[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.]
Jess Philips MP (official portrait, CC-BY-SA 3.0 license).
Who raped Esther Baker? Baker is suing John Hemming for libel, claiming he raped her. He is counter-suing. On 15 April 2019 I sat in the High Court with John Hemming, Barbara Hewson and Richard-Owen Thomas and looked on as Baker, accompanied only by former Exaro Editor Mark Watts, was handed a costs order likely to run to about £12,000. Baker was also ordered to have a psychiatric assessment to be filed at court. During the hearing it was revealed that Baker asserts that she is seriously mentally ill. Politicians and ‘journalists’ such as Labour MP Jess Phillips and former Exaro editor Mark Watts have encouraged Baker’s allegations yet Jess Phillips is not Baker’s MP and never has been. Were Phillips and Watts right to encourage a vulnerable mentally ill woman in making unproven allegations public? Were they right to expose her to the possibility of mental injury from public criticism and controversy? Were they right to expose her to legal risks? Have Watts and Phillips helped Esther Baker … or benefited from her distress?
As my previous article recounted, Esther Baker is suing John Hemming for libel – without legal representation. He is counter-suing. The claim is not yet decided but outcomes so far are have not been good for her. Barrister Barbara Hewson’s excellent article is here for an independent perspective.
Amongst other things, John Hemming alleges Esther Baker’s lawsuit is out of time. Despite regularly insisting on Twitter that the ‘truth’ will be revealed she has point blank refused to particularise the alleged ‘rape’. This led to the judge telling her that Hemming did not know the claim he had to meet – Baker’s pleadings were inadequate. She claims in reply that her lawsuit is not out of time because she was mentally ill and lacked mental capacity to litigate for part of the limitation period.
My earlier article did not cover Esther Baker’s mental health problems, as I wanted to treat the issue sensitively and appropriately in this piece. On Twitter Baker has admitted to being, ‘psychotic’ (archive) and referred to hearing voices. In the publicly available pleadings in her case it is alleged that she suffers from auditory and ‘command’ hallucinations. In simple terms, she hears voices in her head that tell her to do things. Sometimes she obeys.
For a woman in Baker’s position to bring a lawsuit as litigant in person is challenging. Whilst the case is not yet decided, there is now significant evidence on the other side. As the Mail reported (archive) Baker has admitted that she told police her rapist had a curved penis and a birthmark on their back. Hemming has never had either (and there is a photograph of his back exhibited in evidence) but does have a distinguishing characteristic that Baker did not mention in her pleadings. So if Baker was raped at all, there are good reasons a fair minded observer might conclude that it was not Hemming. Now a court will decide.
Jess Phillips eerily wishes Baker ‘sweet’ dreams, a few months after she accused Hemming.
