Category Archives: Samuel Collingwood Smith

Paizo: Abuse of Female Whistleblower by Wizards of the Coast Author Jessica Price

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JessicaPrice_2021-09-26

Jessica Rice publicly attacks Tonya Woldridge, an employee of a commercial rival, in profane terms. She later reveals it is because Woldridge blew the whistle on disputed allegations Price made in a private workplace forum. Are Chris Cox, CEO of Wizards of the Coast, and Brian Goldner, Hasbro CEO comfortable with this behaviour? Click for full size. Original tweet (archive)

Paizo is a small company that makes Pathfinder, a niche competitor to Dungeons and Dragons aimed at people who prefer old fashioned, complicated rules to newer more streamlined ones. It is best known for the IP behind the Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, PC games. After the dismissal of the Paizo Customer Service and Community Manager, Sara Marie Teter, an online mob of angry extremists have been demanding change, resignations and and an independent investigation into the supposed, “wrongful termination”, despite the fact that the dismissed staffer does not appear to have alleged wrongful termination. The mob, whose anger has been fuelled by fired, former Paizo staffer Jessica Price, has focused its ire on another female member of staff. Worse, one of her explicitly stated motives was that the victim disclosed content from a “private” workplace forum run by Price. Price is now an author on multiple Wizards of the Coasts (WotC) products. MHN contacted WotC and parent company Hasbro to ask for an explanation.

Jessica Price is a contentious figure in the niche world of science fiction, science fiction and gaming. She is known for regularly criticising former employers including Microsoft (archive), Paizo (archive) and ArenaNet (archive).

Most recently, she has attacked a former Paizo employee, Tonya Woldridge, Paizo’s Director of Community – and it is not okay. The vicious attack is problematic not because of its profane nature, nor because it looks remarkably like cyber-bullying, but because her express motivation (archive) is that Tonya Woldridge made what would, here in the UK, be a legally protected disclosure about potentially illegal and immoral conduct by Price. Similar whistleblowing protections also apply in some states of the United States. For the avoidance of doubt, I am not alleging that Price has violated any US law. I am merely alleging that she is morally guilty of bad behaviour against a former colleague because of that colleague’s behaviour.

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Jessica Rice makes clear her motives for her vicious attacks on Tonya Woldridge. It is because Woldridge blew the whistle on disputed allegations Price made in a secret workplace forum. Original tweet (archive).

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UPDATE: Hemming v Poulton, Sonia Poulton and Darren Laverty Settle

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Judge's Hammer Coming Down on Gavel

One part of the court case ends.

What was originally called the case of Hemming v Poulton (QB-2020-003558) now actually has 4 parties due to various add-on claims (called Part 20 claims). Two such claims have now ended, being between Sonia Poulton and Darren Laverty.

Darren Laverty has made the following public statement:

“My court case against Sonia Poulton has been settled on mutually acceptable terms. This includes the libel claim I am bringing against them and their harassment claim against me. Neither party has admitted liability. For legal reasons I am not able to comment further. As the matter has settled, I regard the matter as at an end. Please do not criticise or disparage Ms Poulton.”

Sonia Poulton has made the following statement:

“As people know, I have been embroiled in legal disputes for the last year. One of those disputes has now ended. My court case involving Darren Laverty has been settled. It was made plain to me that even if I won at trial – and there was no guarantee of such – I would not be able to recover the significant sums of money spent on legal costs. It was therefore decided to end litigation on both sides. For legal reasons I am not able to comment further but I am truly grateful for the support I have been shown.”

I have been providing pro-bono support to Mr Laverty. Now that this case is over, Mr Laverty will shortly be opening up correspondence for a potential claim against Mr Lee Taylor Ryan (@LeeTaylorRyan).

Mr Ryan has for some years maintained that Darren Laverty is a rapist. The difficulty with this is there is compelling evidence that the rape never happened. Mr Laverty was quoted, when a very young man, in an Observer article as admitting to participating in a rape carried out by older boys when Laverty was a vulnerable child in care. Even if this was true, Laverty would be a victim of child abuse, not a perpetrator.

However, MHN has investigated and obtained police records. Police investigated the allegations at the time and contacted the other alleged perpetrators and ‘victim’. It never happened. Laverty says he was wildly misquoted and at the time as a poverty stricken care leaver could do not nothing about the wrongdoing of a powerful national newspaper.

The allegation appeared in an article in 1992 in the Observer by journalist Brian Johnson-Thomas who was later criticised at length for serious errors and misconducts in that precise series of articles, by Lady Justice Macur in a review published in 2017. Mr Johnson-Thomas for example conducted a photographic identity parade in relation to an alleged VIP abuser. He only used four photographs. Two of them were of the same man.

The Lady Judge said this –

“I regard the actions of Mr Johnson-Thomas in staging a photographic identity parade to have been extremely irresponsible. Whether he produced two or four photocopied photographs for consideration could not produce a reliable identification of an abuser and may well have contaminated any legitimate identification made with the safeguards provided in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and associated Codes of Practice.”

There were numerous other complaints about Mr Johnson-Thomas. Given the police investigation seems to show that the rape never happened, and given that he was accused of numerous other professional lapses in his coverage of alleged child abuse at the time, I accept Mr Laverty’s account over that of Mr Johnson-Thomas.

I would encourage others not to repeat Mr Ryan’s mistake of repeating or linking to the allegations against Mr Laverty and anyone with a copy of the article on a website or social media account to remove it. Republishing it would amount to actionable defamation, in my opinion.

I would invite others such as Alan Goodwin (@Ciabaudo) to exercise care and discretion. Persons living in Europe can be sued in London and various treaties oblige foreign governments such as Germany to enforce orders for costs and damages.

 

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Hemming v Poulton: Partial Strike Out and Poulton Faces New £500,000 Claim

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Judgement was handed down in Hemming v Poulton today. Ms Poulton is presenting it as an unqualified success on her fundraising page. In fact Hemming succeeded in having parts of Ms Poulton’s amended Defence struck out. Deputy Master Bard struck out all of Ms Poulton’s Defence of Honest Opinion and parts of her Truth defence, with further amendments likely on both sides and no end in sight. Her harassment counter-claim survives although that is not a high bar in a fact sensitive statutory tort. The hearing also dealt with a counter-counter-claim (in effect) by the 4th Party Darren Laverty. Despite the best efforts of Ms Poulton’s barrister Richard Munden of 5RB, who filed an 18 page Skeleton Argument, unrepresented Laverty got permission to bring a £500,000 (half-million) libel claim against Poulton. Finally, it was also confirmed that Ms Poulton is under police investigation for revealing the names of two underage child abuse victims in a video interview. 

Sonia Poulton Video Statement

Sonia Poulton has issued an inflammatory and misleading ‘official statement’ on the dispute. Extracted still used for the purpose of criticism and review.

Your author did not participate in the hearing today as he was working, but had it on in the background at times (like the radio!), except when having connection problems. The judgement was only an initial procedural one, but one thing that amused me was that despite Poulton engaging an expensive lawyer to rewrite her pleadings the judge still struck out parts of it. She is also not trying to prove the Truth of Esther Baker’s allegations. Anyone on hashtag #Truth is going to be disappointed.

The judge criticised Sonia’s pleas on meaning.

Judge strikes out the plea of honest opinion in the absence of specification of what that opinion was.

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Sonia Poulton: Prove My Views Are Not Fake!

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Sonia Poulton Video Statement

Sonia Poulton has issued an inflammatory and misleading ‘official statement’ on the dispute. Extracted still used for the purpose of criticism and review.

So, there was a hearing today in Hemming v Poulton. The hearing began with Sonia agreeing to pay me £279 in costs. I then left, and wanted to wait until after the hearing to write about the other matters. Under the Civil Procedure Rules, a large of documents passed into the public domain. The hearing was an application by John Hemming to strike out or summarily judge Sonia Poulton’s pleadings as deficient. Poulton, to some extent, agreed and cross-applied to amend. Defences she still relies upon however, are an allegation she cannot be sure that views on her collaboration with Shaun Attwood were not purchased.

At the outset, I should say that I am a party to these proceedings and so my point of view is naturally selective and focused on my best case. However, since Sonia Poulton has been tweeting all day, a few balancing facts are in order.

Are you donating to Sonia? Did she tell you it is all about Truth? #Truth? Really. Check out this from her defence –

An extract from Sonia Poulton’s defence asking him to prove that the views on her video collaboration with Shaun Attwood are not fake.

If I were a professional journalist I would rather settle than run this as part of my defence. To be clear, Sonia expanded on this in a witness statement that was used in the hearing and therefore became public domain under the collateral use rule –

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Poulton v Hemming: Poulton pays my costs of correcting her lawsuit!

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Sonia Poulton Video Statement

Sonia Poulton has issued an inflammatory and misleading ‘official statement’ on the dispute. This morning though, she actually had to pay mine and another man’s modest costs of correcting her pleadings. Extracted still used for the purpose of criticism and review.

At a hearing in the High Court before Deputy Master Bard this morning, Sonia Poulton agreed to pay my costs. Why? John Hemming is suing Sonia Poulton. She has entered a defence, which we thought was deficient. Sonia then counter-claimed alleging John, myself and a third man, “harassed her”. Mostly by criticising her on blogs and suing her. John applied to strike-out. Sonia initially talked to tough, but then applied to amend her pleadings. Unfortunately, they were still deficient and she agreed to remove one of her proposed changes at my request. The rest I agreed (because the court usually allows one chance at fixing poorly drafted pleadings, and because I am confident to defend them).

As a result, Sonia agreed to pay me £219, plus another £60 for my time amending my defence if the court does not strike out or summarily the pleadings on John’s application. Not the best start to her claim. Sonia has commented extensively on social media, so I will be doing an article later setting out some of the true facts of the case for people who might be minded to support her or even donate. Sonia also agreed to pay £225 to the third man.

However, I will be waiting until after the hearing of John’s application as I want to be careful as to what is said in court and what documents are referred to, so check back later or tomorrow. I have limited this post to decided matters. I would add that I have a high opinion of Deputy Master Bard who very kindly and professionally granted me an Order back in the days when you could go see the (Deputy) Masters in practice, whilst I was a law student.

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Bleach Mummy Charisse Burchett: Social Services Making Enquiries After MHN Investigation

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Social services in West Berkshire have confirmed they will be making enquiries into the welfare of Charisse Burchett’s children (now dubbed, “Bleach Mummy” by MHN). The move comes after an exclusive MHN investigation revealed that Burchett advocates feeding Chlorine Dioxide, an industrial bleach, to children and expressly stated she would use it on her own children. Furthermore, she states that she never takes the children to the doctor’s surgery as their medicines, in her view, fail at treating issues. She prefers her tried and trusted tool – bleach!

An email screenshot from Social Services confirming they are making enquiries.

Andy Sharp, West Berkshire Council’s Executive Director of People, is on the case.

There is a nasty subculture of medical conspiracy theory that preys on those with incurable illnesses and their loved ones. One such is the, “Miracle Mineral Supplement” (MMS) scam. The UK Food Standards agency Food Crime Unit prioritises stopping the sale of this here in the UK because it is actually an industrial bleach (archive). The United States Food and Drug Administration issued a press release “FDA warns consumers about the dangerous and potentially life threatening side effects of Miracle Mineral Solution”, (archive).

Charisse Burchett however, advocates its use for children, especially autistic children, and says she would use it on her own children if appropriate. She responds aggressively to horrified Twitter users disagreeing and insists, contra the UK FSA and US FDA, that it is not bleach [1] (archive) –

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Charisse Burchett of Bath, Somerset: A Threat to Children and the Vulnerable?

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Earlier this year, a Bath woman known as Charisse Burchett (a fan of BNT creator Sonia Poulton) was excoriated online and in the Daily Mirror (archive), Sun (archive) and Mail (archive), after refusing to wear a mask on a flight from Berlin to the United Kingdom. Bereaved relatives of Covid-19 victims condemned her ignorance and arrogance. Though she claims a “private” medical exemption, by her own admission police did not find it acceptable. Now, she has ignorantly defamed former MP John Hemming, claiming he needs to face a jury when in fact his accuser Esther Baker’s allegations have been found to be, “untrue” in the High Court and she has been restrained for life from repeating them. By refusing to wear a mask and risking spreading Covid, denying the existence of Covid, as well as spreading debunked false allegations that cause huge distress to Hemming’s children, she is likely to pose a risk of harm to a number of vulnerable people.

Charisse Burchett - condemned by the bereaved.

Charisse Burchett – condemned by the bereaved.

One of the most tragic things about Brand New Tube’s (BNT) output is the denial of very real diseases. The website features Vernon Coleman, a man who still denies AIDS is a disease (archive) – “[…] it is now my considered view that the disease we know as AIDS probably doesn’t exist and has never existed”. There is no doubt AIDS is real, like Covid-19.

When I saw Charisse Burchett’s tweet about John Hemming earlier, at first I thought it beneath notice. She is just some nobody mum from the provinces with a bad attitude. A not-very-bright consumer of BNT conspiracy theories. Her remarks about Esther Baker and John Hemming were dead wrong. The facts are these as set out by High Court Judge Mrs Justice Steyn –

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FSU Associate Professor Heather Urbanski, WorldCon Head Listener – Has Been Accused of Inappropriate Conduct by Multiple Students – Failed to Respond on WorldCon Child Torture Materials Complaints

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Associate Professor of English Heather Urbanski of Fitch State University (FSU) is also the Area Head of Listening at the World Science Fiction Convention 2021. This Orwellian title means she is in charge of the department that handle complaints about breaches of the code of conduct, including sexual harassment and suchlike. It is a title roughly equivalent to, “Head of Safeguarding”. Yet, MHN can exclusively reveal that in her work as a Professor at Fitchburg State University she has, according to RateMyProfessor.com, been accused of of improper behaviour by at least 20 of her students. If true, some of these allegations would appear to meet some definitions of abuse such as bullying or demeaning behaviour. 91% of her students on the site rate her as “Awful”. At the same time this week, she has been condemned by members of an abuse survivor group this week for failing to deal with complaints about distribution of child torture material by reviled z-list author Jason Sanford. Will FSU and WorldCon officials investigate?

Image showing on the left Heather Urbanski's current RateMyProfessor grade of 1.4, on the right her picture with the question, "Enabler?" over it.

Associate Professor Heather Urbanski of Fitchburg State University gets a grade of 1.4/5 (28%) on ratemyprofessors.com. On the site, students have accused her of improper conduct towards them that the university does not appear to have investigated. She has also attracted controversy in her role as, “Listeners Area Head” at WorldCon2021. Members of a group for child abuse survivors have criticised her for failing to take robust action against Jason Sanford, “I don’t think she is a fit person to work in any kind of school […] metaphorically, it [is] like they are holding down a child to be raped and tortured.”, said one.

The current controversy over WorldCon has been brewing for years. There have always been disagreements and kerfuffles in fandom. It is an arena defined by poor social skills combined with extremely passionate interest. In recent years however, vicious political division has erupted throughout fandom such as with the 2014 #GamerGate controversy. Similar concerns have hit WorldCon, with right-wingers feeling they had to organise a slate of candidates for awards to overcome systemic discriminatory bias (archive). Concerns about inappropriate attitudes to paedophilia and child protection have also been an issue for decades and have been well-documented, for example in, “The Last Closet: The Dark Side of Avalon” by Moira Greyland and Vox Day.

The most recent scandal to hit WorldCon is its disgraceful conduct towards respected female publisher Toni Weisskopf. Weisskopf is the publisher of Baen Books, and last month was the subject of a deeply unethical and misleading hit-piece by Jason Sanford, a bad-to-awful amateur science fiction author. In response, WorldCon removed Weisskopf as a Guest of Honour, making a public statement condemning her (archive). The unjust response of WorldCon to the obviously inaccurate and misleading article led to public criticism of WorldCon and withdrawal of top science fiction authors including David Weber (archive). Weber’s withdrawal is a huge blow to Worldcon. He is vastly more famous than nearly everyone else involved. Not only is he one of the few people involved whose name I recognised, I actually own some of his books. Like, actual paper copies.

Investigation by MHN revealed that Sanford had been openly distributing and selling stories involving harm to minors and minor-bodied fictional creatures. One of these, “The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round” involved child torture and what could appear to be grooming. Some of Sanford’s supporters have been trying to minimise the stories, but complaints were made to WorldCon. Heather Urbanski is the “Listeners Area Head” at WorldCon (staff list / archive), the department in charge of dealing with Code of Conduct complaints. As some feared retaliation, I posted my article and the complaint in their Facebook group on the basis that as I am not an attendee, I cannot be banned. I also emailed the official CoC contact email.

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Smith v Baker: Baker Agrees to Lifelong Restraining Agreement, are Worldcon Extremists Next?

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BakerRestrained

Esther Baker has agreed to be restrained for life from repeating her allegations against me. She is also subject to injunctions made against her in favour of John Hemming and a vulnerable victim of child abuse whose name I am keeping confidential.

My High Court case against Esther Baker has ended with her agreeing to a lifelong restraining agreement after her defences to my libel and harassment claims were struck out by Master Lisa Sullivan of the Queen’s Bench in this reported judgement on BAILII. For US readers, strike-out and summary judgement is basically English for demurrer. The terms of settlement are that she agrees to delete the tweets complained of, never repeat her allegations and I do not seek further costs. She still has to pay the costs already ordered (thousands of pounds) and has come to an arrangement via a High Court Enforcement Agency (basically, High Court bailiffs) to pay £5 a week. Forever, basically. The court Order is public and can be downloaded here. Baker has refused to settle her counter-claim despite large chunks of it being struck out by Master Sullivan on the grounds that, for example, her case was “[…] insufficiently particularised for [me] or the court to know the case […]“. That aspect of the case continues.

It would be tempting to use this opportunity to trash Baker, but I am going to do the reverse. Baker is to my mind a tragic figure, by her own admission mentally ill, who was encouraged by others to make allegations. I would salute her tenacity if nothing else and she is to my mind objectively a more competent litigator that some of our other opponents. Obviously that is a low bar given that nearly her entire Defence was struck out even after a second try. Even so, her pleadings were objectively better than some lawyers I have encountered.

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We Need to Talk About Jason: Jason Sanford’s Writing, Underage Girls, Torturing Children and Child Abuse

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On 15 February 2021, Z-List science fiction author Jason Sanford posted a so-called expose on “Baen’s Bar”, the web forum for Baen publishing, and attacking female Publisher Toni Weisskopf. It has been alleged that the article at first assumed Toni was, “Tony” and of the male gender, and the article was later changed. I cannot find an archive of the original article earlier than 16th. However, I was able to find comments in which Toni was referred to as male and “Tony” and where the commenter corrected. This tends to corroborate the allegation the article did misgender Toni. Regardless, it is only a minor issue compared to the horror of Jason’s writing. My analysis quickly found a smorgasboard of material that is, in my opinion, offensive, depraved and vile, including some involving the torture of minors by adults.

Screenshot of a commentor on Sanford's article misgendering Toni Weisskopf

It has been alleged that Jason Sanford misgendered Toni Weisskopf as Tony. The comment in the screenshot suggests this is true (click for full size).

Jason Sanford’s most recent short story is freely available online and it is entitled, “The Wheels on the Torture Bus Go Round and Round” (archive). The (very) short piece follows the interactions of a little girl called ‘Jane’. Jane’s age is not given, but the information that is given makes it plain she is a child. A minor. The story opens with the sentence, “All the neighborhood kids except for Jane cheered when the torture bus stopped in front of Mrs. McKinney’s house”. Jane is a “kid”. Readers will be aware of course that Sanford is not the most successful of authors, but this reads like sub-par fanfic with a disturbing focus.

The story follows Jane’s observations of visits by the eponymous “torture bus”, and being assaulted by a boy called ‘Binny’. The bus, apparently a known and accepted institution in the world of the short story, visits members of the public without explanation and literally tortures them with medieval equipment –

“They watched as the torture techs opened the back of their yellow bus and wheeled out an iron maiden stretcher and a satchel of scary tools. The techs wore black coveralls embroidered with a grinning cartoon devil holding a red whip.”

The image of a grinning cartoon devil puts me in mind of BDSM websites. Why is this story about a little girl observing this? Not that the story lasts long. It meanders on, with Jane befriending the “lead torture tech”, whose name is, ‘Leroy’. Leroy is a creepy guy who literally drives up again the next day in an unmarked white van. He is so impressed with Jane that he decides to offer her a “free torture” –

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