Daniel Garland has secured a settlement of his libel and harassment claim against Aaron Britton, formerly a member of the band, Knives. Aaron had accused Garland on social media of the rape of, ‘tens’ of women (i.e. at least twenty). However, when your author provided pro-bono support to bring a libel claim, Aaron chose to settle instead of defending the claim and agreed to a permanent contractual settlement which he announced on Twitter (archive) and Facebook. Such contractual arrangements have a similar effect to a lifelong restraining order and if they are broken the beneficiary can bring a claim for an injunction with a penal notice, and imprisonment if it is breached. As he has no money, he has agreed to make a donation to Rape Crisis. Aaron has also announced separately he has left the band, Knives, citing, “overwhelming” events in his personal life, and mental health problems. This tragic outcome underlines the dangers of musicians supporting dubious and false allegations on social media.
Aaron Britton, former of the band Knives, has apologised to Daniel Garland of Phoxjaw, retracted his allegations and paid a donation to rape crisis in lieu of damages.
Aaron’s announcement should come as no surprise. The 2000 Trees Festival, which could afford very expensive, tier-1 lawyers, has already retracted, apologised and paid, “substantial” damages. However, the further retraction gives me the opportunity to make a few things clear. I am a law graduate. I have passed the LL.M LPC. I have not sought admission or to practice as a solicitor, even though I passed the exams but I have over ten years litigation experience as a charitable McKenzie Friend. I have helped in this case, for free, because I believe it is meritorious. Daniel has also been helped, pro-bono by David Hirst of 5RB Media Chambers. We do not help people bring libel claims for free if we think they are guilty of sex crimes.
Some fans have asked us how the band addresses, ‘multiple’ allegations. No defendant has named 20 people. No defendant has even named 2 people. If these people had wanted to defend their claims the easiest way would have been to serve particularised letters of response to the letter of claim with credible accounts of victims and I for one would have bailed. Then Daniel would not have been able to continue his claims. As far as I know, there was one accuser, a fan who in my opinion is an obsessed stalker who is lying. My reason for that opinion that they are lying is that their account is directly contradicted by their social media messages, which show them pestering Daniel to come visit them until the small hours. Then after the alleged rape, they apologised for being a, “massive oversharer”!
Aaron Britton has left the band Knives citing, “overwhelming” events in his personal life and mental health problems.
This should also serve as a cautionary tale to others. I have observed a very small and foolish minority of fans – self important weirdos – try to jump on the band wagon and involve themselves in drama. There are also a small but foolish minority of very minor musicians who have tried to involve themselves, one a year or two back claiming she got herself involved in a shouting match with Daniel outside a pub.
Another person who has settled is someone called Dylan Charlie Middleton (DCM). They have made a statement in similar terms. There has been some confusion about who DCM is as all their emails were until today headed with another name. However they have now produced an unenrolled Deed Poll confirming that they really did in 2021 change their name to Dylan. Such deeds contain solemn affirmations, “I ABSOLUTELY renounce, relinquish and abandon”, the use of the old name. It is then solemnly signed and witnessed. Which is why it was of concern to me that DCM continued to use the old name. However, they seem to be changing it on their profiles now and it is not our problem unless it is brought up.
There are several individuals we have identified and are monitoring. The reason they are not being named and sued is only proportionality. We do monitor Twitter, and Facebook and just because people are not named does not mean action will not be taken. Having said that, I would like to shout out to one person who has made inappropriate remarks and is getting very close to having to defend harassment and libel claims themselves. [15/02/2023 – An article subject was removed from this article after suggesting an informal resolution to their dispute with the band].
I have done several similar cases now and the troll playbook is the same. Some troll mouths off on Twitter or other social media then runs to police when threatened with lawsuits or criticised. Mostly, police politely explain there is no crime. On the rare occasions when they do otherwise, I have dealt with them. For example a person called Sarah Brown in Cambridgeshire made complaints about me and the end result, after I took appropriate legal steps, was the police officer was subject to management action. Police confirmed I had done nothing wrong. Although they would of course deal with further allegations in good faith, all further allegations (for example by her friend James Billingham) were NFA’d. My articles about Brown are up to this day.
The Police official letter rescinding the ‘harassment’ notice and apologising.
I also helped my friend former MP John Hemming being a successful judicial review against the Independent Office of Police Conduct in another case. The final court order is below and includes a High Court costs order in my friend’s favour.
The consent order in the Hemming Judicial Review of the IOPC.
I think it would do some people good to see a High Court costs order and by people, I mean that in the loosest sense because one of the people I am referring to is a person called Ben Monroe-Lake, who refers to my charity work as my being a, “man baby”. By way of friendly reply, my opinion is that he is an abuse enabler.
Ben Monroe-Lake, mouthing off in ignorance. Would his employers approve?
The reason false rape allegations are so serious and can attract very long prison sentences (Carl Beech got nearly 20 years), are that apart from the harm to the falsely accused they can drain resources from real victims and mean real perpetrators go free. In my opinion, people who support such allegations, whether to police or ignorantly on social media, are putting real victims in danger. They are enabling abuse. That is why we are so delighted Aaron has agreed to make a donation to Rape Crisis and help real victims of sex crime.
It is particularly unfortunate that Ben has chosen to make such comments as he works for ICIS, a division of Lexis (archive). I met a very senior Lexis executive a few years ago and he seemed a very sensible guy. I suspect that the highly reputable legal information firm would take a dim view of employees posting so inappropriately online when they are easily identifiable as employees. That would only become more serious if Ben continued and legal action was taken against him. As Aaron’s departure from Knives has shown, being sued is not good for your career or mental health.
As four of the Defendants have now settled the claim and one is being pursued criminally (if needs be, a private prosecution will be considered), I am satisfied that my client, and the excellent David Hirt’s client, Mr Garland, has achieved his goals in the litigation.
Hopefully, the most recent retraction will now make clear that supporting the allegations against Daniel Garland has permanent, irrevocable consequences.
