Category Archives: media

links to where my stories are published

Judge bans a Facebook page exposing paedophiles and awards £20,000 damages to convicted sex offender

Posted on by

An extraordinary ruling by a Northern Ireland judge will lead to a chilling effect on people using the internet to expose convicted paedophiles and give hope to sex offenders that they can make money from people and organisations attacking them for their crimes.

The  Belfast case has been picked up by the excellent Inforrm blog which gives a detailed legal analysis of what happened from Lorna Skinner ,a barrister at Matrix Chambers.

The facts appear to be these. Joseph McCloskey set up a Facebook profile page called ” Keep Our Kids Safe from Predators 2 ” which posted information about a convicted sex offender called CG. A similar page was set up by RS the father of one  of CG’s victims.

CG’s lawyers complained about the postings on both sites.

Inforrm says: ” Broadly speaking, each consisted of the publication of a photograph of CG together with information identifying him as a sex offender. This was followed by further posts and/or comments from viewers of the material consisting of verbal abuse, threats, and information as to identification and location.”

None of the information published  by McCloskey was private, It was all in the public domain at the time of CG’s conviction. CG’s solicitors complained to Mr McCloskey  who immediately removed all postings relating to CG. The postings on RS’s page were removed by Facebook, in each case some time after receipt of a complaint. The posts are said to contain threats of violence against the paedophile which judge took particular exception.

But the lawyers weren’t satisfied and went to court claiming the sex offender had been harassed on Facebook and his human rights breached by the publication on Facebook.

As Inforrm reports his lawyers said” the material posted amounted to a misuse of private information, was in breach of Articles 2, 3 and 8 of the ECHR, amounted to harassment of him contrary to the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997 and that each of them were guilty of actionable negligence. For good measure he also asserted that Facebook was in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.”

What is extraordinary is the ruling from Mr Justice Stephens, the judge. Even though the site had been taken down the judge approved an injunction against to protect the privacy of other sex offenders and paedophiles who had been named by contributors to the page.

As Inforrm reports ( my emphasis): “The Judge found that Mr McCloskey’s purpose in setting up the profile/page, which on his evidence had 25,000 friends, was to destroy the family life of sex offenders, to expose them to total humiliation and vilification, to drive them from their homes and expose them to the risk of serious harm.”

Inforrm adds: “As a result, CG was awarded damages totalling £20,000. An anti-harassment injunction was made against Mr McCloskey and a mandatory injunction was made against Facebook requiring it to terminate the entirety of the “Keeping our Kids Safe from Predators 2” profile/page including all material referring to other sex offenders as it “is doing damage to other individuals and is clearly unlawful”.

The full judgement is here for those who want to read it.

Quite rightly the wide terms of such a ban – particularly in relation to the Data Protection Act – is questioned by the Matrix barrister. She points out : “The obvious fallacy of this approach is that sensitive personal data covers areas where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, for example: “David Cameron is the Conservative Prime Minister, who comes from a traditional English background”. Similarly, it is difficult to see how, absent the application of a DPA-style [data protection act] analysis, CG could sensibly have argued that his image, or the fact of his conviction for sex offences was, or had become, private information.”

I regard this ruling as excessive and dangerous. While the threats of violence against the paedophile seem to have contributed to the judge’s findings, a complete  ban on the site is out of proportion. Also the judgement reveals that Mr McCloskey’s own mother was the subject of repeated child sexual abuse, which led him to set up the site. The site was  comprehensive in tracing all N Ireland paedophiles.

Suppose for example, to take a current case, Tony McSweeney, just convicted  for indecent assault, is sent to prison and subsequently let out on licence. Should the Roman Catholic Church have the right to remove everything from websites about him which was revealed at the time of his conviction? And should he get damages if people reveal this information, I think not.

In praise of Dale Vince and Ecotricity: A green entrepreneur backing Labour

Posted on by
Labour donor: Dale Vince Pic Credit: ecotricity

Labour donor: Dale Vince gave £250,000
Pic Credit: ecotricity

The disclosure that an entrepreneur has had the temerity to back Labour with a £250,000 donation has led to the usual  scramble in the national media to discredit the man and his company, Ecotricity. The Telegraph has recently done a thorough job  presenting the multi millionaire as a tax avoider, a greedy guzzler of state subsidies set up by one  former energy secretary, Ed Miliband, and owner of a castle. Presumably since Ecotricity doesn’t appear to advertise in The Daily Telegraph they felt brave enough to publish.

What is entirely missing from the article – and this  is surprising as the Telegraph champions competition –  is  support for a company challenging the energy monopoly. No mention of what his company does for ordinary people – which  you cannot get from the big six privatised and mainly foreign-owned giants who make millions from our gas and electricity bills.

I use Ecotricity for both my gas and electricity. One of my reasons is that I would rather spend my money with a company that has a real track record of investing in renewable energy than fossil fuels.

But take that aside – even though many on the right hate wind farms and believe global warming is a myth – Ecotricity has other plus points. Without wishing to act as an advertisement for Ecotricity – this site has no advertising – it seems to me, whatever faults Dale Vince may or may not have, at least his firm tries to offer the consumer a  better deal.

For a start the Telegraph ignores the fact that unlike any of the big six Ecotricity is  recommended  alongside other small companies by Which? as one of the better service providers.It came first for customer satisfaction as well.

Second it employs people in Stroud,its own HQ to deal directly with its customers.This compares with one of the big six I used in the past that had its call centre in India and lost my account when I moved house.. For nearly a year I wasn’t billed for electricity on my  new Berkhamsted home. When I raised this in India the officious   Eon/Powergen call centre worker demanded I sorted out all the paperwork myself – which I refused to do – and then desperately asked for an address   “any address ” he said to bill me. I was tempted to give him a false one in New York City to celebrate the follies of outsourcing and globalisation but honesty got the better of me.

Unlike the big six Ecotricity accepts direct debits for the actual amount of gas and electricity billed – you don’t have to pay a monthly overestimate for what you might use – a great scam allowing companies to take too much money off you for unused energy and use your loan to boost their own profits.

Fourth, Ecotricity is planning to cut prices by 6.2 per cent this May and promising more later in the year  – more than any of the big six and they never raised their prices in the last tranche either. This is something I have to remind the cold callers from the big six desperate for you to switch to them.

Fifth Ecotricity  gives you a good return on the money if you  invest in them.. It offered seven per cent  (7.5 for customers)before tax and its second issue offered six per cent gross (6.5 for customers) on its oversubscribed bonds – far more than the  four per cent  the” generous” George Osborne  is offering  pensioners in the run up to the election.

Some financial advisers have told me they can only offer these good rates of interest because of taxpayer subsidies. But it seems to me that the subsidies for cleaning up nuclear power waste – provide five times more money for the big six energy providers than the sums going to Ecotricity. Even the Telegraph acknowledges that.

But in a pre-election frenzy no right-wing paper  seems to want to acknowledge that anybody backing Labour can offer better value for money.

My blog in 2014 : Over 182,000 hits – now over 500,000 since it was launched

Posted on by

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2014. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 8 days for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Thanks to all who are following  and reading this blog . It both covers and comments on the stories I and others write for Exaro, particularly on child sexual abuse, and my regular pieces for Tribune magazine. I highlight my own investigative stories covering local government, the NHS, privatisation, the media and Whitehall. These focus on injustice, inequalities and a fair share of hypocrisy behind bland press releases and ” cover ups” by the government and private companies. More of these are now coming from people who contact me on the site.

It aims to be hard hitting and you’ll find I don’t hold back .You will also find the occasional travel piece as a bit of light relief – though I can’t resist investigating some of the travel firms.

Banned VIP child sex abuse memoirs: Supreme Court orders expedited hearing

Posted on by

There has been yet another important development in the extraordinary saga of a British court granting an injunction which banned a famous performing artist publishing his memoirs in which  he disclosed he was sexually abused as a child.

The excellent Inforrm blog reveals that the artist has won his case to appeal and the Supreme Court has granted an expedited hearing so it can be heard next month rather than waiting until the spring.

Inforrm reports : “The hearing of the appeal is listed in the week commencing 19 January 2015.

“As we reported last month, on 6 November 2014 the artist applied to the Supreme Court for permission to appeal against an order of Court of Appeal dated 9 October 2014 ([2014] EWCA Civ 1277) granting an interim injunction to restrain the publication of a book which deals with his art form and his recovery from the sexual abuse he suffered in his childhood and his consequential mental illness.   The full application to the Supreme Court can be read here [pdf].

The application for permission to appeal was supported by a written intervention made by free speech NGOs, English PEN, Article 19 and Index on Censorship.

On 9 December 2014, Lady Hale, Lord Carnwath and Lord Toulson granted the artist permission to appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision and ordered an expedited hearing of the appeal.

We had a post in which Dan Tench expressed “shock and disbelief” at the Court of Appeal decision.  A number of prominent UK writers, including Sir Tom Stoppard and William Boyd, signed a letter from English PEN protesting at the banning of the book.”

The full application to the Supreme Court is well worth reading as it shows the author wants to share his experiences of his abuse, the mental trauma he suffered and how he was driven to self harm but was later in life able to come to terms with what happened to him. It also reveals how his love  of music helped him overcome the trauma.

The ban was granted after his ex-wife sought it to prevent his son, who lives abroad, and suffers from a number of medical conditions, from ever reading it. But it used obscure case law which the artist says amounted to a severe curtailment of freedom of expression, hence widespread support from famous writers to get this overturned.

Why Theresa May was right to ignore David Aaronovitch over child sex abuse in North Wales

Posted on by
Times columnist David Aaronovitch. Pic credit :Flickr

Times columnist David Aaronovitch. Pic credit :Flickr

Two years ago when Theresa May announced she was re-opening the police investigation into the North Wales child abuse scandal  Times columnist David Aaronovitch penned a highly controversial column warning that the nation was in danger of mounting a modern witch hunt over alleged paedophilia. Indeed his post was entitled Beware a modern Salem over child abuse.

He  pointed out that both the  original John Jillings report and the ” exhaustive inquiry ” by retired judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse Lost in Care had found no evidence of a paedophile ring and therefore  there was no need for any fresh inquiries.

I remember disagreeing with him on the BBC Radio Four’s Today programme over his findings after reading the report. He was right about  Waterhouse’s findings but failed to notice that the findings somewhat jarred with the detailed evidence contained in the same report.

He also firmly disagreed with the line taken by one survivor’s solicitor, Steve Messham, that Waterhouse had too limited a remit to inquire properly into the idea of an abuse network.

Fast forward to this week and Operation Pallial, the National Crime Agency run investigation set up by Theresa May, has achieved its first scalp,John Allen. He was sent to prison for life and given he is 73 will probably die there.

Nor was this minor stuff – he was convicted of 33 extra charges – that somehow had been missed in an earlier police investigation. The full background is outlined here in the Liverpool Daily Post. And he is not the only one to face new allegations which will be heard in future trials. To be accurate the latest Pallial statistics say 13 more people are facing trial, there are over 100 new suspects and over 200 survivors coming forward.

Now if David Aaronovitch had won the argument Mr Allen would be a free man and would have got away with all this and died peacefully at home. A  lot of survivors claims would never have been proven and left to fester on no doubt ” lurid and preposterous” ( as Aaronvitch would have it) sites on the internet.

Of course Mr Allen, who had already been found guilty of previous offences, claimed in his defence he wasn’t gay, was not sexually attracted to children and had suffered a “miscarriage of justice ” when he was convicted in  the first place. His accusers were making it up to get compensation money, his defence lawyers said. The jury did not buy this.

I raise this because some of the commentariat and the Establishment believe the latest allegations of a Westminster paedophile ring and alleged murders of some of the victims is another fantasy and leading to a new witch hunt. While the investigation is in no way as advanced as Pallial – Pallial shows it needs following through.

Theresa May in setting up Pallial  and an overarching child sex abuse inquiry obviously does believe that further investigations are needed to find out  what really happened decades ago. She is in on record that this could be ” the tip of an iceberg”. David Cameron believes this is ” stuff of conspiracy theories ” and David Aaronovitch reflects this view in his own column and tweets.

I am backing Theresa May on this one.

European Union seeks ” the right to be forgotten” web ruling to apply world wide

Posted on by

An important development over the battle of the ” right to be forgotten ” is highlighted in a report on the influential Inforrm blog.

The row centres round the European Court of Justice’s decision to allow people to get search engines to  remove references to them in their past even if all the facts are true.

The decision arose after a Spanish worker wanted information deleted from searches showing he was connected to a property auction to pay off social security debts in 1997.

The court decided that his privacy was infringed by people being able search out such information and the decision immediately led to 41,000 people, including a paedophile and a former MP, asking search engines to do the same for them.

However as nearly all the major search engines are American, Google, the biggest search engine, decided to only remove it from its EU sites and people could  still search the same information by logging on to an American site.

Now an EU working party wants this banned. It has ruled as Inforrm reports:

limiting de-listing to EU domains on the grounds that users tend to access search engines via their national domains cannot be considered a sufficient means to satisfactorily guarantee the rights of data subjects according to the ruling. In practice, this means that in any case de-listing should also be effective on all relevant domains, including .com”.

In other words, the Working Party has confirmed that …the attempt of Google to exempt its search engine at Google.com from the “delisting procedures”is misconceived.

To add to this the EU working party has said there will no requirement to tell the person who provided the information that this has happened – so bloggers and media groups will just suddenly discover that the article has disappeared in any searches – worse than just going behind a pay wall.

The groups does give data protection controllers much needed guidance on whether such listings should disappear – including information on whether the person is a public figure or a criminal. And it does not appear to extend to companies either.

However I am afraid I have little sympathy with any removal if the facts are true. I still see this as an attempt by people to cover up their past. It might be right if the information is a pack of lies but there are other ways to deal with this. It seems to me another restriction on freedom of information.

Plebgate comes to the courts

Posted on by

This weekend the Inforrm blog  ran a interesting preview of the start of the so called ” plebgate” libel case in the courts which halted the political career of Andrew Mitchell, the former international development secretary and chief whip.

The incident became infamous after The Sun published that Mitchell had sworn at the police protecting Downing Street and called them plebs for refusing to open the gates to allow him to wheel his bike through them.

I reproduce their blog below which includes a lot of good references to TV coverage and media articles on the subject.

On Monday 17 November 2014 the most high profile libel trial of the year will begin in Court 13 at 10.30am before Mr Justice Mitting.  This the joint trial of preliminary issues in two claims and is now listed for two weeks (reduced from the original three).

As is well known, the claim arises out of an incident at the gate of Downing Street on 12 September 2012 when words were exchanged between the then Government Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell MP and a police officer, PC Toby Rowland.  On 21 September 2012, the Sun reported that Mr Mitchell has shouted “you’re fucking plebs“.  This incident became known as “Plebgate“.

On 7 March 2013, Mr Mitchell issued defamation proceedings against the Sun.  It filed a defence on 17 May 2013 pleading justification and a Reynolds defence.  This case gained early notoriety in legal circles because the Master disallowed the whole of the claimant’s costs due to the late filing of a costs budget.  This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal (Mitchell v News Group [2013] EWCA Civ 1537).

On 12 December 2013 PC Rowland issued a libel claim against against Mr Mitchell based on statements made by Mr Mitchell on six occasions between December 2012 and December 2013 in or via the media.  PC Rowland complained that, in these statements, Mr Mitchell accused him of fabricating allegations and evidence against Mr Mitchell, spreading these to the media as part of a plot to frame Mr Mitchell, and deliberately destroying Mr Mitchell’s career.  Mr Mitchell’s Defence is that these allegations are true.

The case has been before the Courts on a number of occasions.  There have been several applications for third party disclosure from the Metropolitan Police in these actions.  Judgments were given on these on 27 March ([2014] EWHC 879 (QB)) and 11 June ([2014] EWHC 1885 (QB)).

On 24 July 2014 Warby J ordered that each of those actions should be tried by a Judge sitting without a jury, and that there should be a joint trial of certain preliminary issues in the actions, starting on 17 November 2014.  Warby J gave a judgment explaining why he had ordered the trial of preliminary issues ([2014] EWHC 2615 (QB)).

In September 2014, the Sun filed an Amended Defence in which it relied on seventeen incidents which, it alleged, showed “high handed and rude” behaviour of Mr Mitchell towards police officers. There was a report of the contents of the Defence in the Press Gazette.

Warby J conducted a pre-trial review on 23 and 24 October 2014 and made orders permitting the parties to rely on expert evidence in phonetics and “field of vision/trajectory analysis” or optometry.  He also refused to exclude the “similar fact evidence” relied on by NGN and PC Rowland concerning other alleged incidents between Mr Mitchell and police officers ([2014] EWHC 3590 (QB)).

Mr Mitchell later filed an Amended Reply in to the Sun’s Amended Defence rebutting itsReynolds defence.  There was a report of the contents of the Amended Reply in the Press Gazette.

Mitting J will try three preliminary issues.  The main ones are, in each action,

  • what natural and ordinary meaning(s) the words complained of bore, and
  • whether in such meaning(s) they were substantially true.

Mr Mitchell is represented by solicitors Atkins Thomson, who have instructed James Price QC and Victoria Jolliffe.  News Group Newspapers are represented by Simons Muirhead and Burton, who have instructed Gavin Millar QC and Adam Wolanski.  PC Rowland is represented by Slater and Gordon LLP, who have instructed Desmond Browne QC and Catrin Evans.

We will have regular reports on the trial.

There was a preview of the trial in Saturday’s Guardian by Owen Bowcott: “Multimillion pound Plebgate libel case comes to court“.

The Channel 4 news item including the CCTV footage of Mr Mitchell leaving Downing Street on the night in question can be viewed here:

News: Artist in banned child sex abuse memoir case applies for permission to appeal to Supreme Court

Posted on by

For those following the banning of a memoir where a performing artist wanted to discuss how he fought to recover from child sexual abuse – this is a very important development and deserves to be tested in the highest court of the land. The legal significance of the ban could have serious consequences for publishing and freedom of expression – particularly as it was based on a real obscure piece of English law.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

AnonymousBindmans LLP have announced that an application for permission to appeal has been lodged with the Supreme Court by MLA, the performing artist whose autobiography has been injuncted worldwide following a widely criticised decision by the Court of Appeal.

View original post 413 more words

News: Another News of the World Journalist convicted and Ian Edmondson sentenced

Posted on by

Important developments in the News of the World hacking and bribing public officials story .

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Ian EdmondsonYesterday saw two important developments on the criminal prosecutions of former News of the World employees. First, it was disclosed that on Wednesday 5 November 2014, a former News of the World journalist (who cannot be named for legal reasons) had been found guilty of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office.

View original post 455 more words

Hacking trial :Charlie Brooks and Kuttner’s Costs Application Rejected : Judge’s statement in full

Posted on by

Peter Jukes reports here that Mr Justice Saunders has rejected claims totalling £630,000 from the taxpayer for costs by Charlie Brooks and Stuart Kuttner. Both were acquitted in the hacking trial. But the judge says they put themselves under suspicion and he refused their applications. The judge is right in my view. The judge’s ruling is published in full in this blog.

peterjukes's avatarThe Criminal Media Nexus

While News UK withdrew, at the last minute, their £10-20 million application for costs for Brooks and other corporately defended clients, the claim by Charlie Brooks and Stuart for their private expenses has also been rejected my Mr Justice Saunders today: his full decision is below. Charlie had claimed half a million for his defence, while Stuart Kuttner £130,000  for his individual costs.

Meanwhile, Private Eye has added more detail to the reason News UK withdrew it’s cost application ten days ago,

View original post 8,944 more words