An outright victory for the Witchfinder.

The Witchfinder has been served with notice of discontinuance of the libel and harassment (counter) claim against him by My Media World Limited (operator of Brand New Tube / BNT) and its Director Muhammad Butt. The effect of the discontinuance, according to the Civil Procedure Rules (CPR), is that their claim ends and they automatically become liable for my costs of the claim just as if I had won at trial. Your author is legally qualified with an LL.M LPC (Commendation) and I represented myself in the proceedings. At the time of the discontinuance, your author had entered a robust defence and applied to strike out the claim (much like a motion of demurrer, for American readers) and was threatening to apply for security for costs. All the articles complained of are still up and will now have a new, “Defended!” banner adding. In other news, Esther Baker’s counter-claim is also floundering.

The articles successfully defended are:

• Video: Brand New Tube’s Data Protection Breaches, Muhammad Butt and Sonia Poulton
• Smith v Baker – Costs Order. Are Brand New Tube’s Muhammad Butt, Sonia Poulton and Spencer West’s Blake O’Donnell Next?
• High Court Case Filed: Seeking £100,000 from Brand New Tube, Sonia Poulton and Muhammad Butt
• Hemming v Poulton: Sonia Poulton Begs for More Time
• Raw Report with Sonia Poulton Fails to Take Off – Are Brand New Tube Counting the Cost?
• A Bad Day for Muhammad Butt (and Sonia Poulton) of BrandNewTube.com / My Media World Limited

There was no proper letter of counterclaim. There was a letter from Muhammad and BNT’s former solicitor Blake O’Donnell which in my opinion (and I dun got a distinction on my civil litigation exam) was drafted incorrectly because it did not clearly identify a head of claim. Indeed, ironically one of the allegedly libellous articles now defended was this one in which I pointed out the technical deficiencies in his letter.

The pleadings were also drafted incorrectly but I am not sure who drafted them. There is a barrister’s name on them, but I find it hard to believe a real barrister drafted them because of the serious flaws. If they did, they were negligent. As examples, BNT were trying to sue for libel but failed to plead particularised financial loss for the corporate claimant, publication, the specific words complained, the meaning of same, as well as attempting to sue for libel, harassment and malicious communications (the last is not a cause of civil action).

In fairness I should add that Muhammad and BNT have changed solicitors and ?counsel? since the counterclaim was filed. Their new solicitors Simons Muirhead Burton and barrister Richard Munden of 5RB are not to blame for this travesty.

Shortly before the discontinuance, I had discovered that BNT has very limited financial resources. The company, My Media World Limited, had failed to file accounts and was facing compulsory strike-off. When I objected, Muhammad via his solicitors said it was a mistake and filed accounts. The whole filing history is available for free here. According to their most recent position of 31 May 2021, the company had £11,810 in hand, with liabilities of £64,272 due within a year and £252,088 due in more than a year. At the time of discontinuance I was threatening to apply for security for costs, which is an order forcing a (counter) claimant to pay a deposit into court.

Up until now, the lawsuits between John Hemming and myself versus Sonia Poulton, Butt and BNT on the other have only had procedural hearings – skirmishes. This, however, is the first major victory. The effect of discontinuance is that Butt and BNT have to bear all their own costs of their counterclaim including the costs of Blake O’Donnell’s letter(s) in relation to their counterclaim. They have to bear the £2,500 issue fee. Their Claim Form stated that at time of issue they had incurred “£25,000 and increasing” in legal fees. Those costs of £27,500 are now theirs alone to bear and will, as they said, have increased in the year since it was issued on 24 March 2021. They will also have to pay my costs.

My claim against BNT and Butt continues.

MHN is introducing a new, Defended! banner for articles that have been defended in court –

In other news, Esther Baker has failed to file vital paperwork in her own crumbling counterclaim in Smith v Baker and is applying for relief from sanctions. Before setting out her dire position, I would like to give this law student respect though for doing a better job of pleading her counterclaim than BNT if only because (as she admits) she cribbed your author’s claim against her. As a result, she survived the first two strike-out applications, albeit she had a seriously adverse judgement by Master Lisa Sullivan and two costs orders made against her which she is paying in instalments.

This case began as a libel and harassment claim by me. After I had Baker’s defence struck out she consented to a court order, which restrains her for life from repeating her allegations against me. It is in the public domain and can be downloaded here. However, parts of her counterclaim survived.

Baker has struggled through to a determination of meaning. This is a procedural step where the court decides what the words complained of mean so that the parties can then formalise their defences such as Truth and so forth. The judgement by Mr Justice Griffiths went largely in my favour, with the judge finding meanings that will be relatively easy to defend.

As an example, to defend Publication 1 Baker complains of in her counterclaim as True, I have to prove that, “Ms Baker has a mental illness and, as a result of this, she has been making allegations which are not true”. Ms Baker’s allegations about John Hemming have already been found to be, “untrue” by Steyn J. As a result in the present proceedings Master Sullivan ruled Baker is not allowed to deny they are untrue. As to Baker’s mental illness and the causal link with her allegations, I will be relying on a medical letter from a consultant psychiatrist who examined Baker. This document passed into the public domain under the collateral use rule when it was used at a public hearing in the High Court on 17 October 2019 in Baker v Hemming and referred to in court and in the judgement.

By her own admission to her psychiatrist, Baker literally took part in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) because a voice in her head told her to.

I find this whole situation tragic and the medical report is a shocking indictment of those who have supported and encouraged Baker like David Hencke. Hencke and his Exaro cronies pushed Baker’s untrue allegations into the public domain to her great detriment despite their obvious flaws, inconsistencies and inherent improbabilities. I remain of the view she is a vulnerable woman and out of pity I have offered to allow her to discontinue without seeking any additional costs orders against her. I reserve all rights on third party costs orders.

The current position is that after the judgement on meaning, Baker was ordered to amend her claim. I then had to file my amended defence. Baker had to reply. Baker’s Reply was due on 29 April 2021. She missed the deadline and applied for relief from sanctions with an extension until 13 May 2021. She then missed her own revised deadline and has not so far filed anything else.

Finally, BNT star Sonia Poulton is (so far) continuing her Part 20 claim in relation to some of the articles I have published about her despite the obvious legitimacy of the criticisms and despite the fact that her boss and platform have thrown in the towel.

One particularly appalling act of Sonia’s I criticised in a 2020 article was a tweet (archive) that staff at a school should have their hard drives checked on suspicion of paedophilia –

Sonia Poulton claims a school has admitted that, “it can’t stop staff from leching over young girls.”

To repeat, I am going to lay it out there. That purported admission Sonia quotes. That is not what you might call a verbatim quote. The school in question (which is not named for safety reasons) has not in fact issued a press release saying, “Notice to Media: We can’t stop our staff leching after young girls”. Sonia is in fact referring to her interpretation of a statement allegedly made by the school that female students should comply with the school dress code as they were wearing revealing clothes which were, “distracting”.

In fact Sonia was quoting another ‘journalist’ whose tweet was removed when the school thoroughly disputed the story. Even though the original source has effectively retracted, Sonia has not removed her comment, which remains available today (archived again). Sonia cannot claim ignorance as she is trying to sue me for the 2020 article here. It is a compelling example of her despicably irresponsible behaviour.

If Sonia seriously wants to go to trial, suffice to say I am up for it if she is. Your author looks forward to a ruling in due course.

John and I have refrained from comment about these cases for some time in a good faith attempt to settle. However, there is a great deal more to say and do about Sonia and Muhammad, likely to be coming soon.