SLAPP Censorship - Part 40 Out of 200: Putting Forth Frivolous Claim Only a Few Days Before Running Out of Time (12 Months)
The previous part showed that the Garrett and Graveley tag-team lawsuit recycled a lot of text and the next part will show more examples of that. They were in this together all along, they finally admitted this after they had repeatedly lied about this to several High Court judges. It was obvious to us right from the very start, but they kept defaming me for saying the obvious. Later their own client admitted this under sworn oath because he swore on the Bible and being evasive in the face of a series of questions was unsustainable. After cross-examination he seems to have been so rattled that his barrister said he sought compensation for the emotional pain (the judge, however, wrote in her decision that I was courteous throughout). He wants to forget what happened, but as the Poles put it: "Lawsuits are temporary. Glory is forever. Go public."
As I put it last night: "Our barrister strongly encouraged us to write about it because never before did he see such grotesque abuse of the legal system. Trying to silence us will only ever backfire."
Shown below is my response to a frivolous claim from Graveley (of Garrett and Graveley; both Americans), who somehow believes that a European talking about what he did to American women is "defamatory", even if official documents were - and still are - presented to support the reporting. Pay attention to the timing, as explained below. He knew he had run out of time, so he latched onto some more recent blurb after the repeated begging had failed and I would not take his "generous offer" to censor. Remember he was a Microsoft employee at the time of his arrest (Microsoft was paying him; Garrett is sponsored by third parties, which help him pay legal bills and 85+ KG of legal papers sent to us). █
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3.Save that it is admitted that the site published the said page, the Claimant falsely alleges that words were defamatory. Or put another way, no evidence is presented to assert it’s defamatory. As there is none. The claim quotes an article from October 29th, 2023. Mr. Graveley filed the case only a few days before October 29, 2024. This is not a coincidence, as he is aware of statute of limitations in the US with the equivalent/s in the UK (12 months). This point shall be revisited later. Invocation of “UKGDPR” seems wholly inappropriate. Clearly what we deal with here is misuse of the "*GDPR" (or data protection laws, collectively) as all articles cite publicly accessible, freely accessible, easily available and obtainable open-source material, such as the plaintiff/claimant writing about himself. The claim and other claims of this nature are also categorically denied, for what was published was supported by evidence accompanied with expression of honest, genuine opinion/s. The simple explanation is, Mr. Graveley never saw a potential for some defamation case in the UK or anywhere else for that matter (he looked into that before); he then decided to advance a hopeless claim anyway, sent about half a dozen threats to the recipient/respondent and a lawyer not on file (for a long period of time as per Appendix V; this went on from October 2024 until February 2025 when he suddenly resuscitated the case and showed interest because of an impasse in the Garrett Case), then furnished the claim with unrelated matters such as “privacy”. Although the case was opened in October 2024, no Particulars of Claim would get served until after the “twin” case, KB-2024-001270, met a counterclaim. Only a few days passed between the Judge’s decision (that the counterclaim withstands challenge and Garrett must serve a Defence) and the threats from Mr. Graveley – already not a stranger to Garrett and the Garrett Case (Mr. Graveley tactlessly wrote about this in his own Web site) suddenly resumed (indeed, after many months of total silence). To add more ‘coincidences’ to an already-long list of ‘coincidences’ , the deadline for the Defence was just a few days before Garrett had to put in a Defence, perhaps hoping to be exempted from it (because of pressure induced through the ‘twin’ case). Later we shall present a details account how how one case is connected to the other and how communications overlapped, even time-wise, not just content-wise (Appendices I and V have more details). This was strategic litigation or SLAPP on behalf of two American clients. Those clients are not random people, they’re deeply connected in their professional and social circles. In the Techrights IRC network Garrett spoke about Mr. Graveley many times, even as early as years earlier.
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4.Paragraph 4 is admitted. To be clear, in its 18.5-year history Techrights never removed an article, except once when it conflated one company with another company bearing the exact same name (and both operating in the same industry/sector) and was kindly, politely asked to quietly retract, which it voluntarily did. So it seems rather redundant a claim, merely stating that the page remains intact (no removal or correction of it was ever requested by anybody). It is common practice to request correction and/or apology before proceeding to file a lawsuit, which is what Mr. Graveley did in a rush, perhaps urgently, seeing that the clock was ticking and the above article was a few days away from becoming over a year old (rendering his claim of defamation moot on the basis of formalities alone). It is worth emphasising that Mr. Graveley did not make any effort to contact Techrights or Dr. Schestowitz about this page prior to filing this hopeless lawsuit. He knew that if he tried, it would be fruitless. The purpose of the lawsuit wasn’t genuine interest in truth but rather a form of “revenge” – incurring the cost of litigation and inducing financial harm on the respondent. This was likely perceived as beneficial to his friend from GNOME/Microsoft. The communications, the overlaps, and more aspects are discussed in the appendices.
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5.It is beyond mystifying that this publication did not arouse suspicion or had ever attracted challenge – either verbal or more formal (e.g. in writing or a phonecall from a lawyer) - until a few days before it was aged 1 year, whereupon a lawsuit was filed without prior warning. It was brought in order to put pressure on the Defendant to settle claim number KB-2024-001270 between Matthew Garrett (the Garrett Case enclosed to this Defence) and the Defendant – who had by then filed a counterclaim – Dr. Schestowitz. The professional and personal connection between Mr. Graveley and Matthew Garrett shall be explained later along with more peculiar overlaps that cannot be easily dismissed as mere coincidences. Regarding 5.1 and 5.2, those are the personal interpretations of the author of the Particulars of Claim - interpretations which manipulate (reworded in a self-serving fashion) the original words as expressed in the original publication, a blog post published (posted but not edited since) way back in 2023. As such, this claim is denied. I can prove that what the original publication said – and the links contained within the publication – is true. The linked pages contain original, authentic, clearly and unambiguously supportive documents. It really is a question that can have convincingly and swiftly answered by focusing on the underlying evidence, which was already available (and also linked to, even repeatedly) at that time. More curiously, the Claimant is fully aware of this, as the pages attached to the claim even contain screenshots of the material in question. It cannot be overlooked. It seems rather offensive and absurd to try to trick me into admitting someone else’s false or twisted interpretation of what I wrote – more so the interpretation of someone who gets paid about 350 pounds an hour by Mr. Graveley, whereas I ‘pay’ myself a mere 19 pounds per hour in order to act as Litigant in Person. Simply put, regarding Natural and Ordinary Meanings (to repeat the Garrett Case’s Defence): The Defendant denies that, in their full and proper context, the statements complained of conveyed the imputations alleged in the earlier paragraph and its subparagraphs or any imputation defamatory of the Claimant. I hereby repeat again the response provided in the Garrett Case’s Defence).
IT IS STRONGLY DENIED THAT THE WORDS COMPLAINED OF MEAN WHAT THE PARTICULARS OF CLAIM TRY TO SAY. They mean that they say - that is true as it stands - and that is for a Trial of Preliminary Issues to decide on. Particulars of truth: the cited publications (there are links in there), the original documents contained therein, and even admissions from Mr. Graveley himself, as shown in the appendices (Appendix III). He himself does not deny what happened. Further particulars can be provided at a later point. Due to the time limits, Mr. Graveley omitted from the libel claim many relevant publications which dispute a phony, revisionist version of events. Even if they mean something that Mr. Graveley finds embarrassing, they are true or substantially true.