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