Category Archives: Information Commissioner

YouTuber Ann Drogyne to be Sued?

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A Scary Legal Hammer

Allegations of serious crimes, like child rape, may not end well for the publisher when made in a non-privileged context.

The Witchfinder has been asked to assist in a possible court case, pro-bono, against YouTuber Ann Drogyne.

Recently, I have become aware of an argument between YouTuber “Ann Drogyne” and another minor YouTuber. A bit of a flame feud. I did not want to get involved because although my sympathies lie with their opponent, I cannot fight all the battles of everyone else on the internet. I was also of the view that there was an element of the old adage, “six of one, half-a-dozen of the other”.

Then Drogyne started posting calling her opponent a, “self-confessed child rapist”, on multiple websites. I have to say, that is going a bit far. From the records I have seen, the alleged rape was supposed to have occurred in 1992, 30 years ago. The alleged perpetrator was investigated at the time. They denied it at the time. Said it never happened. Police were given the names of the other parties. One can believe the alleged perpetrator’s account that police asked the alleged victim about it and the person denied it happened. No further action was taken. A journalist who repeated the allegation was later criticised by a judge for other questionable actions at the time.

The allegation seems to me to blatantly exceed the threshold in s1 Defamation Act 2013. It seems to me it will be hard to prove Truth given the contemporary denials, and the fact the only person who could possibly support the allegation, the journalist, says they cannot remember and also was criticised by a judge for other similar articles at the time. In fact, they were also interviewed by police and blamed a number of errors on sub-editors. Similarly, to use the defence of Public Interest, Drogyne would have (to simplify) show the criteria were met. The defence is not a cover-all, it is intended to cover balanced responsible reporting. I find it difficult to see how it could cover what was published.

I am also not sure about the compliance with the GDPR. Clearly an allegation of sex crime falls under Article 9 GDPR, assuming there is no exemption (e.g. domestic use, journalism).

I think there are grounds to investigate whether Drogyne has committed some civil wrongs. Subject of course to Drogyne’s right to explain or provide some defence.

After a recent video, Drogyne has today received a letter of claim from her opponent. I am providing pro-bono support. Oops. Still, perhaps they have a reasonable defence or explanation. We shall see in due course.

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40,000 Reasons to Praise the Lord: Smith v Whitbread Group PLC

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A case update. I am suing a local pub in Welwyn Garden City, the Stanborough, pursuant to the Equality Act 2010 in the County Court. The named Defendant is the owner Whitbread Group PLC. On 6 January 2021 the court heard an application in public (with a member of the public in attendance), by the Defendant to strike out my claim. The application failed, leaving Whitbread to sip up most of their costs bill of over £38,000. They were instead ordered to pay my costs of £2,012 within 28 days, making a net loss of around £40,000 – perhaps a little less as some costs may apply to the trial. The costs of the interlocutory application are extinguished, meaning barring appeals, they will never get most of the £38K back even if they win at trial. Oops.

Picture of the Stanborough Pub

The Stanborough Pub, Welwyn Garden City, under darkened skies.

There are a number of legitimate public interest concerns about the case, the pub and the way the Defence has so far been conducted. For example, the average costs of an entire fast track county court case are around £15,000. The Defendant in this case tried to claim nearly £40K for a 3 hour hearing then when they failed, actually tried to argue it was unreasonable of me to seek my costs of legal advice! The judge, DDJ Octavia Knox Cartwright Ordered them to pay my costs instead and did not subtract a penny from my costs schedule.

The judge rejected the application by Whitbread to strike out my original pleadings, and their application to grant summary judgement on those pleadings. She also gave me permission to modify the pleadings by adding three half sentences. As the other side resisted my application, they were ordered to pay my costs. They can claim costs of replying to the three new half sentences, but reasonable costs arising from these are likely to be de minimis and as with all costs these can be assessed by a judge if Whitbread try to claim more. The judge held my claim has a, ‘realistic’ prospect of success.

As readers will know, I am legally qualified and have passed the LL.M LPC with a Commendation. Although I have not sought to use my LPC to practice as a solicitor, I have 10 years experience as a McKenzie Friend. In this case however, I sought a second opinion from a barrister as a sanity check on my work. I cannot share that advice as it would waive privilege, but what I can say is that I have been indemnified by a kindly philanthropist. This is a wealthy individual who considers the case has merit and is in the public interest, and has signed an agreement to pick up the tab if I lose. They have seen the advice, and are not feeling very concerned.

I am preparing a much longer article about the case because the effect of a public hearing is to put the entire bundle into the public domain under the collateral use rule. As a Christian I felt I should share this article with gratitude, but before publishing an article with more detail I want to give the Defendants pause to think this through and seek an amicable resolution.

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Video: Brand New Tube’s Data Protection Breaches, Muhammad Butt and Sonia Poulton

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[Update 22 May 2022 – My Media World Limited and Director Muhammad Butt sued over this article in the High Court in a counterclaim in case QB-2020-003936. They dropped the libel case by discontinuance, after MHN editor Samuel Collingwood Smith entered a robust defence. The effect of discontinuance is they are automatically liable for Smith’s whole costs.]

New, ‘uncensored’, YouTube competitor Brand New Tube has been hacked. In the aftermath, it has been revealed that they have apparently breached the Data Protection Act. Full MHN video with details and documentary evidence.

This is a video about Brand New Tube. Real Troll Exposure / Spin v Truth has also done some videos on this. The operator of Spin v Truth, Simon Just is concerned that some people wrongly think he has been in touch with the hackers. He denies this, there is no evidence of this in his videos, and asking them for comment for his articles or videos would not be illegal anyway unless he was actually involved in their crimes.

The video refers to an email from the ICO. Here are screenshots –

Part of an email from the ICO press office confirming Brand New Tube was not registered.

Part 1 of an email from the ICO press office confirming Brand New Tube was not registered.

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Twitter and Bristows in Humiliating Libel Climb Down

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On Friday night, 1st May 2020 I received a letter from UK solicitors Bristows instructed by Twitter. They demanded I take down my article of 14 April 2020 about Twitter, claiming it was defamatory of unnamed staff. Now, after I wrote back pointing out I was legally qualified and identifying their procedural errors, they claim this was just an informational comment, and not a libel threat at all and they do not have to reply to my requests for information as they are not proceeding with the Pre-Action Protocol they have to follow in England before suing me.

Extract from Bristows' Email of 6 May 2020

Bristows now claim they were never threatening to sue me on behalf of Twitter. I understand that Robert Graham and Alex Keenlyside are responsible. Image adjusted to show headed paper logo above the relevant paragraph.

In England, the Civil Procedure rules require that before suing someone you write them a letter and try to resolve the claim with them. In libel, the applicable rule is the Pre-action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims. If a party fails to follow the rules, the court can impose tough sanctions like ordering them to pay some or all of the other side’s legal fees even if they ‘win’ and the other party ‘loses’.

As pointed out in my previous article, in their letter to me, Bristows were missing a lot of important information such as (for example) the name of any natural person claimant, details of the alleged serious harm and other elements required by UK law. Of particular importance the claimant has to set out which facts they dispute and why. Therefore I sent them a request for information under the protocol to include the missing information. Bristows now claim they were never following the protocol at all and so do not have to make any disclosures. It follows that there is no intent to sue me at all. I will still consider complaints and further letters with an open mind but in the absence of the requested information see no reason to remove or modify my article.

That is, my article naming Vijaya Gadde and Del Harvey (née Alison Shea) and stating that they had intentionally and in breach of Twitter’s supposed policy allowed vile harassment / stalking of a child abuse victim and anti-Semitic hate speech. My article also stated that, in effect, they were backing the anti-Semite and the stalker by allowing them to continue to post. I am not in receipt of any clear factual statement from Twitter setting out any basis as to why those allegations are wrong.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg once famously described Twitter as being like a clown car that crashed in a gold-mine. Apparently, this is also true of their lawyers.

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Twitter Threatens to Sue! Del Harvey and Vijaya Gadde Double Down

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Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg once famously described Twitter as being like a clown car that crashed in a gold-mine. Their latest antics, involving their lawyers at Bristows, include writing me one of the worst ‘libel’ letters I have ever seen. The specific lawyers on the case are Alex Keenlyside and Robert Graham. I reproduce the relevant parts below. Then I school them on procedure and more importantly the substantive facts of their case.

Bristows Libel 2020-05-03

Bristows’ letter to my mind is deficient in law. I understand that Robert Graham and Alex Keenlyside are responsible. Image adjusted to show logo above the relevant paragraph.

I received a letter just past 8pm on Friday night. It is a trashy tactic solicitors use that works with many people. However, although I do not practice as a solicitor I have passed the exams (LL.M LPC Commendation) and have nearly 9 years experience as a McKenzie Friend. I have written the pleadings of multiple libel cases so late night letters are less impressive to me, especially given the obvious, negligent and improper failure in this one to comply with the relevant UK law, the Civil Procedure Rules.

Much of the letter is a request for information. Twitter asks for court documents relating to the recent court case in which Esther Baker was found liable for racist harassment because of various proposed legal claims against it, in multiple jurisdictions. The last paragraph however is a demand I remove an article, which is said to be defamatory. Twitter are concerned with my article of 14 April 2020, headlined, “Twitter’s Del Harvey / Alison Shea and Vijay Gadde Openly Back Child Rape Stalker and Anti-Semite Racist”. So far they have not sought to challenge my article, “Labour’s Secret Deal with Twitter and Facebook to Surveil its own members”.

The article complained of referred to Twitter’s decision not to remove proven racist stalker Esther Baker’s account nor the tweets held by a judge to be racist stalking. The same article complained of Twitter’s failure to remove anti-Semitic material posted by a man named Alan Goodwin. As previously covered on MHN, Esther Baker has been successfully sued by former MP John Hemming and a child abuse victim who MHN is anonymising as a courtesy. Twitter, of course, has rules against racism and ‘targeted harassment’ so one would think in light of the lengthy judgement to the effect that Baker engaged in racist targeted harassment over a period of years the issue would be a no-brainer. Nope. “Clown Car”!

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Labour’s Secret Deal with Twitter and Facebook to Surveil its own members

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Vijaya Gadde at a Fortune Event

Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, at a Fortune Brainstorm Tech event. Would she be such a popular speaker if Twitter’s approach to real time monitoring of political speech was widely known? Picture by Photograph by Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm TECH. (NC License here).

A leaked internal Labour Party report has hit the headlines (archive) because of lurid statements allegedly made by staff. What has been missed however, receiving barely any coverage, is an apparent admission that, using a secret deal with Facebook and Twitter, the Labour Party has been running automated surveillance on its own members. If true, this is manifestly unlawful – each member affected would almost certainly have a valid claim in damages under Data Protection legislation.

[UPDATE 21 April 2020, 18:10 BST – Have received a response from Twitter, below]

In the furore about the leaked Labour report, many commentators have focused on the supposedly racist, sexist, and / or ableist remarks. There is also the apparent dishonest treacherous plotting. It is important to remember of course that this report was produced by a bitterly infighting party and its contents are disputed. Former staff who were criticised claim that accusations about their conduct were never put to them.

MHN has a copy of the report and leaving all that aside however, this passage leaps out –

Labour Twitter Trot Hunt Software Admission

Labour had automated software that reconciled its privileged access to Twitter and Facebook data with their membership database to identify and monitor member accounts.

It is worth turning to the Data Protection Principles set out in the Data Protection Act 1998, which was in force at the time (replaced by the EU General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018 in May 2018). The principles were set out in section 4 (archive) and Schedule 1 (archive).

Of especial relevance, these principles included processing data, “fairly”, holding data that was “not excessive”. Fairness usually means notifying members of the way their data will be used. A quick glance at Labour’s current terms on its, ‘Join’ page does say that email addresses will be used to contact members. It says nothing about consenting to Orwellian real time monitoring for wrongthink.

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Twitter’s Del Harvey / Alison Shea and Vijaya Gadde Openly Back Child Rape Stalker and Anti-Semite Racist

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[UPDATE – 17 August 2022. Esther Baker sued over this article in High Court Case QB-2020-001013. She lost. The court granted both summary judgement and strike-out finding the claim had no realistic prospect of success. No other person mentioned sued and the time limit has elapsed. Judgement here. My follow-up article here. This article has been added to the “DEFENDED!” category and readers may rely on it.]

Vijaya Gadde at a Fortune Event

Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy, Trust and Safety Lead at Twitter, at a Fortune Brainstorm Tech event. Would she be such a popular speaker if she was properly no-platformed due to her allowing vile stalking and racism against a child rape victim and anti-Semitism by the perpetrator’s friends? Picture by Photograph by Kevin Moloney/Fortune Brainstorm TECH. (NC License here).

Imagine you were raped as a child by a paedophile Priest. Then imagine that years later, as the trial of the priest took place you were subject to a campaign of racist stalking by a, “particularly malevolent”, vile and mentally ill harasser. The stalking puts your health and life at risk. Eventually, the Priest is convicted and the stalker is bankrupted and made subject to a lifelong restraining Order. Both verdicts are upheld on appeal. Now imagine, that an international social media company Twitter helps and empowers your stalker, who has been associated with prominent Labour MPs like Jess Phillips, and refuses to remove their stalking material, apparently contrary to its own rules.

[UPDATE From Twitter Below – 14 April 2020]

This of course is a real story. Esther Baker was recently bankrupted and made subject to a lifelong restraining Order for the racist stalking of a child abuse victim. Baker is of course publicly known because she was one of the VIP paedophile accusers associated with Exaro News, like Carl Beech. She received support from Labour MPs and was even invited to the House of Commons by Jess Phillips MP. Ironically Phillips is now the Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding.

The judge really did call Baker, “particularly malevolent”. The restraining Order is one of two such Orders she has received because of course she has also been restrained from repeating her, “untrue” allegations about former MP John Hemming. Of course County Court judges see lots of stalkers, family cases and domestics so a finding that stalking is particularly malevolent is saying a lot. Baker was so depraved she even tried to contact the paedophile priest – to try to undermine his conviction! It borders on the immortal line, “So, we got a once in a lifetime, top of the line looney tuney”, from the movie Basic Instinct. Except of course that Baker, who admits to hearing voices, is no Sharon Stone.

Esther Baker is a Malevolent Racist

The express findings of the County Court judge agreeing Baker behaved in a “vindictive, “obsessive” and “malevolent” way. MHN has erased the barrister’s name to protect the anonymity of the victim of Baker’s years of racist stalking. If only Vijaya Gadde, Del Harvey (Alison Shea), Karen White and Sinéad McSweeney over at Twitter would protect them too!

Whilst Baker has occasionally, grudgingly, removed some tweets she has not removed most of the stalking tweets including some that may put her in breach of the various court Orders against her. So, needless to say, Twitter were contacted by some of her victims. John Hemming had also been in contact with Twitter and can produce email receipts from their report form going as far back as 2017. As a result of a number of controversies, Twitter has enacted a number of supposed rules. Targeted harassment is supposedly prohibited (archive). Racist harassment is supposedly prohibited (archive). In the context of hate of protected groups, the Twitter rules state that, “We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs […]”.

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Merseycare Pay Damages Over Esther Baker, Baker Loses Racism Appeal

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The Witchfinder has received £3,500 in damages, an admission of liability and an apology from Merseycare NHS Foundation Trust on the basis that they revealed to Esther Baker that he had raised confidential safeguarding concerns about her. There is no confidentiality or non-disclosure agreement – I am free to tell all. Meanwhile, Esther Baker has lost her appeal against a finding she harassed a proven victim of child abuse, making racist tweets and apparently contacting the victim’s paedophile abuser – with a view to helping the abuser overturn their conviction.

RemittanceSlipMerseycare

Sam Smith, the editor of MHN, has received £3,500 damages for the disclosure of confidential information by Merseycare NHS Foundation Trust. Click for full size.

In late 2018, I raised serious concerns about the well-being of Esther Baker. I wrote to her psychiatrist, Dr Kate Wood and to executives at her local NHS Trust.

All of my concerns have been realised – I warned Esther Baker was at risk of large costs Orders in court proceedings she has unwisely brought and defended. The Orders were made. I warned Baker was at risk of bankruptcy. She has been bankrupted. I warned Baker was at risk of her job. She has lost her job. I warned of further civil and criminal legal troubles – they are in process. I warned Baker was a danger to others – the County Court has found her liable for stalking, the High Court for defamation. In both cases lifelong restraining Orders have been made.

Nearly every risk has materialised.

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Patreon Banned Sargon Yet CEO Jack Conte Allowed Distribution of Illegal Child Pornography and Laundering of the Proceeds

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JackContePomplamoose

This is Jack Conte, the CEO of Patreon and half of musical duo Pomplamoose. He knowingly profited from the distribution of paedophile bestiality fetish material, as well as sexual material related to cannibalism. Image released under CC BY-SA 2.0 for commercial use. Image by Joe Loong on Flickr. License linked here. Click for full size.

Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) was banned from Patreon this month for comments not made on the platform. This appears to contradict Patreon’s own statements and some of its actions may arguably violate several laws including the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). That is not just an academic problem, because according to its public website Patreon has a business entity in the UK (archive) – Patreon DLC, Ltd. 8 Soho Square, London, Greater London, W1D 3QL. Sargon could (and arguably should) take action on it. Before I turn to that issue though I would like to remark upon the matter of Patreon ands its CEO Jack Conte knowingly allowing the distribution of illegal child pornography on the platform – at least until I asked VISA and MasterCard to investigate.

I first took a journalistic interest in Patreon last year in my first article and it is worth a brief recap. Lauren Southern, beautiful and extremely capable Canadian journalist had been banned for allegedly endangering the lives of refugees. Incidentally Lauren has now been vindicated – a ‘sting’ recording made on her behalf of an NGO official has proven her correct (archive). Many of the alleged ‘refugees’ were in fact fraudulent migrants facilitated by unscrupulous ‘charity’ workers who groomed them to lie. The only people endangering lives were those helping them make dangerous sea crossings to, at best, an uncertain welcome.

However, my interest arose from the illegal content available on the Patreon platform. A whistleblower sent me a link to the page of a creator called, ‘Waysin’. The page showed a number of censored and blacked out cartoon style drawings of young, underage boys and tentacles. The images were legal, but it was made clear that for a fee the user could view the images without censorship – that is pictures of clearly underage pre-teen boys being bestially raped by tentacles. Such images are criminal to produce, distribute or possess in many states, including Taiwan where the creator of the material said that he lives. For bonus points, Waysin said openly on the public page that he knew the images were illegal in his jurisdiction. Needless to say, I reported the page to Patreon. I did not view the private section – for the avoidance of doubt no unlawful images were viewed or downloaded preparing this article.

IllegalMaterialTentacleRape

Patreon knowingly allowed a user to distribute sexual material related to children that was illegal in the jurisdiction of the user. They allowed them to literally launder the money via Patreon. This account was drawn to the attention of Patreon and Jack Conte personally, but not removed – at least until I involved executives of the payment networks. Click for full size.

The point of time when I made the report is where things become … appalling.

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How the Law Helped Me Get Unbanned From Twitter. Twice. Legal Tools for Cultural Libertarians

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TwitterJail

Twitter – Compliant With EU Data Protection Laws? They better be.

Midway through last year, Twitter moved data control for all non-EU citizens to Ireland in the EU. Twitter then declared its subsidiary, ‘Twitter International Company’ to be a data controller in the EU for all non-US citizens. This brought it under EU Data Protection law.

A few weeks ago on 30/01/2016, a French man won a case in a Paris appeals Court that he could sue Facebook for suspending him,

The Witchfinder comments on how users can use EU law to assert their rights on Twitter.

So last week I was suspended from Twitter. All of my accounts were simultaneously suspended. There was no explanation – no ‘you are a spammer / meanie / aggressive follower’. I assumed the most likely reason was my article criticising Motherboard Associate Editor Sarah Jeong for doxing a rape victim, although this later turned out to be incorrect when they finally did give reasons.

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