Law
The Evolution of America’s (Un)protected Consumer
Consumer protection started to be seen as a responsibility that individuals, deemed rational and capable, were expected to shoulder themselves, assuming they were provided adequate information about the terms of exchange. ...
‘We Must Stop Incitement of Violence Against Environmental Activists Before Someone is Seriously Harmed’
In 2012, then Home Secretary Theresa May declared her aim “to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal migration”. The intention to do so spread, not just in our political structures, but through the media – with an emboldened Katie Hopkins using a column in The Sun to liken migrants to "cockroaches" who should be repelled by gunships.
Given that immigration was a key debating ground in the 2016 EU Referendum, this hostility was also a factor in the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by white supremacist Thomas Mair just before the Brexit Referendum. Police reported that hate crime rose by 57% in the four days following the referendum, with 14% of them involving threatened or actual physical violence.
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance singled out The Sun and Daily Mail for their use of "offensive, discriminatory and provocative terminology" in October 2016.
The report highlighted hate speech as a significant issue, urging them to “avoid harm to targeted persons or vulnerable groups”. The Commission's chair, Christian Ahlund, warned that “violence is on the rise in the UK at the same time as we see worrying examples of intolerance and hate speech in the newspapers, online and even among politicians”.
Now we see the incitement of violence towards climate activists.
Last year, Rod Liddle wrote in The Sun that "if it were up to me I would advance towards [climate activists] in a steamroller. Glued your arse to the road have you? Well you won’t be needing it much longer”.
This year, GB News celebrated Louis Grieves, who assaulted a Just Stop Oil (JSO) protestor, while TalkTV presenter Andre Walker suggested that rubber bullets were not an adequate response to Extinction Rebellion (XR).
He bemoaned the unlikelihood of ‘fixed bayonets’ – an open invitation to the kind of retribution threatened in this all too typical a response on an XR activist’s X (formerly Twitter) feed: “People like you should be shot in the face. Your kids should witness it and then also be shot in the face. You are absolute scum.”
Then there are the fossil fuel-funded Tufton Street think tanks, led by figures such as Ian Plimer, who calls for his readers to "maintain the rage”, and Allister Heath, who believes that climate activists threaten “the total destruction of Western society”.
Such commentators freely incite anger and disdain towards climate scientists in their opinion pieces.
Another example came in The Sun – “Plough On: US cops show Brit police how to deal with eco protestors as they drive truck through Extinction Rebellion barricade”. I complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) that this piece, at the very least, it constituted harassment. But it was deemed not to have contravened its definition of harassment, which applies only to situations where journalists harass individuals.
Such incitement seems obvious, though, to UN Special Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders, Michael Forst. In a statement laying out his concerns, he wrote: “I am distressed to see how environmental defenders are derided by some of the mainstream UK media and in the political sphere.
"By deriding environmental defenders, the media and political figures put them at risk of threats, abuse and even physical attacks from unscrupulous persons who rely on the toxic discourse to justify their own aggression.”
If regulators fail to act, it must surely be the duty of the law to step up.
Part 2 of the Serious Crime Act of 2007 creates the statutory crime of intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence.
In its original formulation, the act included a clause stating that it was “not a defence to a charge of incitement that the other person... does not commit the offence, or commits a different offence to that incited”. However, section 59 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 removed this caveat – essentially giving culture warrior commentators a ‘get out of jail free’ card whatever the consequences of their rhetoric.
It is ironic that the Government’s Police Crime Sentencing and Courts act criminalises "a person who incites another to commit an offence”, but reserves this indictment for peaceful protestors.
With UK law emasculated, attention must turn to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which, in the 2006 Erbakan versus Turkey case, concluded that, “as a matter of principle it may be considered necessary in certain democratic societies to sanction or even prevent all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance".
Indeed, in 2018, the ECHR addressed the case of Kaboğlu and Oran, two lecturers who had experienced threats and hate speech in newspaper articles after writing a report supporting minority rights.
Despite losing their cases domestically, the ECHR found a violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private life) due to the failure of the authorities to protect them, ruling that the "threats of physical harm made against the applicants sought to undermine their intellectual personality, causing them feelings of fear, anxiety and vulnerability in order to humiliate them and break their will to defend their ideas".
Globally, an environmental activist has been killed on average every two days over the past decade by petrostates. How long before an activist in this country suffers serious harm?
Governments that foment 'culture wars’ can be voted out. However, the press will remain untouchable until brought before the courts.
We should take heed of former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, who concluded her keynote speech to the Royal Society of Arts by exhorting us not to “ ignore or turn away from threat but instead to metabolise the understanding of that threat into an effective response guided by... gritty determination and resilience; openness to others; optimism; love and courage".
Rishi Sunak Accused of Lying Over Cost of Justice – as Victims Made to Pay Thousands to Access Vital Court Records
The son of a domestic abuse victim who killed her abusive husband in 2010 (the conviction was later overturned) has accused the PM of lying after claiming families of homicide victims get free transcripts of court proceedings.
In England and Wales, victims of crimes and their families are currently asked to pay hundreds or even thousands of pounds to private companies for transcripts of court hearings that relate to them.
The Open Justice for All campaign says this “impossible cost of closure is not one that many victims cannot afford to pay — especially given how traumatic stress can impact a victim’s ability to go to work and focus.”
“Traumatic” Experience
David Challen, now a campaigner on domestic violence, has been refused free access to court transcripts for his mother’s successful appeal against her 2011 conviction for murdering her husband.
David Challen has been quoted fees of £1,200 to read his 2019 appeal hearing that cleared his mother of killing her husband. She was freed on grounds of diminished responsibility due to the abuse she faced.
But responding to a question from Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney at PMQs on Wednesday, PM Rishi Sunak told MPs on Wednesday: “We already offer a free service to families of homicide victims” to access court transcripts.
David told Byline Times: “The Prime Minister lied in PMQ's when questioned about court transcripts…Here I am, the family of a homicide victim being denied a free service that should be available at no cost not only for myself, but for all victims of crime.”
The London-based campaigner says the lack of access to vital court documents has held back his recovery journey in processing what he and his family went through.
On 11 December 2023, David Challen's request for a transcript of the 2019 appeal – part of his therapeutic recovery – was refused, with the registrar saying: "The transcribers will charge a fee for providing it. There are many pressures on public funding at present. Having considered your request, Lord Justice Holroyde has concluded it would not be an appropriate use of public money for that fee now to be paid from public funds. Your request has therefore been refused."
David says the high costs he and other victims face are "traumatic". "As victims of crime these are our stories, our lived experiences and we deserve a right to read and come to terms with them. Paying for that service is borderline state sanctioned abuse."
Letter from the court rejecting David Challen's request for a free court transcript (Dec 2023)
After asking for the Judge to reconsider, Challen was told by the court that even to listen to a recording of proceedings would “involve being present in a courtroom at the [Royal Courts of Justice], which can only be done under supervision. It follows that this request will require a court official to be present whilst you listen to the whole of a recording of a hearing which occupied all or most of two court days.”
The court official added: “Lord Justice Holroyde remains sympathetic to your position, but does not believe that is an appropriate use of the limited staff resources of the court.”
He has also been told that the original trial recording from 2011, which put his mother behind bars, was “destroyed” – “yet I was not informed there was a time limit.”
Despite the Prime Minister’s claims about free transcripts, there appears to be nothing about free transcripts being provided for the families of homicide victims on the official Government information page, or in either of the necessary application forms.
The five-page form to request extraordinary waiver to receive a transcript “at public expense” requires applicants to set out their monthly expenses.
The Government's forms requesting a waiver of transcription fees ask for a full breakdown of the applicant's monthly expenses (Byline Times screengrab)
David Challen added: “The exploitative system that bars our therapeutic means of recovery is a dark ages practice that needs to be abolished. As victims of crime these are our stories, our lived experiences and we deserve a right to read and come to terms with them. Paying for that service is borderline state sanctioned abuse.”
"A Mockery of Justice"
Survivor Juliana Terlizzi has been campaigning to get the law changed and secure 'real open justice'. Photo: Supplied
In 2020, 36-year-old Juliana Terlizzi was drugged and raped by then-boyfriend, Hubert Greliak, 35. She has waived her anonymity to speak about her experience of the justice system.
The trial of her rapist took nearly two years to get to court, as the Mirror reported. Finally, in 2022, Greliak was found guilty at Isleworth Crown Court of rape and assault by penetration, and jailed for over 13 years).
But Juliana was then told by the court that a transcript of her ten-day trial would cost £7,459.20, despite reading it being recommended by her therapist.
"It just feels like a mockery. It feels like they don't care about us. We [the victims] are always an afterthought." She described her experience of the justice system as “horrific”.
“If transcripts are free in Brazil, a developing country where I'm from, why can't we do it here?,” the survivor and campaigner told Byline Times.
In Scotland, victims in rape and serious sexual assault cases now have access to transcripts from their court cases free of charge, under a year-long trial.
Charlotte’s Case
Charlotte, whose identity is being protected as her alleged abuser was found not guilty, was discouraged by police from attending the full magistrates case last year, aside from giving evidence.
After the case fell, however, she was told there were no records available for the court hearings.
“I had requested a live link to give my evidence from another room in the court. And that was declined. So basically, I was told: you have to come to give evidence, and then you can't see the rest of the trial, or hear the rest of the trial. And when he was found not guilty, I obviously wanted to understand why or what happened, what was said and all of that…
“For me to really understand and be able to move on and let go of all the things that kind of happened, I really wanted to know what was said,” Charlotte told Byline Times.
Notes from a barrister for the CPS, which were eventually shared with her, revealed that the judge suggested she was an unreliable witness “because I waited eight months to report the crime: the crime being a [multiple] year sexually, physically, mentally abusive relationship.
“And the second thing she said was, ‘you clearly spoke to other victims of domestic abuse, so you knew exactly what to say’.”
Charlotte wanted to hold the judge to account for these apparent sexist remarks. “But of course, the only way to put a complaint in is: you need your transcripts, you need proof that that was what was said. So when I found out that a Magistrates Court is not actually recorded, that was really upsetting.”
She spoke to other victims and helped develop the Open Justice campaign. “It's about me talking about the most intimate and horrific period of my life. Why can I not have the information about that?”
Another case, reported by The Times involved ‘Lily’, a child abuse and rape survivor, whose mother was quoted £6,534 for trial transcripts, eventually crowdfunding £1,428.90 for a partial transcript. Other victims have reportedly been quoted fees up to £22,000.
‘Dragging their Feet’
After speaking to constituents affected by the scandal, Liberal Democrat MP for Richmond Park, Sarah Olney, introduced a Commons amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill in November, urging the Government to waive transcript fees for victims of sexual violence, a move supported across party lines.
Despite this, the amendment was not selected for a vote by the Speaker and was not included into the legislation.
Instead, the Government has proposed a one-year pilot to provide victims of rape and other serious sexual offences with the judge's sentencing remarks for free. Critics say the measure falls short as it excludes non-guilty verdicts and any of the rest of the trial process, unlike the scheme in Scotland.
An open letter backing the campaign has been co-signed by 41 others include the CEO’s of Refuge, Rape Crisis UK, Women’s Aid and SAMM, as well as Cherie Booth CBE KC, the Victims’ Commissioner for London, the Chair of the Justice Select Committee, and the Mother and Father of the House of Commons.
The letter repeated the ask in the amendment which would ‘Make provisions in the Victims’ Bill to enable victims and bereaved families to request to receive a court transcript free of charge’.
The Victims and Prisoners Bill has now passed to the House of Lords, with the open justice amendment re-introduced by Baroness Brinton (Liberal Democrat). It is set for a vote on April 23.
Neither Labour nor the Government have indicated they will support the free transcripts amendment yet, on cost grounds. The cost of transcripts, managed by private companies, remains a barrier due to the fact that the notes are taken by hand, and then digitised.
However, there are now extensive, low-cost AI-powered transcription tools already on the market and being used by millions of people
Making them freely available would cost around £5.3m a year, based on 2022 figures compiled by the House of Commons library.
In 2017, Labour MP David Lammy said: “As part of the Government’s £1 billion court modernisation programme, all sentencing remarks in the Crown court should be published in audio and/or written form…This would build trust by making justice more transparent and comprehensible for victims, witnesses and offenders.” However, to date, Labour has not yet backed the amendment.
Sarah Olney MP said: “No victim or bereaved family should be forced to pay thousands to access a court transcript, and it is clear our current system is failing to address this glaring inequality.
“Justice should not have a price tag, and I am so honoured to stand side-by-side with victims and bereaved families on this vitally important campaign.
“Cases like this are sadly all too common, and the Justice Secretary must hear our calls for change and accept amendments to the Victims’ Bill which will help reduce the cost of these transcripts for victims.
“It is high time the Government listened to victims and experts and finally made this much needed change.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson did not respond to our specific questions but told this newspaper: “It is vital victims get the support and information they need to rebuild their lives and move on. That is why we’ve announced a new pilot scheme that will enable victims of serious sexual offences to request a copy of the judge’s sentencing remarks free of charge – building on a provision already in place for families of homicide victims in cases of murder or manslaughter.
“While judges can already decide to provide a full or partial transcription to victims, this pilot will inform our next steps as we continue to look at all other options to reduce the costs of providing them.”
Catfish Nation: Hundreds Targeted in Same Sexual WhatsApp Scam as Law ‘Struggles to Keep Up’ with Phenomenon
Hundreds of people including celebrities were catfished by someone with apparent knowledge of their private lives trying to obtain potentially compromising pictures and other digital material, a Byline Times investigation can reveal.
The many victims include at least two television personalities who have described being targeted in a manner similar to the ‘honeypot’ scandal currently rocking Westminster around admissions by the Conservative MP William Wragg that he passed on personal numbers of other MPs to someone he met on a dating app. This newspaper is not directly connecting the two scams.
A journalist and a presenter, who have both asked not to be identified, were targeted through WhatsApp messages from an unknown number in which the scammer claimed to be a close friend who had damaged their phone while appearing to possess knowledge of the men’s lives, which was used in an attempt to obtain sensitive information.
The two are speaking out as police launch an investigation into the targeting of up to two dozen men working in Westminster, including several MPs and journalists, in a similar sting.
One of the victims, a TV host, told Byline Times: “It was a really unnerving experience. Realising that someone has been targeting you maliciously is horrible. It makes you question so much, and suspect people close to you. It is disgusting behaviour with a huge human impact. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
It comes nine months after Byline Times reported how the now-disgraced former TV host and journalist Dan Wootton used various online pseudonyms to catfish sexually explicit material from friends, colleagues and celebrities via text, social media, and emails over at least a 10-year period. There is no suggestion that Mr Wootton is connected to these new incidents.
William Wragg resigned the Conservative whip after admitting to giving out colleagues’ personal phone numbers to someone he had met on a dating app. Photo: NurPhoto SRL/Alamy
Number Ending 7415
While the prevalence of sexual catfishing is increasingly widespread, according to one eminent sexual offences lawyer, the law - which does not list the act of catfishing itself as illegal, and instead relies upon crimes being committed through catfishing, such as harassment or obtaining by deception - is struggling to keep pace.
Dino Nocivelli, partner at law firm Leigh Day, said: “The harms from catfishing are increasingly well known and yet the criminal law does not seem to have caught up with this issue.
“The impact of catfishing, especially where it then results in sexual images being obtained by deceit, is very serious and could cause lasting trust and relationship issues.”
The phone number used in the scam – which ends in the four digits 7415 – has been prolific in its use for catfishing over the past five years. In that period the number has been searched 3,622 times on the online telephone number searching directory “Who Called” by people trying to find out who it belongs to.
Around 60 people – among them several young men at performing arts colleges – have left messages on the site warning of the nefarious sexual motives behind the number’s use.
One of the conspiracy’s victims, a TV journalist who is engaged to a woman, contacted Byline Times after reading our three-year Wootton investigation, which launched last July.
He told how he was approached last September by someone purporting to be one of his oldest ‘female friends’, who claimed her phone was damaged, told the man that her relationship was struggling and asked for advice.
The journalist said the scammer made comments about his relationship with his fiancee which only someone who personally knew either him or his partner would have known, and encouraged him to divulge personal information about their own sex life.
He said: “This friend of mine is the only person I would have such a conversation with because she’s like a sister to me. The person who was doing this appeared to have known that, which suggests the person behind it knew me. It was so sophisticated.”
Westminster MPs and journalists targeted by a sexual catfisher by the names “Abi” and “Charlie” have made similar allegations about the “sophisticated” ruse, including the knowledge of their lives supposedly possessed by their scammer.
The journalist became suspicious when the person posing as his female ‘friend’ - who, it turned out, had no clue about the interaction - requested a ‘threesome’ with him and his girlfriend, claiming they were ‘testing’ how strong their relationship was.
He added: “It was so fucked up. We have considered going to the police, but would they do anything about it? Technically none of it is a crime but I felt violated. Catfishing with a malicious or sexual motive like this should be made a crime in and of itself.”
When another victim – a TV presenter who approached Byline Times after the Wootton expose – was targeted, the catfish impersonated him in messages to one of his friends.
Claiming the victim’s usual phone was broken, the catfish tried to obtain information about the sexuality of celebrities who worked with the victim, while peppering the conversation with seemingly insider knowledge of the victim’s work life.
The presenter said: “It felt, from what they said to my friend, very much like this scammer knew me. Thankfully they didn’t get anything from my friend, but it was very unnerving and made me question lots of people I knew, which wasn’t pleasant. This sort of thing really should be a police matter.”
Previous Warnings
The 58 user warnings on the “Who Called” website all paint a similar picture, with many victims saying the scammer had pretended to be a friend or relative messaging on a different number as they had broken their phone, before the conversation became sexual.
The most recent warning comment, six months ago, said: “Known catfish with sexual motives.”
Another, a year ago, wrote: “Very convincing catfish! Knew all about me and my life history. Has since been sharing my nudes around my workplace!!!!!!! No idea how they get all this information. Scary as F**K!!!”
One, two years ago, read: “Caller claimed to be a friend of mine, soon became sexual, saying weird stuff. I cannot see a motive other than emotional harm to a victim or sexual gratification. He needs to be stopped.”
Dozens of victims called for the police to investigate. As long as five years ago, one said “Police need to get involved”, while another added, “this needs to get escalated to police”.
Several victims alleged that the con artist had pretended to be “well-known soap actors”, with one saying they’d claimed to be EastEnders actress Barbara Smith, who played Dana Monroe from 2021 to 2022.
One victim said two years ago: “Pretending to be Barbara Smith who is an actor in EastEnders. Very convincing catfish and very, very scary. DO NOT RESPOND.” There is no suggestion Ms Smith is even aware her identity is being used in this way.
*If you’ve ever fallen victim to a catfishing attempt on a number which ends in the four digits 7415, please contact Byline Times in complete confidence at info@bylinetimes.com.
What is the Current Law on Catfishing?
Catfishing is not currently an offence in its own right.
Internet law specialist solicitors Cohen Davis explained that with the exception of harassment, “there are no criminal laws against impersonation on social media”.
A 2014 review of social media and the law by the Lords Communications Committee concluded that existing laws were enough to prosecute criminal offences committed over social media.
But “while fake online profiles on social media might not by themselves be illegal”, Cohen Davis added, “there are other activities that engage catfishing or fake online accounts that may turn otherwise lawful activity into activity which is unlawful”.
Catfishing “might be illegal” if the fraudster obtained money or goods “due to the fraud”, they added.
A catfish could also be charged “with a number of non-consensual sex-related criminal offences” if “romance fraud had led to sexual contact”, because “any consent given by the victim to the contact could be rendered void”, according to the firm.
And if a victim has shared private information, they “may pursue a claim for breach of privacy against the fraudster in the civil courts”.
When asked whether it intended to make catfishing a criminal offence, a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology told Byline Times: “The Online Safety Act will crack down on catfishing by giving people greater control over their online experience, requiring platforms to give adults the ability to restrict unverified accounts being able to interact with them.
“The Act will ensure tech companies take proactive action to stop criminals from using their platforms to commit fraud or other kinds of offences through catfishing or will risk facing fines that could reach billions of pounds.”
Just One-in-Four Voters Back Rishi Sunak’s Threat to Quit ‘Foreign Court’ of ECHR
The Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week threatened to quit the ECHR, saying that he would take Britain out of what he described as the “foreign court” if it stood in the way of his plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda.
"I do believe that border security and making sure that we can control illegal migration is more important than membership of a foreign court", he told the Sun newspaper.
However, new polling commissioned by Byline Times this week suggests that just one-in-four (26%) voters would back leaving the European Court of Human Rights.
By contrast, 43% of those surveyed by pollsters We Think said that they would support remaining within the international court’s jurisdiction.
A further third (32%) of voters said they don’t know what they thought about the issue either way.
Conservative MPs have been piling pressure on the Prime Minister to back quitting the ECHR in the party’s upcoming general election manifesto, with some commentators even suggesting that the party could promise to hold a referendum on the issue.
However, unlike Brexit which ultimately gathered support from a majority of voters, the issue of Britain’s membership of the ECHR appears to be only a minority concern.
Even among Conservative supporters, support for quitting the court is still not a majority proposition, the poll suggests, with just 46% of those surveyed agreeing that the UK should leave.
Sunak has previously dampened down expectations of ever quitting the ECHR, with the Rwandan Government hinting last December that the country would pull out of their deportation agreement with the UK if they quit the ECHR.
However, Rwandan officials appeared to back away from this suggestion this week following Sunak’s latest intervention, saying that the UK's membership of the court was a matter for Sunak's Government.
Despite Sunak's threat to leave the ECHR, the Prime Minister continues to insist that he believes doing so won't be necessary, saying this week that the Government's Rwanda scheme is "in compliance" with all international conventions the UK is already signed up to.
However, the UK's Supreme Court ruled last year that the Government's plan would not be in compliance with international law, due to their assessment that Rwanda is not a safe country.
The Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner last month savaged what it described as the "dangerous" Rwanda scheme, which it singled out as an example of states "dismantling collective human rights safeguards [and] eroding legal and democratic checks that protect all our rights".
Human rights groups have also criticised plans to deport people to the country, where political opponents of the country's dictator Paul Kagame continue to be targeted by the regime.
However, last month a Conservative peer defended the scheme, saying that the country was indeed a "perfectly safe country" as long as you "don't oppose the Government".
Lawfare: How Journalists and Activists Can Combat Vexatious Litigation
As readers of Byline Times will know well, journalists and NGOs (particularly those on the 'progressive' end of the spectrum) frequently face legal threats aimed at blunting or deterring their activities. That can also extend to charities and campaigning organisations who find themselves threatened with a libel or privacy action for discussing matters of genuine public concern.
Often it appears to be a cynical exploitation of both the law itself, and the fact that it can be costly to defend against a case in the UK courts. But there is a growing realisation that those who receive a threatening letter from, or invoking a law firm, do not necessarily have to play the game. Certainly, they should not immediately instruct their own law firm and initiate that lengthy and expensive dance that lawyers naturally take up.
Carole Cadwalladr and Peter Jukes outside the High Court on the last day of the journalist's libel trial. Photo: Zuma Press/Alamy
Reasonable Steps?
As a rule, a person who feels injured, defamed or otherwise misrepresented might be expected to make contact to request an explanation. They might reasonably ask for a prominent clarification and if appropriate a correction and apology. If there was an honest mistake or genuine misunderstanding and the recipient responds swiftly and sensitively, it can in most cases mitigate most if not all of the harm caused.
On the other hand, if the supposed victim sits on the matter for a few weeks and the first communication is a letter from a law firm requesting a fixed fee in damages plus legal costs, one can reasonably question the underlying motivation.
In many instances what is clearly happening is that the 'offended party' is exploiting the law to impose on the alleged offender a significant and unquantifiable burden of costs and waste of resources.
So what does the recipient do? They call up their lawyer and make it inevitable that significant costs will ensue. While it is difficult to gather empirical evidence, it seems that very few of these complaints end up in court, or indeed are intended to do so. Instead they are aimed at deterring further coverage, exposure or criticism. And collectively they can have a serious chilling effect on public debate as well as investigative journalism.
The Lawyers
It’s not (entirely) the fault of the lawyers. Yes, there are some notorious firms who seem ready to engage in lawfare without much examination of either the underlying facts, their own consciences or even their professional obligations. But faced with a client who claims to be aggrieved, they can sometimes be excused for taking that at face value.
Having said that, they should be asking why their client didn’t make an attempt to resolve the matter as soon as they became aware of it. And if the law firm is habitually acting on a “no win, no fee” basis, the lawyers should probably be questioning their own business model.
By the same token, the lawyers approached by the defendant have a professional duty to help their client defend itself, but they ought to consider whether there isn’t a speedy and non-lawyered way of disposing of the matter. Typically many hours and thousands of pounds can be spent only to result in advice that basically says “Well you could win, but you could lose, and loss will be very expensive so you should consider making a settlement offer”. That offer in turn will reward the claimant’s law firm and encourage repeat behaviour.
It is important to take into consideration that lawyers feel happiest writing lengthy letters to other lawyers because they can be as aggressive and threatening as they like. But they hate having to deal with private citizens, where they will be expected by the court (should it ever get to court) to be far more measured and to explain themselves far more clearly.
A further consideration is the growing sense that the courts are becoming fatigued with such cases. That is particularly true where the complaint is brought by a public figure who has already established a persona in the public mind and appears to be arguing a relatively minor, if any, damage to their reputation. The recent setback suffered by Laurence Fox should be a warning to many.
How to Respond
With that in mind, a suggestion to anyone receiving out of the blue a letter from a law firm claiming that a tweet, article or broadcast has misrepresented the facts in a way that has harmed the standing of their client, is that they should consider responding as follows:
Ultimately the response will depend on the seriousness of the allegations, but in most instances, it would be wholly appropriate for most campaigns, charities and journalists (particularly where sued individually) to adopt this approach.
If done consistently it should make quite a dent in the practices of those law firms involved. It could also be helpful if those who so far have been on the receiving end of such measures from particular law firms could find a way of exchanging their experiences and preparing a dossier for submission to the various professional bodies, who to their credit are now waking up to abuses of the system.
Anyone with experiences to share should feel free to contact info@bylinetimes.com in confidence.
Australia’s Defamation Lawyers Name Bruce Lehrmann Their Person Of The Decade
Australia’s defamation lawyers have today put out a press release naming Channel 7’s second favourite son, Bruce Lehrmann, their person of the decade.
”Up until recently we thought that Ben Roberts-Smith was the goose that laid the golden egg,” said a Spokesperson for the Nation’s defamation lawyers. ”Then along came good old Brucey.”
”That dude has created enough work to put today’s lawyers children’s children through private school.”
When asked if Australia’s defamation laws needed reviewing, the Spokesperson said: ”Of course they do, we need to make it easier for more people to sue.”
”We have some lawyers who only have one or two defamation cases a year to keep them busy.”
”Australia needs more lawyers out there practicing more cases and earning more cash.”
”Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and buy Brucey a thank you gift. Reckon he’d like a massage?”
Mark Williamson
@MWChatShow
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Defamatory Remarks Prompt Resignations & Legal Restructuring at Philosophical Society
Four members of the executive committee of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain (PESGB) resigned in the wake of complaints that Impact, the society’s journal, published defamatory remarks about a philosophy graduate student.
In issue 27 (September 2022) the journal published “How can universities promote academic freedom? Insights from the front line of the gender wars,” by Judith Suissa (UCL) and Alice Sullivan (UCL). As explained here, the authors of that article attack Christa Peterson, a philosophy graduate student at the University of Southern California: “Suissa and Sullivan insult Peterson by calling her a ‘troll’, insinuate she has mental problems by characterizing her as ‘obsessive’, falsely accuse her of ‘bullying’… and misdescribe her work in an inflammatory way.”
According to minutes from a meeting of the society in November, 2023:
Amanda Fulford, Naomi Hodgson, David Lewin and Victoria Jameson resigned from their positions on the Executive Committee in June 2023. Naomi, David and Amanda resigned in response to criticism from some members of the Executive over the handling of complaints received by the Society about IMPACT 27. They felt this criticism to be unfair and obstructive to the work they had been appointed to carry out. Victoria resigned in solidarity with the officers.
Officers of the society had suggested that in light of the complaints, the piece by Suissa and Sullivan be revised:
At [a previous meeting], the Secretary and Treasurer had reviewed the complaints and recommended that the authors be asked to amend two passages in the pamphlet. The authors had declined to make the suggested amendments. The Trustees were therefore considering the option of withdrawing the pamphlet. Following the AGM, however, it came to light that the Society is not authorised to amend or withdraw the pamphlet without the authors’ consent. IMPACT 27 will therefore remain in the public domain.
The only revision to the article made by the authors related to an inaccurate statistic.
The complaints about the authors’ defamatory remarks led to a legal restructuring of the Society, according to the minutes:
One of the things brought to light by this affair is the personal liability of the Trustees should a legal case be brought against the Society. Therefore, legal advice has been sought from a law firm specialising in charity law, VWV. The advice relates to the transition from an unincorporated charitable association to a charitable incorporated organisation (CIO). This transition will require the formal dissolution of the PESGB as an unincorporated association and the creation of a new CIO with the same name. This in turn will require the consent of PESGB members. The Executive plans to bring a proposal to this effect to the AGM in March. VWV has advised that a complete elected Executive Committee is required before steps can be taken to incorporate, which is why these mid-term elections have been called. Once the vacancies are filled, discussions with the Charity Commission about incorporation can begin.
The meeting minutes are here.
The post Defamatory Remarks Prompt Resignations & Legal Restructuring at Philosophical Society first appeared on Daily Nous.
‘Why We Will Apply to Take Ofcom to Court Unless It Explains Its Approach to GB News’
Readers of Byline Times are likely to have been among the many who have complained to Ofcom about GB News and its partisan political stance.
Byline Times itself has repeatedly scrutinised the broadcast regulator’s unwillingness to enforce the impartiality requirements of its Broadcasting Code, other than administering a few slaps on the wrist for breaches so glaring and egregious that they could not be ignored or excused.
It has also attempted to establish the reasons for Ofcom’s forbearance.
We may be about to find out a bit more about what’s going on at Ofcom’s Riverside House HQ as I have teamed up with the Good Law Project to take the first step in a legal process, putting the regulator on notice that we intend to apply for a judicial review of its approach to GB News if Ofcom does not make it clear that it has not changed its policy in the case of smaller or non-public service broadcasters.
In particular, holding them to different standards from those governing the public service broadcasters as far as impartiality is concerned – something which the Code does not appear to permit.
What finally prompted this action were remarks by Ofcom's CEO Dame Melanie Dawes in an interview with Sky News on 13 March. In it, she stated that its requirement for due impartiality was not "an absolute test of equal balance" but has to be achieved "in a way that’s appropriate for the audience expectation, in a way that’s appropriate for the subject matter. We expect a range of views to be brought to bear, rather than just one single view or small cluster of views". This, she explained, "can be done… in lots and lots of different ways".
But, crucially, she then added: "The standard for someone like the BBC, which reaches still, 70% of the TV viewing audience for news is a different one from that of a channel that has an audience of maybe 4% or 5% of a of the viewing public. We expect different things and I think that's appropriate."
She then went on to make a distinction between different kinds of broadcasters.
On the one hand, there are the public service broadcasters and Sky News, with their "pretty scrupulous approach to impartially", their "high standards… underpinned by the Broadcasting Code", and the "high levels of trust" that people have in them.
On the other, there are now channels "that can present the news from a particular perspective. It’s not about the overall output of a channel, as long as for each programme there is a sufficient range of views brought to bear. And I think that that allows a level of diversity and plurality in provision to be brought to the viewing public".
It is our case that Dame Melanie is proposing that channels with relatively low audience figures (although it should be pointed out that GB News still reaches millions of citizens) are held to a different standard of impartiality from that applying to the public service broadcasters.
We also argue that, judging by Dame Melanie’s interview, ‘different’ here means less ‘scrupulous’ than the ‘high standards’ underpinned by the Code.
In our letter to Ofcom, we refer to this as the “lower standards for small or non-public service broadcasters approach”.
We are contending that this amounts to a revision of the due impartiality requirements of the Code, that this revision has been undertaken by Ofcom without any form of consultation, and that this runs counter to the 2003 Communications Act.
Among other things, this Act created Ofcom and required it to establish a standards code. Section 319(1) states: "It shall be the duty of Ofcom to set, and from time to time to review and revise, such standards for the content of programmes to be included in television and radio services as appear to them best calculated to secure the standards objectives."
No public consultation on the specific subject of impartiality has taken place since 2007, when Ofcom published the discussion document 'New News, Future News’, which did indeed suggest relaxing the impartiality rules for smaller channels. However, the suggestions were badly received (except, all too predictably, by newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, who at that time was itching to turn Sky News into Fox News UK) and the idea was quietly dropped.
But, as Stewart Purvis, former Ofcom content and standards partner, and Chris Banatvala, Ofcom’s founder director of standards, have pointed out: "It is not for Ofcom but Parliament to decide whether impartiality rules should be weakened, changed or abandoned. If, after public and parliamentary debate, there’s a view that perhaps impartiality should only apply to public service broadcasters, then so be it. But, at the moment, the rules are being changed by the back door."
We are also asking for clarification of the meaning (if any) of Dame Melanie’s statement that due impartiality "is not about the overall output of a channel".
As Ofcom is always at great pains to point out, the Code requires that news programmes in whatever form are presented with 'due’ impartiality – and both the Communications Act and the Code stress that "special impartiality requirements" apply to news and other programmes dealing with "matters of political or industrial controversy and matters relating to current public policy". These are, of course, GB News’ stock-in-trade.
But, although the word ‘due’ is made to do a great deal of heavy lifting in the Code and in its accompanying guidance notes – indeed, threatening to qualify the very notion of impartiality out of existence – nowhere is it suggested that due impartiality turns on the audience share that a particular channel enjoys.
When fining RT £200,000 in July 2019 for breaches of its impartiality rules, Ofcom explicitly stated that, although RT had a relatively small audience of, on average, 2,300 viewers, amounting to a share of total viewing in the UK of 0.03%, "in this context, the extent of a channel’s audience cannot sensibly dictate the gravity of the breach, not least because the due impartiality regime could easily be circumvented and undermined if smaller broadcasters were allowed an effective exemption from generally applied standards".
When RT appealed against the fine, the Court of Appeal stated that "the number of viewers affected by the partial broadcasting is not the point, because Parliament has determined that such broadcasting shall be duly impartial". It also pointed out that the harm caused by partial broadcasting "is not limited to the harm caused to viewers but extends to the harm indirectly caused to members of society generally by the provision of broadcast news and current affairs that lacks due impartiality".
When fining talkSPORT in February 2020 for impartiality breaches in three episodes of a programme presented by George Galloway, Ofcom announced that although it "recognised that the audience for the programmes in question was small when compared to some other radio services", it considered that the three repeated breaches of certain of the impartiality rules in its Code "had the potential to adversely affect those listeners who chose to listen to the relevant programmes and who were therefore presented with coverage of important policy and political matters which denied them an appropriately wide range of viewpoints".
Our case rests largely on the question of whether GB News, as a smaller broadcaster, is being held to different standards from those governing public service broadcasters as far as impartiality is concerned. However, there are also other aspects of Ofcom’s approach which are troubling and are in need of investigation.
Firstly, there is the matter of freedom of expression.
In her oral evidence to the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee last March, Dame Melanie stated that "the phrase 'freedom of expression’ is a very important part of this debate – one that perhaps should be a little bit more prominent".
In the wake of the furore following then Conservative Deputy Chairman Lee Anderson interviewing then Home Secretary Suella Braverman in September 2023 on GB News, in answer to a question about whether the Code was fit for purpose, she was quoted in the Guardian as stating that: "The rules are flexible, they require us to prioritise freedom of expression, which is missing a bit in this conversation, and we feel we’ve got plenty of flexibility."
The only problem here, however, is that the rules do not require Ofcom to ‘prioritise’ freedom of expression – they merely require it to take into consideration Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights when making their judgments. In point of fact, however, they should be compliant with these articles.
In any case, the idea of freedom of expression championed by Dame Melanie, and also by Ofcom Chair Lord Michael Grade, seems to echo that of Elon Musk and his fellow ‘free speech fundamentalists’ – namely that rules governing any speech on any platform should be at the very least relaxed, regardless of its provenance and the damage it might inflict on others, or on public and democratic life in general.
Second, there is the idea that what Ofcom really wants is that viewers should be able to access views other than those that they encounter on the public service broadcasting channels. So, for example, in her appearance before the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Dame Melanie said that "we are always thinking about freedom of expression here and do not want to see just a single, monocultural – a mono-representation of views on British TV. When you compare what you get in the UK with what you see in America, which is unregulated, it is very, very different".
Similarly, in her Sky News interview, she remarked that "it’s very important that we uphold freedom of expression. And that’s the freedom of the broadcaster to broadcast and to express, if you like, their creativity in their journalistic skill in multiple different ways. But it’s also the freedom of the viewer to receive a range of different formats and opinions".
Subtextual it may be, but lurking behind these pronouncements there seems to be the highly questionable assumption that the public service broadcasters are beaming at their viewers a particular view of the world. And, in the current 'culture war’ climate, one strongly suspects that the ‘view’ that Ofcom has in its sights is that of the dread ‘metropolitan liberal elite’.
It’s almost as if the real problems are seen as lying with the allegedly out-of-touch public service broadcasters, and particularly the BBC (which Ofcom now regulates), while GB News has brought a welcome blast of fresh air to a stale and staid broadcasting environment.
Dame Melanie’s evocation of the variety of representations which are broadcast in the US is a worrying reminder that Fox News was launched there on the back of the canard that it was going to be ‘fair and balanced’ by providing an alternative to the ‘liberal bias’ of the existing news networks. But the truth of the matter is that the latter appear to display such a bias only when viewed from a vertiginously conservative perspective, whereas Fox and the various other populist channels are about as unfair and unbalanced politically and ideologically as it is possible to imagine.
Nonetheless, the Foxification of news and current affairs on British television could well be the result of Ofcom’s apparent rewriting of the impartiality regulations in its Broadcasting Code. Unless, that is, this process can be halted and then thrown into reverse.
Julian Petley is a Honorary Professor of Social and Political Sciences at Brunel University London
International War Criminals are Safe from Arrest in UK – But a Leading Lawyer Plans to Change That
A British human rights lawyer has warned international war criminals are free to visit the UK without fear of arrest as she announced plans to close the loophole.
Helena Kennedy KC, a genocide expert and Labour peer, said British authorities are powerless to arrest or prosecute visitors suspected of crimes which “outrage our common humanity”.
Anyone suspected of genocide, war crimes or torture is subject to “universal jurisdiction” under international law – meaning they can be arrested in any country which has agreed to the principle, regardless of where they are suspected of having committed those atrocities.
Domestic law limits that to people who either have British citizenship or reside here, which “really narrows it down,” Kennedy told Byline Times in an exclusive interview.
On 22 March, Kennedy will reintroduce her Genocide (Prevention and Response) Bill to the House of Lords, which aims to widen the scope of that law. “[Currently], if a general who's been involved in war crimes in Ukraine came into Heathrow Airport, we wouldn’t be able to do anything about it," she explained, noting the UK has only prosecuted three people via universal jurisdiction in the last 20 years. “You have to change that and make [the legislation] much wider. You have to say: if you've come through Britain you’ll be arrested.”
Kennedy argues it would be an “easy change” and would help deliver justice to victims across the world. “It would get you people who have run those Uyghur camps [in China]. They might come here because they want their children to go to university or they might come for a graduation, we’d be able to arrest them," she said.
Changing the law would keep the UK in step with the US which changed its rules last year under the Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act.
Kennedy’s bill also calls for the Mass Atrocity Prevention Hub - a unit in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) – to be expanded. The unit, which was established in September 2022, monitors and tracks perpetrators of serious crimes across the world, but, according to documents published in January 2023, has just three full-time staff.
The FCDO declined to provide up-to-date staff numbers or detail what funding it received. Expanding the unit, Kennedy will argue in her bill reading, would enable the UK to keep track of developments abroad and see genocidal intent before people are targeted.
Those signs, she argues, are very recognisable, and can be traced back to how the Nazis treated democratic institutions, and victims of the Holocaust, before the genocide started.
“They go after the judges, they go after the lawyers, they go after the media. Jewish people couldn't be professionals, they weren't allowed to hold down most jobs. It started with [the Nazis] stripping people of their professional qualifications," Kennedy explained.
By working alongside the War Crimes Unit inside the police, the unit could monitor developments abroad and see if someone suspected of carrying out genocide was on the way to the UK, or if a people were threatened with genocide.
Kennedy argues a better-resourced team could have seen the first signs of genocidal intent in China with the treatment of the Uyghurs, and acted.
“I think that we would have been able to say, some years back: something is going on here. They’ve started throwing folk in jail, they’ve started banning men from having beards.”
In 2022, the UK Government described the human rights abuses in Xinjiang, against the Muslim Uyghur people, as “absolutely horrific”.
At the time, estimates suggested up to one million Uyghur Muslims were being held in concentration camps in the region and subjected to “re-education programmes”.
The bill could also deliver justice to people whose cases have never been heard – such as women in the Congo who were subjected to mass-rape more than 20 years ago, and the scores of Yazidi women who were subjected to war crimes by ISIL.
“For example, Germany has prosecuted some of the [ISIL] perpetrators who have gone back to their country for genocide. We’ve not done that," Kennedy said.
She expects her Labour party, currently leading the polls by a double-digit margin – to take note, as well as the Conservatives.
The FCDO pointed Byline Times to the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) for comment. At the time of publication, the MoJ had not responded.