As a proven victim of sex crime (proven in a court, not a Tumblr post) I obviously sympathise with people who feel that attempts have been made to gag them. Equally however, there is little more vile than a false allegator or someone who wastes law enforcement time. Aside from causing huge distress to the falsely accused (who have rights too, of course) it draws resources from real victims. If a person in one place wastes the time of specially trained officers, somewhere a woman or a child may be raped with no redress. Such people deserve the harshest condemnation. The foreseeable consequence of squandering police resources is the image of a vile rapist or paedophile thrusting into a screaming victim. It is that simple. Verity Nevitt, Youth Officer of Lewisham Deptford Labour, is being sued, accused with her sister of making false allegations.

The Youth Officer for Lewisham Deptford Labour Party, Verity Nevitt, is currently subject to a High Court restraining Order along with her sister Lucy. A summary of the case is that Lucy and Verity are being sued for alleged harassment / stalking of a male Lucy and Verity accuse of rape and sexual assault. They are also sued for libel and misuse of private information. It is important to note that the case has not yet been tried – so the allegations are not yet decided. However, at least one judge thought there were grounds to grant an interim Order.

The Order restrains Lucy and Verity (or anyone else) from naming the man they have accused or providing information likely to identify him. Because of the Order protecting him, I can say no more about his identity. The Order is interim, and may be discharged – an application has been made and Mrs Justice Steyn is currently considering the case following a hearing on Thursday 30th April 2020. I will be interested to read the judgement. Steyn J did a very detailed and thorough job in Baker v Hemming.

Lucy and Verity spent the night with the man after an evening where it is said that they had consumed alcohol and drugs. The dispute is that they say that he raped Lucy and sexually assaulted Verity. He has produced texts and other communications he says prove this is not the case and in which they he asserts they admitted nothing happened. Having seen the texts and posts, police have dropped the rape and sexual assault investigation.

Verity and Lucy have expressly waived their anonymity as alleged victims of sex crime and demanded they be named. They have named and pictured themselves online as the ‘victims’ in the case. After a hearing today, Mrs Justice Steyn made an interim Order that they could be named in relation to the proceedings provided that no details are published likely to identify their alleged victim. This is brave given their copious social media posts admitting to drug use and discussing mental illness. In Verity’s case, she has admitted to institutionalisation and self-harm. She has also admitted to membership of the website SeekingArrangement.com and mused about creating an account on the website OnlyFans.com (archive).

Seeking Arrangement (now known as ‘Seeking’) is well known as one where young women can arrange to meet an older man … for a very large fee. It is generally considered synonymous with prostitution, although not all of the companions offer sexual services – some insisting the sex is merely coincidental and others offering only platonic escorting. Many would say even the latter is sex work. Regardless of what services they offer, women who participate are called, “Sugar Babies”, by the site. Verity denies sex work, but has not clarified further as to what services she claims she did provide (or contemplated providing in the case of OnlyFans). In an email, Verity asked me to research the site, so I did. Vanity Fair published quite a detailed piece on Seeking Arrangement, in which it detailed the experiences of women who could charge as much as $700 per hour for sex (archive).

One woman from Seeking Arrangement, calling herself Miranda, told Vanity Fair –

“[…] what I’m looking for in this transaction is not sexual satisfaction. Do you like everyone at your job? But you still work with them, right? That’s how it is with sex work—it’s a job. I get paid for it. I do it for the money […]”

Having said that I found that some women claimed that they only offered companionship, although some might still categorise this as sex work. The site itself emphatically insists it does not facilitate prostitution or permit prostitutes to join although many simply treat this with derision.

Only Fans, which Verity contemplated joining, is a website where vendors can upload content for, ‘fans’ to subscribe to for money. This can include anything legal, from poems, to paintings of landscapes. It can also extend to risqué photos, for example, of a woman wearing a tight dress, or nude, or videos of her masturbating by penetrating herself with a toy or hardcore images of sex with a partner. The context of moving from Seeking Arrangement to Only Fans, suggests sex work. Verity did not suggest any other activity she might be contemplating on the site. I am not aware of any skills she has as a performer or artist, although she did post a disturbing image on Facebook which was photoshopped to look as though Jeremy Corbyn was kissing her (archive).

It is brave for Verity to post about such things because of course the Labour Party has been known to drop candidates even for prostitution many years before (archive). This seems to me very hypocritical and unfair of Labour. Many Labour ‘feminists’ regard prostitution as exploitation. As a consequence, surely they should support a woman who has escaped from that life and risen to a different role. I would not condemn a woman merely for sex work, nor would I condemn her clients. However true to the Labour Party’s hateful and discriminatory nature I am aware they have deselected / unapproved at least two women after they admitted to prostitution. There is a sense of an undercurrent of misandry – a fear the women had ‘man cooties’.

Another worry for Verity and her Party of course might be that pictures of such activities could emerge. Sexual images produced for ‘reward’ are excluded from ‘Revenge Pornography’ laws under s33 (5) Criminal Justice Act 2015. Whilst civil claims might be brought, (for example under Copyright laws) it is not Revenge Porn to publish them.

The use of illegal drugs is more serious. Law makers (and wannabe law makers) should not be law breakers. In the judgement of Lucy and Verity’s case by Mr Justice Dingemans of 15 Match 2019 he appears to refer to illegal drug use –

Verity appears to deny the drug use in her email to me, but is undermined by not only the Claimant but her own sister’s posts –

Verity emailed me denying all this and claiming I was defaming her, although she did not respond to requests for specifics –

Although Verity denies it, it is unlikely that someone in her position would admit to sex work. I consider that there are strong grounds for suspicion that Verity offered sexual services and took illegal drugs. This is what is sometimes called in libel law a, “Chase Level 2” allegation after the judgement in the case of Chase v Newsgroup Newspapers Ltd [2002] EWCA Civ 1772. In order to prove such a case, I do not have to prove the allegations were true but I have to show that there were reasonable grounds for suspicion. These are –

• Verity’s admission to membership of the site, ‘Seeking Arrangement’
• The nature of that site and the activities it is known for
• Posts by Verity’s sister Lucy admitting that she and her siblings were, “pissed” and “high”
• Posts by Verity’s sister Lucy admitting to use of marijuana and benzodiazepine
• Allegations made on behalf of the Claimant who is suing them

The main concern of public interest is that Verity identifies herself as the, ‘Youth Officer’ for Lewisham Deptford Constituency Labour Party.

The minimum age to join the Labour Party seems to be 14. This means that the Youth Officer, a member of the Constituency Executive, could be dealing with and a role-model to minors. In my opinion, it is not appropriate that she holds such a role given the posts she and her sister have made, along with the fact that she is currently accused of Libel, Harassment and Misuse of Private Information. Verity’s post could normalise and encourage joining sites associated with exploitation and sex work to very young people.

Verity’s Labour MP in Lewisham Deptford is Vicky Foxcroft and the constituency is adjacent to that of Ellie Reevies MP, who I have written about previously in my article, “Ellie Reeves and the Corpses of Children”. That article has been up for more than a year, and the limitation period for libel online has been 1 year since the Defamation Act 2013. Reeves, a barrister, has effectively conceded her right to challenge the allegation in court as defamation by allowing the period to elapse.

In correspondence, Verity oddly referred to my, “history between you and women Labour MPs”. This is strange. My history with Ellie is as set out in my article. I contacted Ellie to ask for her help in a cross-party campaign against a neo-Nazi terror group. She was more or less the only person not to help, and I later criticised her. She attempted to have police give me a harassment warning to suppress the article, but after legal challenge, the police had to refrain from doing so. I had done nothing wrong or illegal and the police effectively had to concede it. Even when a feminist journalist from the US Democrats, Margaret Pless, contacted her about child exploitation material distributed by members of the site, Kiwi Farms, Reeves did not respond.

In terms of my history with Vicky, we supported each other in 2001 during my final year at University as an undergraduate in Labour Students. Vicky supported my nomination to the national committee and I supported hers. She won and I came close to being elected. She seemed to lose interest in contact after university.

About 10 years later I worked at a financial software company in the West End whilst Vicky worked a few doors along at the Unite Office in Covent Garden. At the time I was a Labour councillor. Vicky sought to re-establish our relationship. I still have my emails from the period. I was dubious due to having been essentially ghosted, and I told her I would be fine if we, y’know, did not speak again. Vicky acknowledged this in an email, but persisted, and at her insistence we went out for coffee a few times.

During the meets, she seemed to want to talk about difficulties in her Union. She was in dispute with her boss Charlie Whelan who she had accused of harassment / bullying. She had made the allegations along with colleagues, including her friend Ellie Reeve’s future husband John Cryer, now an MP. I was unable to help, having seen nothing. I am not immediately clear why I would have done. They hardly had it out by yelling in the street outside the office! Most of Vicky’s colleagues left the union under compromise agreements but she secured a move away from Whelan to another job she successfully held down until her election to Parliament. It was all in the Daily Mail (archive).

A difficulty with Vicky was that she always full-on until she ghosted you. Indeed, I told her that I was changing to the Conservatives and she insisted gushingly she wanted to remain in touch and it made no difference. Shortly thereafter, she ghosted me again! I bear her no ill-will, I was merely slightly irritated by the waste of time and lack of candour. I never tried to do her any real harm. At the time of her selection as a Parliamentary candidate some of my Conservative colleagues wanted dirt, but I thought this unseemly and instead wrote a silly and inconsequential article about viewing her website through a Nyan Cat filter (now sadly defunct).

My point though is that Ellie’s allegations against me were not upheld, and I do hope Verity is not making defamatory allegations about my interactions with Vicky as there is a paper trail of who began those interactions and what happened. The fact it is necessary to refer to emails or chat logs from ten years ago speaks volumes about these people.

The fact is that Vicky and Ellie’s husband have a history in which they made contentious allegations against their boss. Ellie has made provenly incorrect allegations against me, and Verity’s allegations have got her sued.

There is a disturbing trend in UK politics for people to try to silence critics, using police or allegations of harassment. I have found that softly rustling a form N1 often makes it all better. I absolutely will sue if I am defamed and if there is no defence (complaints to the police, for example, have absolute privilege).

I did think it was seriously wrong of Vicky, along with Guardian journalist Owen Jones, to post backing Verity and Lucy’s campaign over disputed allegations. The alleged perpetrator may be innocent. In fact the only court proceedings are his allegations of harassment against Verity, Lucy and a third Defendant. The social media messages provide some support for his position – enough to persuade the police to drop their investigation of him. Using the word, ‘victims’ to describe Verity and Lucy seemed to me to be potentially defamatory. Vicky has not deleted the tweet (MHN understands she received legal letters from the alleged victim of her CLP Youth Officer’s stalking), but it has been archived as evidence.

I recognise MPs should support their constituents, but I feel that should be limited by responsibility. If the man is named, I would look at helping him sue, pro-bono if Foxcroft or Jones pressed the issue. Having said that, I am charitable support of last resort and in this case the alleged victim may well be able to get a Conditional Fee Arrangement (CFA) commonly known as ‘no-win, no-fee’ from a law firm.

In general, the conduct of some of my former peers has disappointed me. I made clear my dismay at Ellie not helping with the campaign against Kiwi Farms and its owner Joshua Conner Moon. Since then, Josh has been involved as a supporter in the Christchurch Mosque shooting in which 51 Muslims were shot dead by Brenton Tarrant. Tarrant, a user of Josh’s former website 8chan, livestreamed the killings. When contacted by police, Josh, who is at an unknown location, gloated that he personally was distributing the killer’s manifesto and the video of the killings on his website, Kiwi Farms. This was reported by Australian National News (archive).

More recently, Josh has a new website 9chan. Some users of 9chan apparently support Coronavirus as it disproportionately affects non-Caucasians and those with ill-health and disabilities. In order to support the virus and maximise non-Caucasian deaths, 9chan users distributed what they believed to be stolen, hacked, user credentials from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Centre for Disease Control (CDC). They are intent on harassing WHO and CDC workers to delay or thwart development of a vaccine or cure.

It is a real shame Ellie could not have helped me out on this before it reached this stage, back when Josh and his chums were just mocking the death of her friend Jo Cox (itself despicable) as opposed to planning planetary scale acts of genocide. I have learned that Moon has been banned from Twitter again after gloating about his activities (archive). He and his supporters were apparently surprised. So twisted are they that they seem to view launching cyber-attacks on medical institutions as a reasonable response to a worldwide plague.

Turning back to Vicky’s now deleted tweet, trial by social media can lead to tragedies such as the death of Alec Holowka. Game developer Holowka was accused by Zoe Quinn (of GamerGate infamy) of luring her to his home some years ago then keeping her a, ‘physically confined’. He killed himself after being vilified as an abuser. A casual inspection of Zoe’s timeline by channers soon showed that in fact she had tweeted regularly, with pictures, about her many excursions and how happy she was as well as many other contradictions. Thanks to Zoe, an innocent man took his own life.

Like Zoe, Lucy and Verity claim to be repeat victims. Like Zoe, Lucy and Verity have set up an advocacy charity through which they seek donations, the Gemini Project. Waiving anonymity, they claim to have been abused by multiple men at multiple different times in their lives (archive). Lucy claims she was first raped at the age of 13. As with Zoey, there is a disturbing trend these days of women trying to build up or fortify media and political careers based on victimhood that is at best, disputed.

Lucy and Verity are entitled to their day in court and have succeeded at least in allowing themselves to be named. However, they are not entitled to prejudge the outcome. They are not proven to be, ‘victims’, at present they are ‘Defendants’ or, ‘the accused’. MHN will report on future developments in the case.

[Updated 05 May 2020, 17:25 with minor correction, Vicky Foxcroft has not deleted the Tweet about the case]