Attempts to Undermine This Site's Latest Series Using Intimidation, Threats, and Presumptuous Accusations
Disclaimer: Just in case it's not darn obvious, this article is predominantly sarcastic (yes, humour) and isn't to be interpreted as our legal position or official stance. Confronting a bully is better done not by entertaining the bully but by entertaining bystanders, hence this constructive approach that improves transparency (threatening language is less effective when everyone nearby is an alibi).
Last night my wife and I received a bad-tempered and surprising legal letter.
"While you claim to have complied with the injunction," it stated, "it is plain from your ongoing publications that you have not."
To be clear, since their last letter we've published nearly 1,500 more pages in the sites, so which article/s are they talking about? GNOME's war on pasting with the mouse? Or Captain Cheeto's threats to invade and annex Greenland?
We're partly joking now, but is the joke on them? We'll come to this in a moment.
They said: "Your position is unsustainable in the face of overwhelming evidence of breach."
To be clear, they don't specify anything here. Where and what is being breached? This has no legal bearing, does it? It is legally meaningless (no formal process like pre-action here, likely just an impulsive effort at "chilling effect" by legal letters) and it is really just one paragraph long (the first one could just be slop referring to dates of prior letters) and the third seems like a dull template, which we'll get to in a moment.
"Regrettably," they said, "your response makes it clear that you will not comply with the terms of the injunction without further intervention from the Court."
These are just accusations. They provided no examples (not even one, no words/links, not clue whatsoever as to what they deem to be in violation of "the terms of the injunction"). You know why? Because there's none. They know they have nothing, so they bluff, as they did before in relation to their client's poor online behaviour (like doxing people).
They said: "We are therefore instructed to prepare our client's application for your committal for contempt of court. We would urge you to reconsider, and seek to mitigate, your position."
Let's assume they read it and I resort to humour: What's your favourite position? The reason I ask this is, your client allegedly has several partners. Ask him. His spouse keeps saying so. In public.
"This is an extremely serious matter," they said.
It is for them. See, when one's spouse openly and repeatedly accuses the husband of having them tortured, kidnapped, drugged and raped it is an "extremely serious matter".
I've just checked both my map and my globe. The UK and US are united by the "United" in their names, but the UK is not part of the US. In fact, the US was established by banishing the British. The client's issue is in the US, where his American spouse asserts very serious things - things that have literally zero overlap with injunction.
Listen, brat, if you are reading this: We can both agree that there is an "extremely serious matter", but your middle finger is pointing at the wrong persons. Have you considered establishing Brett Wilson LLC in the United States of America? Consider doing so, as that would get your more "business" from your adorable client, whom you helped here in the UK (by aligning his lawsuit with that of a Serial Strangler from Microsoft, also living in the US and having nothing whatsoever to do with the UK).
They said the above extremely serious stuff "and you should seek urgent independent legal advice," they then added.
I checked a chatbot and asked for independent wisdom, but it told me that this doesn't make sense. So I put aside the chatbot, I tried another chatbot, and then it told me I'm being bullied. So now I am seeking independent legal advice about bullying.
Last week we spoke to 4 cops and one came to our home because we reported online bullying and were providing evidence to the police. Listen, brat. We appreciate your advice about seeking independent legal advice. We fully agree this is extremely serious a matter. That's why we got the police involved.
"In that regard," they said, "you may be eligible for legal aid."
Was this part of a template? Either way, I could trust a random chatbot much more than this firm's disingenuous advice. It always lacked dignity.
They continued: "Guidance as to the availability of legal aid in such circumstances is available here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-legal-aid-for-civil-contempt-cases."
But there is patently and provably no civil contempt here, so this is a loaded statement and effort at intimidation with presumption of guilt. So even this 'advice' is just a veiled form of intimidation and bullying. This advice is worthless, passive-aggressive a gesture.
We already have about 60 KG of legal papers from this firm (that's about 132 pounds for our American alibis). I was just about to read page 10,000, but the latest legal letter got me totally distracted.
But wait.
The issue isn't me, is it?
The latest letter was sent well after closing hours, very shortly after Part 2 of Projection Tactics. That seems to have struck a nerve and a scream could be heard somewhere far away in the Americas.
Speaking of "Projection Tactics", what Project is this? A project to exceed my wife's bodyweight in legal letters?
Congratulations! Mission accomplished.
Sarcasm aside, let's get "facetious" like the genius from NVIDIA "joking" about punching people.
Here's a tongue-in-cheek theory: the firm is just seeing an opportunity here, potentially in making a lot more money by dragging their client into a round of appeals, as they know we intend to pursue an appeal following the judgement, which was challenged at first instance (statistically speaking, first ones almost always fails, so we move to the second, which has a far high probability of success). And this latest letter just makes our appeal a lot easier. Far stronger, too.
Another tongue-in-cheek theory: They are so interested in giving me good legal advice that they take money from my opponent to write me letters like these; if their client really knew and understood the law, he would not have written some of the foolish things that he did last month. Maybe I should hire his firm so that I too can make similar mistakes. In short, [sarcasm here] this is a giant conspiracy to milk their client and offer more business to the media law "industry".
On a less humorous note, they are basically trying to kick the "chilling effect tyres" to see how far they can get extrajudicially as London-based ‘hired guns’ who are out of prestigious furniture and other issues [1, 2, 3].
Relating the above to very recent news, they are barking without biting, as they did so many times before, and they hope that by scaring me this week and scaring my wife as best they can (even misnaming her on purpose!) they will somehow prevent me covering issues that I am 100% permitted to cover and fully allowed to discuss. They say that sunlight (transparency) is only loathed by vampires.
In the news we still see and then curate some credible reports about how retirement pay (or pension) was used as a tool of blackmail against high-profile critics of Captain Cheeto (Trump) to the point of attacking media, engaging in vengeance, and testing the limits of critics' courage. Being an illegal law firm or doing illegal "legal" things in the US is no joking matter and it is generally counter-productive (Hegseth's attacks on Kelly only gave more visibility to Kelly and his message about Captain Cheeto's illegal acts). The media captured by Captain Cheeto engaged in lousy stenography and got widely blasted for it, so eventually all those who attempted to muzzle a critic ended up with rotten tomatoes and eggs in their faces, whereas the critics got elevated to "national hero" status. █