Category Archives: John Hemming

Statement on Brand New Tube Hack – Long Video Coming Soon

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I have had a number of people contact me about an alleged hack of Brand New Tube (‘BNT’) last week. They are concerned about their data security. I covered a previous hack of the platform in 2020 and made a video. Readers may rely on that video, because BNT supremo Muhammad Butt sued me in the High Court using expensive lawyers. I defended myself and won, he lost – filing notice of discontinuance and throwing in the towel. Today the ICO have confirmed that Brand New Tube has failed to notify it of the data breach. If true, they have breached data protection law once again. [UPDATE 23 August 2022 – The ICO have corrected themselves. Their initial email was wrong. Brand New Tube did in fact report the incident by 17 August. However, all the other criticisms in this article remain unchanged. In particular, Brand New Tube have failed to answer whether they received concerns in December 2021 about the website’s security.]

ICO Press Officer Rashana Confirms No Mandatory Report was Made

The ICO confirms no report was made. The ICO was asked very specific questions and given My Media World’s registration number. The ICO initially said no report was received. It now admits this was wrong.

I want to confirm to supporters that I am preparing a lengthy video on this. However, I have already verified certain facts. Brand New Tube has been hacked – their Twitter account confirmed it on 14 August 2022 (archive). The hackers claim to have obtained the database including SHA-1 password hashes, and to have been able to extract the passwords. They claim to have extracted over 200,000 customer passwords (it is possible to de-hash unsalted hashed passwords using tools such as rainbow tables). If true, this would only be possible due to negligence of a very serious kind.

In the UK, it is a mandatory legal requirement to report breaches to the ICO. The hackers and Brand New Tube customers on Twitter (archive) allege that BNT was warned months ago and failed to take action. That means at the latest the website operator should have disclosed to the ICO by Wednesday 17 August 2022. The ICO confirms they have not. [The ICO now confirms this was wrong and their initial email above was incorrect.] I also put the allegations to Brand New Tube via their lawyers on Friday and I can confirm that they have not denied being warned of a security breach in December 2021. The ICO was given My Media World Limited’s registration number and the website URL, and was asked very specific questions.

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Smith v Baker, Summary Judgement on the Counterclaim! MHN Wins. Devastation for David Hencke, Mark Watts and Sonia Poulton

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BakerRestrained

Esther Baker has lost her claim over articles that meant (as the court found) that she is depraved, stalked a child abuse victim for years, is a racist stalker worse than most other racist stalkers, tried to undermine a paedophile priest’s criminal conviction, told deliberate and malicious lies on Twitter for the purpose of raising money under false pretences, has made numerous unfounded allegations of sexual abuse, children are being abused by paedophiles because money and police resources have been used up by Ms Baker’s groundless allegations instead of being available to protect them and that it is possible that some of these children have been raped as a result.

In 2020 I filed a lawsuit against Esther Baker for libel and harassment. I won, and she agreed to be restrained for life after her defences of Truth and Public Interest were struck out. That court order is here. However, a counterclaim by Baker against MHN editor Sam Smith continued. Now, in a judgement today of Mr Justice Griffiths, that too has been defeated after your author applied for strike-out and / or summary judgement. The case is over. Esther Baker loses. MHN editor Sam Smith wins. The result is a devastating humiliation for fringe journalists like Mark Watts, Sonia Poulton and David Hencke who have given her account credence over the years.

The result is also a vindication for victims of Baker like former MP John Hemming, Darren Laverty and Simon Just of Real Troll Exposure.  Each of these men has been subjected to substantial police involvement over the years due to Esther Baker’s false allegations. Now her supporters must suffer the consequences.

Baker and her supporters were cock-a-hoop earlier this year when Mr Justice Griffiths held that previous articles on this blog had defamatory meanings. Now, in today’s judgement the same judge has found that those meanings have been successfully defended, including via a defence of Truth –

“94. For these reasons, I am satisfied under CPR 3.9 that Ms Baker’s statements of case disclose no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim, that her statements of case are an abuse of the court’s process and are likely to obstruct the just disposal of the proceedings, and that they fail to comply with the requirements of Practice Direction 53B and the Griffiths Order. I am also satisfied under CPR 24 that Ms Baker has no real prospect of succeeding on her claims and there is no other compelling reason why the case should be disposed of at a trial.”

Furthermore, these are not mere technical findings because Baker failed to comply with court rules. The judge found that, had she complied and filed paperwork on time, she would still most likely have lost and had no realistic prospect of defeating my defence of Truth. As an example, Baker was suing me for saying that her mental illness caused her untrue allegations of child abuse. However, a medical report she had filed in other proceedings stated that she had decided to participate in IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse), because a voice in her head told her to. The evidence was simply overwhelming. She conceded her mental illness in her draft reply and told the judge at the hearing about the voices in her head.

It is also worth mentioning that before judgement, at several stages, I gave Baker the option to drop her counterclaim with no further order for costs. She was not forced to bring this – it was her claim. No one used expensive lawyers, I am a law graduate and I defended myself. Baker had many warnings. Hard working judges, High Court Master Lisa Sullivan and High Court Judge Martin Griffiths, both gave Baker many chances to correct her pleadings and reply coherently to my defence of Truth. They gave detailed judgements and guidance on what steps Baker should take. They made express allowances for Baker’s mental disabilities. Baker failed to follow the rules in the case she brought and had the opportunity to drop.

There are a lot of meanings spread across eleven articles. The meanings that have now been defended ought to devastate Baker’s reputation, shame her supporters and Staffordshire Police.

The imputations defended are as follows, in the judge’s words cut-and-paste from the judgement on meaning. Because there were 11 articles, some are repetitive or overlapping. Each meaning has a shield next to them to show they have been successfully defended in court and can be relied upon by readers –

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Jon Wedger and David Swift – Helping, Enabling Abusers?

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In 2019, a woman named Esther Baker was found liable in court and handed a permanent restraining order for harassing a child abuse victim, and even providing information to the catholic priest who abused him as a child. In 2021, a man named Wilfred Wong, a non-practicing barrister, was sent to prison for 17 years, with another 5 on license, for kidnapping a sobbing, terrified, child at knife-point. Why are former police officer Jon Wedger and veteran David Swift publicly enabling these people?

Enablers David Swift and Jon Wedger on their conspiracy theory channel.

Enablers David Swift and Jon Wedger on Swift’s bizarre video channel. Picture used for the purpose of criticism and review.

The bizarre reason for Wong’s kidnapping was that he and his co-conspirators wrongly believed that the child was being abused by satanists. In fact, the only child abuse going on was the gang of imbeciles led by Wong who tore the child from their screaming foster mother after putting a knife to her throat and dragged them across half the country whilst ranting about Satan, before eventually being apprehended on the M1 by police in Northamptonshire.

Wedger, a former police officer and a long-standing associate of Wong, has been campaigning for convicted abuser Wong to be released, for example publishing logos and t-shirts with the logo, ‘free Wilfred Wong’ on his Facebook (archive).

MHN is aware of Wedger as a controversial figure, but I had never encountered him before a video on an obscure channel run by a person called David Swift was drawn to my attention. In it, Wedger claimed that a person well-known to MHN readers, Esther Baker, had been sued for a, “million quid”, “but she won she won” and “she has cleared her name”. Wut?

For those of you who have not been following, Esther Baker has not in fact won anything, nor cleared her name. Esther Baker was not sued for a, “million quid” by any politician. She sued former MP John Hemming and humiliatingly lost his counter-claim for libel. Her allegations of rape against him were found to be untrue and she was restrained for life as well as ordered to pay damages (archive). The restraining order is a public document and readers can download it here. The same year, Esther Baker was subject to another restraining order for harassing a victim of child abuse. The judge called her, “particularly malevolent”. The harassment was racist as well.

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 harassment.

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Sonia Poulton, Fake News, and Holding Herself Out as a Journalist

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On Wednesday 13 July 2022, there was a hearing in Hemming v Poulton. I was excused attendance, because although I am a party to the case the technical application between John and Poulton is nothing to do with me and also I had a medical appointment. So, I was astonished to read a highly misleading tweet (archive) by Poulton claiming the court had ‘accepted’ her objections to being described as, “someone who holds herself out as a journalist”. This is fake news.

A tweet by Sonia Poulton

Sonia Poulton’s tweet is misleading. The court has in no way accepted her objections to the phrase referred to, now made any decision on it.

What happened at the hearing is that it was originally listed before a Master but when further issues were raised late by the parties, the Master decided it needed to be dealt with by a judge and adjourned the hearing. Nothing was decided, least of all was there any decision that the phrase could not be used or was wrong, or that Sonia is a reputable journalist. Nor is it likely to be determined when the hearing was resumed as it is not in issue on the applications.

What was before the court was that John Hemming has applied to expand his claim against Sonia Poulton. Poulton objects. That is the application listed to be decided. The night before the hearing, Poulton via her barrister Richard Munden raised an issue of limitation that some of the proposed amendments relate to claims that are out of time. John via his barrister says they are not out of time but on the safe side applied for an extension of time on the morning of the hearing. With the new and technically complex material, the Master decided a judge should hear the applications.

Sonia did (by her barrister Richard Munden), object to the phrase but the court in no way, for example, told Hemming or his barrister Matthew Hodson not to use it nor struck the form of words out of Hemming’s documents. Hodson has not descended into the arena on this issue, but Hemming commented saying that the Master did not address the point at all. It is bizarre because Hemming is not even disputing Poulton is a, ‘journalist’ because it is not a regulated profession or reserved title. Anyone can stumble in off the street and say they are a ‘journalist’ in the UK. John’s pleadings at paragraph 2 say that the, “Defendant is a freelance journalist”. However, I am entitled to the opinion that Poulton is not a good or ethical journalist. There are a number of reasons and my opinion is based upon all of the facts set out in these linked articles of mine – [1] [2][3][4][5] and the matters raised in this one.

Poulton has been raising money on the cases she is involved in and statements like this to her supporters are highly misleading. It is not the first time. At a hearing last year, Poulton claimed that she had received 85% of her costs, “of the hearing” (archive). This was false. Poulton had received 85% of her costs of only one of several applications. The others had been decided differently – one she had no costs of. One she has to pay Hemming, but delayed until the end of the case. She also agreed to pay my costs and Darren Laverty’s. So her overall recovery was lower and she had to pay me. The overall effect of this order is that everyone except me lost money. Extracts from the order are below –

Extracts from the order sealed 14 July illustrate the misleading nature of Poulton's statements.

Extracts from the order sealed 14 July illustrate the misleading nature of Poulton’s statements. She got 85% of her costs on one application, lost all her costs of another, has to pay John later and paid Darren and I.

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Muhammad Butt and Brand New Tube Abandon Libel Claim – Baker Late and Seeking Relief from Sanctions

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Judge's Hammer Coming Down on Gavel

An outright victory for the Witchfinder.

The Witchfinder has been served with notice of discontinuance of the libel and harassment (counter) claim against him by My Media World Limited (operator of Brand New Tube / BNT) and its Director Muhammad Butt. The effect of the discontinuance, according to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), is that their claim ends and they automatically become liable for my costs of the claim just as if I had won at trial. Your author is legally qualified with an LL.M LPC (Commendation) and I represented myself in the proceedings. At the time of the discontinuance, your author had entered a robust defence and applied to strike out the claim (much like a motion of demurrer, for American readers) and was threatening to apply for security for costs. All the articles complained of are still up and will now have a new, “Defended!” banner adding. In other news, Esther Baker’s counter-claim is also floundering.

The articles successfully defended are:

There was no proper letter of counterclaim. There was a letter from Muhammad and BNT’s former solicitor Blake O’Donnell which in my opinion (and I dun got a distinction on my civil litigation exam) was drafted incorrectly because it did not clearly identify a head of claim. Indeed, ironically one of the allegedly libellous articles now defended was this one in which I pointed out the technical deficiencies in his letter.

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Smith v Baker: Judgement Update

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BakerRestrained

Esther Baker was been handed a life-long restraining Order by Mrs Justice Steyn over her allegations against John Hemming. She agreed to lifelong restraint for her allegations against me.

The latest judgement in the turgid saga of Smith v Baker is out on BAILII. As readers will remember, I sued Esther Baker and most of her defence, as well as much of the counterclaim, has been struck out. She settled in a lifetime restraining agreement – a Tomlin Order, and I am still receiving my costs back in monthly instalments via High Court Enforcement Officers (High Court bailiffs basically). Some of the counterclaim limps on. There has been a favourable judgement on meaning. Judgement here.

By way of explanation, there is often a dispute in libel claims about meaning. The Claimant wants the court to find there were really damaging claims. The Defendant, that the claims held weaker meanings, or to find meanings that are easier to defend as Truth, Honest Opinion and so forth. So in this case the judge had a pre-trial held by written submissions, to decide meaning, what were allegations of meaning and fact, and what was defamatory at common law (i.e. what might be harmful).

Baker wanted some strong meanings. She did not get the. For example, about publication 1 (still up here) – one meaning she wanted was to say she was violent,

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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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