Yearly Archives: 2024

Sonia Poulton Resigns from TNT: Did She Jump Before Being Pushed Over Child Abuse Case?

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Sonia Poulton says she has resigned from Australian online platform TNT Radio (archive). But did she jump before she was pushed after misleading her followers again about her latest loss in the ongoing case of Hemming v Poulton, which includes allegations of child abuse against her? As a result of misleading statements by Poulton, MHN is publishing the whole court order from a recent hearing.

Sonia Poulton Video Statement

A High Court Judge has struck out a critical part of Sonia Poulton’s Defence and ordered costs against her. She has also parted ways with her most recent employer (again). Are these things connected?

At the last hearing in Hemming v Poulton, both former MP John Hemming and I applied to strike out parts of Sonia Poulton’s Amended Defence and Counterclaim. In fact, both applications were partly prepared by myself, based on advice from barrister David Hirst and John’s application was delivered by barrister Matthew Hodson.

John’s application succeeded, mine failed. Net result? Part of Sonia Poulton’s pleadings were struck out as inconsistent with an earlier witness statement (that is, lies). She was ordered by Deputy Master Sabic (a High Court procedural judge) to pay John £4,000 and I was ordered to pay her £150. John is indemnifying me, so he is bound to pay it. On any measure, Sonia still made a net loss of £3,850.

Sonia is being sued by John Hemming for libel, harassment and breach of the GDPR. The claim includes allegations of child abuse. One part of the claim is that Hemming alleges that Sonia named two child torture victims in breach of a court order, when the judge who imposed the order had made clear it would harm them. Hemming says that Sonia was interviewed by police and the video was taken down. Sonia Poulton admits to this. Hemming then goes on to say Poulton lied to her followers about it on her fundraising page, accusing him (and for that matter, myself and Darren Laverty) of trying to frame her to conceal child abuse perpetrated by himself. He says she acted with malice because she knew she was guilty of the crime, even if she got off by grovelling and saying it was an accident. Even if she did not believe she was guilty, she at least knew it was reasonable to report her to police, since accidental or not, she did breach a child protection court order. So even then, he argues, her post was malicious. Sonia denied her words bore this highly libellous meaning on the basis that she was not talking about us. Irena Sabic KC struck out the denial because it contradicted an earlier witness statement. In effect, the court has found that Sonia was talking about us. Her words referred to Hemming. The next step is a pre-trial to determine what her words meant.

Sabic upheld John’s application and said my application had merit and was, “ably” presented but she wanted to leave the contested pleadings for trial. So, my application failed. The judge did not grant me permission to appeal the refusal of my application, but she said I could run all of those defences at trial. I have applied to the higher court for permission, it is an appeal from a Deputy Master so it goes to a High Court Judge. In the meantime there is a preliminary trial which Sonia is likely to lose as the key point in her defence was struck out. Unfortunately, Sonia has written about this in misleading terms as though she had a great success. What is horrifying is that at least some of Sonia’s deluded followers think she has won the entire case.

Twitter user xCharlyJox is going to be disappointed.

Twitter user xCharlyJox is going to be disappointed.

@xCharlyJox believes Sonia has won. In fact, the whole order is below.

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Naming the Abusers: Casual Nausea’s Zoe Barrow, Shawn Fendley, Matthew Kemp, Edward Mackenzies-Kitchen, Simon Kelly and Ian “Tree” Robinson of Manchester Punk Festival

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MHN had never heard of z-list band, Casual Nausea, currently with the label TNS Records, until he was provided documentary evidence of band members’ complicity in sickening abuse. The band has been trying to secure the cancellation of an innocent man, based on what seem to be unproven and untrue sexual abuse allegations by an obsessed fan who has publicly announced her intention to, “ruin” the victim’s life. What is concerning is the band and their label’s denial, failure to take accountability nor follow any identifiable procedure, together with that of their fellow abuser Ian “Tree” Robinson of the Manchester Punk Festival. This is especially vile and hypocritical given Robinson’s own claimed history of accusations against him. Your author is a proven victim of sex crime, in an actual court not a Tumblr post and MHN feels morally obliged to expose those who misuse such allegations. In your author’s opinion, such conduct amounts to abuse in itself.

Casual Nausea - a montage of pictures produced by Scott Bradley of 'Phukin Photos'. Despite the photographer's skill and the careful use of lighting and in one case, monochrome, he cannot disguise the fact that Casual Nausea are talentless, unappealing, overweight, dross. Pictures used for the purpose of criticism and review.

Casual Nausea – a montage of pictures produced by Scott Bradley of ‘Phukin Photos’. Despite the photographer’s skill and the careful use of lighting and in one case, monochrome, he cannot disguise the fact that Casual Nausea are talentless, unappealing, overweight, dross. They also failed to respond meaningfully to the allegations in this article by the deadline. Pictures used for the purpose of criticism and review.

In 2016 I was a victim of crime perpetrated by members of a vile terrorist, stalking, forum who created revenge pornography of me and also made false allegations. I obtained a court judgement against them. So I was horrified to learn that members of the band, Casual Nausea, had been part of a similar cowardly campaign to help an openly malicious – in my opinion sexually motivated, false allegator – try to destroy the life of an innocent musician. Worse, the stalker was also helped by Ian “Tree” Robinson of the Manchester Punk Festival and tacitly by Casual Nausea’s label TNS Records, whose founder Andrew Davies has failed to take action over the band’s conduct. Now they face accountability in the form of a campaign to have them excluded from the music industry and to name and shame those who work with them.

Sex crime is devastating to victims and we as a society should ensure it is severely punished. No less serious though is the problem of malicious accusers and those who deliberately waste law enforcement time. Aside from the suffering caused to those wrongly maligned, who have rights too, false allegations take desperately needed resources from actual victims. Specially trained police officers and supporting staff are a scarce, overstretched resource. When their time is wasted, it is likely that somewhere a woman or a child may be raped with no redress. Such people deserve the harshest condemnation. The foreseeable consequence of squandering police resources is the image of a vile rapist or paedophile thrusting into a screaming victim.  Even those who do not contact police but spread or accept gossip discredit real victims and contribute to a growing toxicity in society around sex crime and sex abuse. That is what Casual Nausea, Ian “Tree” Robinson, Andrew Davies and TNS records are accused of assisting.

Our story concerns an innocent musician – let us call him, “Dave” (name changed to protect the innocent). Continue reading →

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Lying Sonia Poulton Has Critical Defence Summarily Judged, Ordered to Pay Costs – Donors Should Ask for Money Back

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Sonia Poulton Video Statement

A High Court Judge has struck out a critical part of Sonia Poulton’s Defence to John Hemming’s claim and ordered costs against her.

Sonia Poulton faced yet another reverse on Wednesday as High Court Deputy Master Irena Sabic KC (archive) handed her a defeat in the latest round of former MP John Hemming’s ongoing libel, harassment and data protection claim against her. Hemming is suing Poulton for a number of online publications and she has been desperately claiming for several years now that most of them are not about John Hemming. Unfortunately, Poulton foolishly tried to claim allegations she made in a post (‘the 5th Publication’, in the claim) is not about John Hemming when she had signed a witness statement to the contrary. The judge was not impressed. In my opinion, based on the contradiction, Poulton was deliberately lying. Donors to Poulton should take note of the below, and seek their money back!

The Case Management Conference (‘CMC’) your author attended this week with Sonia Poulton was one of the maddest court hearings I have ever, ever attended, despite the extremely efficient judge. It was originally listed for costs management and case management. John Hemming and I then made applications for directions and to strike out parts of Ms Poulton’s claim. We followed the rules on cooperating for time estimates. Ms Poulton did not. We filed proper applications – Ms Poulton did not, but raised lengthy issues including a request for an expert witness. An anonymous expert witness. An. Anonymous. Expert. Witness. Despite being sanctioned on costs to the tune of over £30K at the hearing in October, Ms Poulton also applied for penalties against us for, “oppression” on costs.

As the hearing began the Deputy Master disposed of Ms Poulton’s applications in mere moments on the basis there was no time as there was no proper application (and therefore, time allocated in the hearing). She then moved on to the serious allegations against Poulton.

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Askival, Mike Nestor, Malcolm Ward and Paul Hutchinson Simpson: A Risk to Clients and the Public Interest?

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Paul Simpson will need more than a crash helmet to save him this time. Picture irrevocably licensed by Paul Simpson from his Flickr under CC-BY-2.0.

Paul Simpson, of “Plane Crash” Homes for Lambeth, is now actually trying to sell his services in consultancy! Picture kindly and irrevocably licensed by Paul Simpson from his Flickr under CC-BY-2.0. Edit: In an attempt at rebranding, Paul is now going by Paul Hutchinson Simpson.

Largely unregulated, management consultancies can provided a useful service but it is very much a case of caveat emptor (‘buyer beware’). The dubious decision by Askival, a housing and project management consultancy, to take on Paul Simpson (now rebranded as Paul Hutchinson Simpson) of the very publicly failed and abolished property development company Homes for Lambeth, demonstrates just how important that can be. The move raises questions about the judgement and competence of CEO Mike Nestor and Managing Director Malcolm Ward. Meanwhile, consultancy Newman Francis, which seems more capable (or at least possessing a greater facility for self-preservation), has begun an investigation after a media inquiry from MHN.

MHN covered the Homes for Lambeth disaster last year. The full article is here. In short, Lambeth council tried its hand at property development by setting up a property development company. That company failed, squandering around £25 million of public money and only starting (starting – not delivering) 65 houses in 5 years. At the same time the company was criticised for waste, luxury and profligacy at the expense of taxpayers – for example spending just under one million pounds on upmarket WeWork offices in Waterloo when the council that wholly owned the company had empty, but less luxurious, buildings in Vauxhall.

The story is a scandal in its own right. Many vulnerable, impoverished residents of Lambeth live in undown, unpleasant, even unsafe residences. Money which could have improved their lives was squandered on the white elephant project.

My personal interest was piqued, however, because I knew one of the key figures in the failure. Paul Hutchinson Simpson (formerly known as Paul Simpson) was a former Labour Party staffer I had the misfortune to work with nearly twenty years ago. I was not impressed then and so I was unsurprised to be able to draw a clear line between many of the failures identified in the Kerslake review, which led to the decision to close the firm, and functions that Simpson personally boasted responsibility for.

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Vox Day: A Sea of Skulls Review

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In 2016, I reviewed Vox Day’s lengthy novel ‘A Throne of Bones’ (‘AToB’) and found it to be “very, very good”. Now, 8 years since my review and 11 years since the first book was released, he has finished the sequel – ‘A Sea of Skulls’ (‘ASoS’), which can be bought as an ebook on the Arkhaven Comics website. The book was released in incomplete form in 2016, but not finished until the end of 2023 (nearly double the original length) and your author has refrained from reviewing until now that it is complete. I paid for the original release of the book, and received a free upgrade voucher for the finished version. For those who have not already received it, the final version is well worth buying. Be warned, spoilers follow.

A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day

A Sea of Skulls by Vox Day

For those unfamiliar with the series, the, “Arts of Dark and Light” is set in a fantasy world on a continent called Selenoth. The setting and story is dominated by the ‘Republic of Amorr’, which is almost indistinguishable from the Roman Republic. Amorr, however, exists in a fantasy world that will be familiar to players of Dungeons and Dragons and other Tolkien-derived settings. The world contains many of the usual fantasy elements of elves, dwarves, demons and magic. Amorr has some variations in timeline and technology, for example it has a monotheistic faith very similar to Christianity that is already the official state religion. In the real Rome that did not happen until the Republic had been replaced by the Roman Empire. Technology levels vary from bronze-age to medieval – with roughly ancient era Amorr next to medieval Savondir – a France analogue.

The ongoing story, not unlike other fantasy novels such as the Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson or a Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin, concerns conflicts between various human and supernatural factions in multiple fantasy states.

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