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Support the Lesley Kemp Libel Fighting Fund

Here’s something I put together for the Libel Reform Campaign.
As we prepare for the Defamation Bill debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday 16 April, another libel case has emerged that demonstrates the urgent need for libel reform.
The Libel Reform Campaign is urging its supporters to support a legal fighting fund for Lesley Kemp. Lesley is a professional transcriber living in Milton Keynes. In August last year she took on some work for a film production company based overseas. After the late payment of an invoice for just £146, and the deduction of a £25 fee for the international bank transfer, Lesley tweeted her frustration. When the account was finally paid in full, she followed up with a positive tweet noting that fact.
Lesley is now being sued by the director of the production company! The claimant’s solicitors are asking for damages, a permanent injunction and legal costs.
These proceedings have had a serious impact on Lesley’s well-being. She writes:

I am unable to afford legal representation and I’m ineligible for legal aid. The costs and other expenses associated with the legal process are prohibitive to me. I am almost 56 years of age, close to retirement but it looks very likely that this action … will result in the loss of my home and business and pretty much destroy my life.

Thankfully, Robert Dougans of legal firm Bryan Cave and barrister Jonathan Price have just agreed to represent Lesley on a no-win, no-fee basis. However, she must still pay court fees, other expenses, and an interim payment of costs to be able to take the case to trial. A fighting fund for Lesley Kemp as been set up at www.kapipal.com/lesley-kemp. A few supporters of the Libel Reform Campaign have already donated, but we need more people to chip-in to help her defend the case. We only need to raise about £800 to pay the fees ordered by the court. Another £1,000 will be needed to take the case to trial.
These disproportionate libel threats are precisely the kind of actions that the Libel Reform Campaign hopes will be resolved by the Defamation Bill. The toughened defences of serious harm and truth in the Bill would discourage such claims in the future.
However, the Defamation Bill is not yet law. The new defences we have campaigned for cannot help Lesley. Please visit www.kapipal.com/lesley-kemp today and make a small donation to Lesley’s fighting fund.

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Quoted in the Daily Mail, discussing Libel Reform

As well as quotes in the the Guardian and the Telegraph, I am also quoted in the Daily Mail today, discussing the same issue of libel law and corporations.

Libel lawyer and Tory MP Sir Edward Garnier has put down amendments to the Government’s Defamation Bill that would remove key sections designed to boost freedom of speech. … Robert Sharp, of English PEN, another group calling for change to protect freedom of speech, said both subclauses were essential ‘to stop the inequality of arms that corporations use’.

 

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Quotes in the Guardian and Telegraph

I’ve been quoted in newspapers twice this week.
Yesterday, the Libel Reform Campaign learnt that Sir Edward Garnier MP was seeking to remove essential provisions from the Defamation Bill. The Guardian asked me to comment:

Robert Sharp, head of campaigns and communications for English PEN, said both subclauses were essential “to stop the inequality of arms that corporations use. They use the libel law for PR.”
Sharp pointed out that Garnier does not have the full support of his party, with Tory peer Lord Mawhinney having given his support to the companies’ clause saying the fact they could sue anyone without any prima facie proof of financial damage was “a form of bullying”.

The quote from Lord Mawhinney was during a House of Lords debate on the Defamation Bill, which I attended.
I was also quoted in the Sunday Telegraph last weekend, in a piece by Andrew Gilligan about the Royal Charter and Hacked Off. I am less pleased about that one, though – it is a story about process, not policy.

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Scientology and Libel Reform

Here’s a perfect example of the libel laws preventing literature and public interest debate: Pulitzer Prize-winner Lawrence Wright’s book Going Clear will not be published in the UK.  His British publiser Transworld have said that some of the content was “not robust enough for the UK market.”
This is not a euphemism for saying the book is fabricated.  It means that although the author is confident of what he has written, neither he nor his publishers can afford the time or the money to defend the claims against the (famously litigious) Church of Scientology. Continue reading “Scientology and Libel Reform”

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#LibelReform: The Perils of An Inadequate Response

First posted on OpenDemocracy
The government has responded to grassroots pressure for libel reform, but its proposals do not go far enough towards genuinely safeguarding free speech on the internet and ensuring that powerful corporations cannot silence their critics.
During a panel event on Defamation Reform earlier this year, the lawyer Paul Tweed said that the recent focus on Libel Tourism was the result of “the most successful lobbying campaign since that conducted by the tobacco industry”.  Those of us at English PEN, Index on Censorship and Sense About Science who had done some of that lobbying gleefully re-tweeted Tweed’s back-handed compliment.
We’re lobbying for libel reform in the UK because we believe the law is not fit for purpose in the 21st Century.  The high cost of fighting an action in the High Court is coupled with a law that seems to prioritise reputation over free expression.  The truth of the matter and the harm caused are presumed in favour of the claimant.  And because the law has not been updated to reflect the invention of the Internet, each web-page is treated as a ‘publication’ as if it were a book printed in the country where it is read.  All this has created the phenomenon of Libel Tourism, where foreign libel claimants take advantage of the English Courts’ claimant-friendly jurisdiction.
Continue reading “#LibelReform: The Perils of An Inadequate Response”