Esther Baker has agreed to be restrained for life from repeating her allegations against me. She is also subject to injunctions made against her in favour of John Hemming and a vulnerable victim of child abuse whose name I am keeping confidential.

My High Court case against Esther Baker has ended with her agreeing to a lifelong restraining agreement after her defences to my libel and harassment claims were struck out by Master Lisa Sullivan of the Queen’s Bench in this reported judgement on BAILII. For US readers, strike-out and summary judgement is basically English for demurrer. The terms of settlement are that she agrees to delete the tweets complained of, never repeat her allegations and I do not seek further costs. She still has to pay the costs already ordered (thousands of pounds) and has come to an arrangement via a High Court Enforcement Agency (basically, High Court bailiffs) to pay £5 a week. Forever, basically. The court Order is public and can be downloaded here. Baker has refused to settle her counter-claim despite large chunks of it being struck out by Master Sullivan on the grounds that, for example, her case was “[…] insufficiently particularised for [me] or the court to know the case […]“. That aspect of the case continues.

It would be tempting to use this opportunity to trash Baker, but I am going to do the reverse. Baker is to my mind a tragic figure, by her own admission mentally ill, who was encouraged by others to make allegations. I would salute her tenacity if nothing else and she is to my mind objectively a more competent litigator that some of our other opponents. Obviously that is a low bar given that nearly her entire Defence was struck out even after a second try. Even so, her pleadings were objectively better than some lawyers I have encountered.

What strikes me is the similar tactics that these leftist internet warriors use. They make false or questionable allegations then when challenged cry harassment. They continue to defend until proceedings are issued or the legal heat otherwise becomes too scary for them, then fold. The Blockbot were the same. Even before I finished law school, I started legal process against them with letters before action. They talked tough at first. I had a visit from police as a result of a complaint by transgender Cambridge Liberal Sarah Brown. Then I had a police apology. Turns out criticising them is not in fact harassment. Likewise, James Billingham (Oolon) was eventually advised by police that I am not in fact prevented from writing about him or suing him in person. Their initial bombast turned to nervous breakdowns in one case, another person was made redundant and the project shut down.

Now that most of the litigation with Baker and Dillon is over I and others are starting to assess WorldCon 2021 as a prospect. That does not necessarily mean the committee or its staff, but also activists around it. The organisation’s behaviour is deeply concerning. There has always been a cancel culture, even before the internet. In the old days, newspapers would expose a scandal and subject to defamation litigation or the intervention of opposing media, the subject would be ruined. However, it has never been so obviously unjust or arbitrary as the present day. The way WorldCon approached Jason Sanford’s piece on Toni Weisskopf was, to many minds, revolting. I linked a large number of articles defending Toni, here. Full disclosure – I have no financial relationship with Baen whatsover, I just think what was done to Toni Weisskopf is wrong.

Furthermore, when I pointed out that Sanford and his commenters appear to have got Toni’s gender wrong at first, assuming her a male (‘Tony’) and that Sanford has written some uncomfortable material including stories involving the torture of children by adults, just like the BlockBot their supporters are whining about harassment. The allegations are true. I put them all to Sanford and his employers, including the mis-gendering ones, and they were not denied. However, a number of other publications agree with me about Sanford and have picked up the story about his hobby of writing uncomfortable stories about children –

“Assault on Baen’s Bar, More on the Jason Sandford front”, The Angry Webmaster, Angry.net – (archive)

“An Update, In Repose”, Jason Cordova, JasonCordova.com – (archive)

WorldCon is a body that trades internationally, as the name suggests, and explicitly directs commercial activity towards Europe. For years it has harassed and discriminated against Conservatives. There is no way to do that safely here. In Britain and Europe, advocating violence against members of a political group may also amount to legally actionable discrimination. In the case of Redfearn v United Kingdom the European Court of Human Rights dealt with Mr Redfearn, a member of the BNP. Mr Redfearn was sacked from his job as a bus driver for his party membership. He won his case (archive here). European law protects even members of far-right parties like the BNP. Subsequent UK cases have confirmed the principle. Furthermore, the fact that WordCon is presently based in the US is not necessarily a defence if it trades her by selling memberships. When I raised the issue with a UK Fantasy Convention they took legal advice and swiftly got my point –

Back in 2017 – a British Fantasy Convention appeared to take some of my legal points (click for full size).

There is express extra-territorial jurisdiction in relation to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for example. That means you can sue foreign companies in British courts. You can sue Google California in the High Court in London if you file the correct forms. There are some restrictions on what US Courts will enforce (for example, if the basis of the foreign claim was libel, or an equivalent then the US SPEECH Act 2010 will bar it) but there are many claims like discrimination or anti-trust which are not affected. More subtly US courts are good at enforcing proprietary rights such as confidence (trade secrets or Copyright). Data Protection claims phrased with an eye to such terms and concepts may fare well in US courts.

Another potentially toxic problem is that inappropriate handling of (for example) abuse complaints against WorldCon officials, their staff or friends of same might give rise to a public interest in publishing details about weak allegations, which might otherwise not be appropriate. More and worse revelations are likely to come soon and have a profound effect on WorldCon.

For now, this is only speculation, but I would like to sit down at some point (and sooner rather than later) with members of the Legal Legion of Evil and consider options in relation to WorldCon.