line in a local newspaper to trending on TikTok in a few hours.
This used to happen before social media was a thing, too – remember the one about Zack from ‘Saved by the Bell’ dying in a motorcycle crash? I heard that one several times between the 1990s and the early 2000s. If rumours like that can spread so widely without the help of Twitter/X, Instagram and TikTok, just imagine how many people hear them these days.
The one about Mr Tumble has been around for a while. It resurfaces every now and then but never really caught on. I think that’s because it is so easy to find out the truth. Nevertheless, once in a while someone hears it for the first time and posts about it, perhaps to a parent’s Whatsapp group, and it starts up again.
Maybe that’s what led you here?
So there’s a lesson for you. Next time you hear something as next level nuts as Mr Tumble having a criminal record, take it with a pinch of salt until you’ve spent a few minutes looking into it.