Yesterday morning in High Court 13 saw the first round in the legal battle between Dale Vince and Guido. On Friday Lord (Shaun) Bailey made his case for summary dismissal of Dale Vince’s claims. Which is a different approach to the one we are taking. Richard Tice’s barrister also made his preliminary case in Court 13 in the afternoon. All three hearings were in front of Mr Justice Pepperall.
This Court round was a trial of preliminary issues, to determine meaning and to establish what it is exactly that a full trial will be arguing about. This is designed to save time and money before a full blown trial. Even so at one point Guido counted 13 lawyers in the court room.
The arguments were technical, the meanings were contested, the issue as to whether the various statements by defendants were opinions is a key question. Much citing of legal precedents and authorities occurred. The judge was inscrutuable, taking copious notes and will deliver his ruling in weeks.
We are incredibly grateful to the 2,800 co-conspirators who have so far donated £89,711 to crowdfund this case. We could not have made our case as strongly without you – libel cases like this require specialist representation which is not cheap. More than anything, beyond the funds raised, it demonstrates that thousands of people want to Just Stop Dale…
Last week Dale Vince and Guido had a bit of a preliminary skirmish on X ahead of our coming court hearing – where Dale Vince is trying to sue Guido for reporting the actual words he said.
This isn’t true as his letter of claim makes clear from the start:
In more detail he specifically tried to use GDPR legislation in four different ways:
Dale Vince’s lawyers basically wanted us to remove all our reporting about him on specious GDPR grounds. In any case all our data processing is done on our web servers hosted in Washington D.C. – we wished them well overturning the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. Dale nevertheless bizarrely claimed in direct contradiction of his own lawyer’s efforts, “I’m not using GDPR or anything else to suppress free speech or reporting – I’m not trying to stop you talking about me (knock yourself out). I’m simply standing up for the truth and against your style of trash journalism – where facts don’t get in the way of your story.” Guido will be generous and presume that Dale wouldn’t try to brazenly lie about this, so his fact free tweet shows he just doesn’t understand what his lawyers are trying to do…
Today the Southport attack suspect Axel Muganwa Rudakubana was due in Liverpool Crown Court for a pre-trial preparation hearing. His case has not been listed and Guido can find no explanation. The highly emotive killings of young girls at a Taylor Swift dance party sparked rioting over suspicions that it was a terror motivated incident. The authorities went to great lengths to disabuse the public of this notion in carefully phrased language which cast doubt on that possibility. No doubt with the intention of calming public concern.
After four months police investigators and prosecutors must surely have compiled their case, so why is the hearing not going ahead? This will give rise to the suspicion in some quarters that it’s because the authorities having carefully misdirected the media and the public and are now panicking about how and when to reveal ‘inconvenient facts’ which will cast the fury and the riots in a very different light. There are sometimes mundane reasons for a case to be delayed or moved. However, the fact that Tommy Robinson is planning a big march tomorrow in London might not be unrelated… Robinson is due to attend Folkestone police station today at 3pm.
The Good Law Project’s soul-searching post-election period looks like it’s coming along. It now says it “has decided to revert to the model operated by other legal non-profits of procuring legal services through an in-house legal team and is closing its wholly owned law firm Good Law Practice.“ Curious that the practice designed to litigate against the government has closed swiftly after… the change of government…
So long to likely the worst-performing judicial review practice the UK legal system has ever seen. Last week Jolyon’s outfit sent a survey to its supporters asking whether they should attack the government any more now that the election is finished. Looks like they’ve settled on an answer…
Guido has long documented the travails of notorious legal loser Maugham. Jolyon declared seven weeks ago that he was leaving for “the mountains” and would be back in two weeks. Jolyon’s project will continue, though now with less enthusiasm and capacity to challenge the government. Surprise, surprise…
In a High Court ruling today, Judge Jaron Lewis struck out Dale Vince’s claim against the Daily Mail, stating that it was “not potentially viable” and “bound to fail”.
The Judge said: “There is a contradiction in the claimant’s case. The claimant accepts that the headline and photograph do not accurately summarise the article, although his pleaded case on ‘extrinsic facts’ is that they always do.”
He added: “At its highest, it could be said that some readers will have believed that headlines always accurately summarise the underlying article, but this is no more than an opinion, and is insufficient to support an innuendo meaning.”
Concluding: “The claim is not potentially viable, and there is no basis for exercising discretion in the claimant’s favour.”
Guido congratulates Associated Newspapers for standing up to thin-skinned Dale who is spraying writs and threats of writs around like confetti – using his oligarchical wealth and power to menace critics and political opponents.
The principles in this case have a directly analogous application in the cases Dale Vince has brought against Shaun Bailey, Guido, and Richard Tice. That is if the cases even proceed beyond the first hurdle – he must disprove that his hopeless case is not a SLAPP against political critics. The end result will be the same.
Starmer has snubbed Emily Thornberry by appointing human rights lawyer Richard Hermer KC, of Matrix Chambers, as his Attorney General. Hermer is close to Starmer – he’s spoken at Labour Conference, offered tours of the Royal Court of Justice to Camden Labour members, and donated £5,000 to the Labour leader’s campaign. Like Starmer, Hermer has certainly picked a direction in his legal focus…
Eyebrows were raised very high when Hermer began to advise Labour on the government’s BDS bill last Summer. Hermer has co-authored a chapter in a book called “Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation: Evidence from the London Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine” co-edited by Asa Winstanley and Frank Barat. The book says it has the intention of “examining the involvement of corporations in the illegal occupation of Palestinian land by Israel”…
Co-author Asa, the notorious anti-Israel activist and crank, happens to also be the associate editor of the “Electronic Intifada” blog and wrote an article claiming “most members of the UK’s Labour Party support the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement and consider Israel to be an apartheid state“. Some of her other tomes include “WEAPONISING ANTI-SEMITISM: How the Israel Lobby Brought Down Jeremy Corbyn“. Hermer’s other co-author has tweeted endorsing the idea that “Israel’s policies amount to Apartheid“…
Meanwhile, the co-authors of Hermer’s specific chapter have links to the BDS campaign itself – one of them served as lawyer for Hassan Diab, who was convicted (in absentia) and sentenced to life in prison for a terror attack outside a synagogue in Paris in 1980 that killed four and wounded 46. Interesting bedfellows…
Hermer himself has pushed for the ICJ to consider whether Israel is an “apartheid state” and has spoken at events for Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, which is itself allegedly running a BDS campaign against construction firm JCB. This year he has spent his time representing Gerry Adams. This is now the government’s top chief legal adviser.
In Henry Mance’s piece today for the FT, lunching with Nigel Farage:
“Splendido!” Farage says, when the drinks arrive; I suppose it’s a step to European reconciliation. We clink glasses, and he lights the first of two back-to-back Benson & Hedges. A few minutes later, we’re back downstairs. “Are you drinking? Good.” He orders a glass of Sauvignon blanc for each of us — not a bottle, “because it’s Lent” — followed by a bottle of claret, to have with our meal. They say Farage drinks less than he used to. They say a lot of things.”
