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.