Category Archives: Equality

Blood on their Hands: Verizon’s Jess Conditt, Dana Wollman, Guru Gowrappan, Hans Vestberg and the Death of Alec Holowka

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On August 31st Alec Holowka died. It is believed this vulnerable and mentally ill man took his own life after allegations of abuse were made about him on Twitter and Instagram by ‘game’ ‘developer’ Zoe Quinn, causing him to be dismissed from his job and targeted by a mob of Twitter vigilantes. The unproven accusations against him have been given enough oxygen – this article is the first in a series forensically analysing Quinn’s allegations, her unintentional and damning admissions and the wrongdoing of those reporters who irresponsibly reported on the matter. I begin with Engadget / Verizon’s Jess Conditt and her editor Dana Wollman. Credit is also due to Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan and his boss Verizon Inc CEO Hans Vestberg. In my view Jess Conditt and Dana Wollman, whilst legally innocent of murder, are morally guilty of his death. They are abusers who contributed to the vigilante mob that drove him to his death, whilst Vestberg and Gowrappan have yet to take action to condemn them.

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Hans Vestberg, CEO of Verizon, leads a company tainted by the blood of tragic Alec Holowka. Will he show leadership and make things right?

I am a UK law blogger who has passed the solicitor’s (attorney’s) exams called the LL.M LPC. I have not sought to practice as a lawyer, my day job being Director of an IT company, but I have nearly 10 years experience helping people in court, only ever pro-bono as a McKenzie Friend. In the reported case Re TL EWCOP 1 [2017] I was praised by Mr Justice Baker for my work in a case in which a man known as PL had been exonerated of abuse, a restraining order lifted and had contact reinstated with his disabled daughter. Recently I helped former MP John Hemming win two libel cases and in a third he has obtained a substantial costs order against a woman called Esther Baker who wrongly accused him of cult rape. The costs order and resulting bankruptcy petition against Baker are here. I know a lot about challenging false allegations.

It is well known that Zoe Quinn was accused of sexual impropriety by her former boyfriend Eron Gjoni here (archive) and of sexual harassment by Wolf Wozniak (archive). Gjoni accused her of obtaining his consent to unprotected sex by deceitfully claiming she was faithful to him. Wozniak accused her of ‘harassment’ although to be fair his allegations are regrettably unparticularised. One thing I hate more than people who take their accusations to social media and not the authorities is people who make vague allegations without details that can be proven or falsified.

After Holowka’s death Quinn has deleted her allegations against him and deactivated her Twitter account. However, Quinn’s Twitter allegations have been collected in this archive whilst her Instagram allegations have been collected here. A point that leapt out at me from Quinn’s allegations that has not been picked up elsewhere is that if we believe her evidence there are at least two more men, unconnected men, who have made allegations against her of sexual wrongdoing. Four unconnected accusers is a sign there is likely something to these allegations.

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This is Frame 1 of Quinn’s Instagram allegations. If true, there is a man she had a sexual encounter with that she claims is sexual assault and he made contemporary complaints she had falsely accused him. This is a third unconnected accuser of Quinn. We will call him QaA (Quinn accuser ‘A’).

In this Instagram image Quinn identified a man with whom she had a sexual encounter. She frames it as assault but admits that he also accused her, contemporaneously not years later on social media, of making false allegations. We will call him QaA (Quinn accuser ‘A’). If we accept her account that he exists, he is the third unconnected male to make allegations of abuse against Quinn.

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Jess Phillips MP, Her Outside Earnings … and How to Take Them Away

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Defended banner for articles defended in court

[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.]

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Jess Philips MP (official portrait, CC-BY-SA 3.0 license).

My last article was an exposé of the repugnant female MP Jess Phillips and her irresponsible, exploitative behaviour towards a mentally ill, alleged child abuse victim Esther Baker. As my article explained, there is now ample evidence Baker (who claims to hear voices) has accused the wrong men of rape. Conveniently for Phillips, one of them was her electoral opponent. The court process Esther Baker has initiated, egged on by others, has left Baker with a costs bill likely to be in the region of £12,000. Law enforcement and the public purse have wasted even larger sums. This article gives details and then provides a contacts spreadsheets for any reader who would like to help organise a boycott.

Unlike Baker, Phillips has no money problems. In fact her most recent register of interests (archive) shows a plethora of writing and speaking engagements. It is easy to see why the Corbynites dislike her so – she is hardly a horny-handed son of toil. In the last year Phillips has had numerous writing, speaking and television engagements (including her book) bringing her in around £45,000. She finds time to be Deputy Editor of House Magazine at £2,000 a quarter. All this whilst drawing a full time salary as a Member of Parliament employed by the good people of Birmingham Yardley.

Phillips has an extraordinary number of enemies –

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Jess Phillips MP, Mark Watts and Who Raped Esther Baker?

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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.]

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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.

CreepyJessPhillipsSweetDreams

Jess Phillips eerily wishes Baker ‘sweet’ dreams, a few months after she accused Hemming.

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James Vaughan, Nick Long, Joanna Harding and Councillor Fiona Thomson: Welwyn-Hatfield’s Appalling Taxi Team

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FionaThomson

Conservative Councillor Fiona Thomson has upset taxi drivers and commuters. She presides over the council’s appalling Hackney Carriage (taxi) team.

As a loyal Conservative, I would find it hard to vote for anything else. I can think of few things worse for Welwyn-Hatfield than a Labour-run council. When I was a Labour councillor (before I became a Conservative), the council was just recovering from a Labour administration that took the council £3 million over budget and which Conservative John Dean’s leadership of the council had to rectify. Even so, in my recent interactions with Welwyn-Hatfield’s taxi team they have fallen well short of what I would expect at every level, failing to deal adequately with serious allegations of systemic racism and maladministration.

As we approach the elections, Conservatives hope to rely on the support of small business, such as taxi drivers. In Welwyn-Hatfield unfortunately they are demonstrating outside the council offices (archive). Why? The (Conservative) County council has come up with an ill-conceived plan to move the taxi rank away from the station where it currently rests. The Borough council has been asked to oppose the plans and it is far from clear on where it stands. Conservative Executive Member Fiona Thomson said it would be “inappropriate to comment”. Because alienating a core vote is exactly what we want before local elections.

According to an article in the Welwyn-Hatfield Times, Labour PPC for Welwyn-Hatfield Rosie Newbigging “warned of risks to elderly, frail and disabled people who would have to cross a busy road to get a taxi”. I think Ms Newbigging is ignoring other important groups. What about well-nourished Conservative law bloggers? When I stagger out of the train station full of foie gras and scotch why should I have to walk further? Commuters are an important vote too!

But the controversy is only the tip of the iceberg. I was recently asked to provide pro-bono support to a taxi driver who was being accused of license misconduct. In fairness, he admits to overcharging, albeit he says that it was in error. It is likely this is true as he gave receipts. I did agree to an initial look at the papers. Suspiciously, the council had not sent the driver a transcript of an interview they had with him under caution (under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, usually known as PACE). When I became involved it was only 6 days before the hearing. When the driver emailed the council and consented to a copy being sent to me, council officer Cheryl Bridges claimed she could not give it to me because of “data protection” even whilst admitting to having the consent in front of her.

When I finally received the interview transcript (after further representations) it read like something from Blackadder. The driver had admitted he had charged extra because he had to drive a long way to collect the customer. In reply, Hackney Carriage Officer James Vaughan said this, “So the more vulnerable the customer is the more you can charge them, is that how it works?”. He literally invented an allegation of predation on the spot and out of whole cloth.

The irony is of course that the taxi driver is a vulnerable Muslim migrant with English good enough to run a taxi but not well equipped to protect himself from a jumped up, wannabe-traffic cop like Vaughan. The person who had complained about the driver had produced a witness statement referring to two incidents, one to which there was an independent female witness. The officers had not contacted her. I did. Her evidence points to the driver being a kindly man (if not well educated) dealing with a rude and frightening customer.

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Bakers Who Refused Gay Message Cake in Supreme Court Win – In Britain

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England’s Supreme Court has handed a victory for free speech to a Northern Ireland bakery that refused to bake a cake with a political slogan. In Lee (Respondent) v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and others (Appellants) (Northern Ireland) [2018] UKSC 49, the court held that refusing to bake a cake with a slogan saying, “support gay marriage” was not discrimination. It further held that requiring them to do so would breach their fundamental Human Rights.

A Scary Legal Hammer

Lawyers.

The case is important because the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is considered to be far more left wing than the Supreme Court of the United States, but it accepted the arguments against compelled political speech the US Supreme Court avoided and indeed went way, way further. The unanimous (not split) court judgement, delivered by Lady Hale, is here.
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Brave Rape Victims Come Forward to Condemn Sarah Jeong of the New York Times

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Sarah Jeong

Sarah Jeong, newly hired at the New York Times, is a racist who stripped a rape victim of her anonymity.

In my previous article I exposed how newly appointed New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong had doxed a rape victim, knowing that the act would trigger harassment of her. I further revealed that when the allegations were put to the New York Times they did not deny it, and I quoted their response in full. Now brave victims of rape and childhood abuse have come forward to condemn the New York Times, its leadership and Jeong.

Matthew Hopkins News uses tracking software to track media inquiries. This enables me to see how many times an inquiry is displayed. My initial media inquiry to the New York Times was viewed nearly 800 times after being sent to a single press officer – over 600 in the first 90 minutes after being sent. It is clear that the NYT realises how comprehensively the story destroys their narrative of Jeong being a victim of racism and online trolls.

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The New York Times fears this story. My email about this to a single press officer was read nearly 900 times, the first 600 of those in 90 minutes. Readers are asked to please share my last article and this one with every Conservative publication you can.

I was incredibly grateful to users of /r/the_donald (T_D) and /r/KotakuInAction (KIA) for sharing my last article. The story needs to be the “next thing” about Jeong in the national and international media after the racism allegations. Readers are encouraged to share it with their favourite national publications because this is what the NYT fears. T_D and KIA were not the only subreddits to see my article however. Reddit is home to communities made up exclusively of victims of rape and abuse.

One brave victim chose to express her feelings in /r/adultsurvivors/. It is harrowing reading –

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Reminder: Racist NYT Board Member Sarah Jeong Doxed a Rape Victim, Opposed Revenge Porn Criminalisation

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Sarah Jeong

Sarah Jeong, newly hired at the New York Times, is a racist who stripped a rape victim of her anonymity. Picture CC-3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Recently, newly hired New York Times editorial board member Sarah Jeong has come under hire for racist tweets. The racism however is by no means her only Twitter faux pas. In January 2016 Jeong doxed a rape victim by identifying her. In the United Kingdom, naming a victim of sexual assault is illegal unless they waive their right to anonymity. In the United States it is not usually a crime to name a rape victim, but it is one of journalism’s stronger moral taboos and most ethical journalists will not. Of particular note, Jeong republished the identity of the victim in a blog post knowing she and her husband objected and knowing that Newsweek had taken it down. The Times did not deny the allegations, but did appear to distance Executive Editor from the hire, claiming he had nothing to do with it.

In the United Kingdom and many other states rape victims are entitled to anonymity. In the UK, naming a victim of rape is a crime under s1 and s5 of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 unless they waive the anonymity. In the United States it is merely unethical but although the Supreme Court has upheld a First Amendment right to deviate from the norm, it is generally considered serious ethical wrongdoing.

Sarah Jeong had been involved in an argument over the content of an online article, which had contained a link that Jeong felt trivialised a rape threat. The dispute was covered in Newsweek’s “Today in Tabs” section. A woman (I have deliberately anonymised) wrote a letter to Tabs complaining about the article and revealing her status as a rape victim. The author of the piece, Rusty Foster, published the letter claiming it was “in the interests of fairness”. After complaints the letter was taken down on ethical grounds just leaving the woman’s legal concerns.

The rape victim’s anonymity was restored. Until in January 2016 the woman’s identity was republished on Jeong’s blog. At the time, I contacted the victim via her husband and respectfully requested permission to write about it, which was granted. In my article I also wrote about Jeong’s friendly online interactions (archive) with Sarah Nyberg, who claimed to be a white nationalist paedophile (archive). I linked to her Jeong’s express opposition to revenge pornography laws (archive).

As my earlier article noted, quoting her, Jeong realised her blog post would lead to the victim being harassed all over again and in that knowledge posted her name. She also despicably accused the husband of using the woman’s victim status as a “weapon”.

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Persecuted Bakers Vindicated in United States Supreme Court

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I am entitled to equal rights under the Equality Act 2010. Does that mean I should be able to go into a local halal or kosher butcher and demand a pork chop? Should I be able to demand the local LGBT t-shirt and craft shops print me a t-shirt with Leviticus 18:22 spelt out in rainbow colours? A similar question was asked of Christian bakers who disagree with gay marriage for religious reasons and were asked to spell out a message contrary to their fundamental beliefs. Now the cake shop owner who stood up for their religious beliefs has been vindicated in a historic 7-2 victory in the United States Supreme Court. The ruling bucks a sinister left-wing trend to compel conduct, with extreme social justice warriors recently arguing for compelled sex under discrimination laws.

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This Wedding Cake bears a message – which may amount to protected speech for the purpose of the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Masterpiece Cakeshop v Colorado Civil Rights Commission is a pivotal case in United States jurisprudence. In 2012 the eponymous cake shop was visited by two homosexuals who wished to get married and asked for a custom cake. The owner refused to create a custom cake as they felt it would violate their Christian faith, although they were welcome to buy any other standard goods in the shop.

The couple sued successfully in the Colorado Courts but yesterday the Supreme Court overruled. The arguments used and the reasons given were extremely technical and worth examining in detail.

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UK Labour Selects Female Ethnic Candidate With 14 Restraining Orders for Parliament

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Mandy Richards at a door with a file of documents

Ominous: Mandy Richards, Labour Parliamentary Candidate for Worcester, approaches a door with a file of documents. House number erased to protect the resident.

The UK Labour Party has selected a female ethnic minority candidate, Mandy Richards, to stand for Parliament in Worcester. According to the Mail (archive), the Sun (archive) and the Times (archive), Ms Richards is presently the subject of no less than 14 separate Civil Restraining Orders (CRO). A CRO is used by a judge when a party to a lawsuit abuses the courts by bringing totally meritless claims or applications. To get a CRO, a claimant must make take two separate applications that a judge formally records as totally without merit.

14. Fourteen. Four-teen. That is a special and magical number. It is also the number of times a judge has restrained Mandy Richards, Labour’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Worcester from using the courts without permission to protect the public and individuals from her.

The courts do not make such orders lightly – it takes two completely meritless – utterly worthless – applications in the same proceedings (lawsuit) to get one. So, just who has Mandy Richards been suing? Apparently –

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Nasty Labour MP Ellie Reeves Singles Out Female Civil Servant for Public Criticism

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Continuing her recent charm offensive, Ellie Reeves MP has taken the unpleasant step of criticising the female Chief Inspector of Prisons, Glenys Stacey at a parliamentary select committee and then singling her out by sharing the video on her timeline on Twitter, without including the woman’s reply. Reeves has frequently complained of the treatment of women on social media.

Ellie Reeves MP

Ellie Reeves MP supports women in public life by publicly criticising a very successful female civil servant but not including their reply. Click for full size.

Reeves’ Tweet is here and its archive is here. She is apparently concerned that Dame Stacey said she might have fewer time commitments than a younger woman. Reeves thought this might undermine women in the workplace. Of concern to me however is that the video clip she shared does not include Dame Stacey’s reply. Under the circumstances I thought it was only fair for me to share the full section and in particular the response.

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