SLAPP Censorship - Part 49 Out of 200: Two Americans, One Case, Recycled for Low Budget at Brett Wilson LLP and 5RB Barristers
Change one character, bill the client tens or hundreds of thousands of US dollars
5RB Barristers.
In the previous part we carried on showing the "copypasta" parade. Graveley and Garrett are two sides of the same coin. 5RB wants their coin.
Consider this:
The junior barrister from 5RB Barristers just changed the number 10 in Garrett's PoC (Particulars of Claim) to 9 in Graveley's PoC. So then I and my wife need to get a 5RB barrister (decades in Ofcom, clearly seeing this as a SLAPP against publishers - a case more enraging than anything he has ever seen), pay tens of thousands of dollars, even just to reply to the "copypasta". Sell problem, then sell solution?
Is that fair? Does this meet the standards imposed by the regulator? The junior barrister did not even get the name of his client right!
Regardless, here's my response to the paragraph (9) in Graveley's PoC:
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9.Paragraph 9 asserts that the British courts will somehow apply laws that don’t exist in the UK or interpret them differently.
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1.It asserts that because the Claimant is American, he will receive special treatment in another continent It moreover contends that by saying that or repeating 8 prior paragraphs will magnify the effect. But as noted before, there was simply no libel, no privacy violation, and not even an attempt to mediate before filing a lawsuit. This lawsuit was not brought in good faith. It asserts there is merit. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fictional claims are repeatedly made without anything to back them up other than the Claimant's mere opinion, which may boil down to self-deluding aspersions and loyalty to a prior litigant (see the Garrett Case).
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2.Based on actual, concrete evidence, Mr. Graveley is himself boasting to former partners that he lied to them, in turn seeking to justify his lies using flawed logic and obscene sexual desires. Honesty and integrity matter because they form the basis of trust, without which relationships are impossible both in the commercial world and in one's personal life.
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3.His own colleagues and friends state that holding him accountable for despicable actions in court would prove tricky as he may plead mentally unfit. One such colleague once had business-related connections to the author of the Defence.
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4.The legitimacy of the Claim is in doubt for a wide range of reasons, among which the jurisdiction and asymmetric enforcement structures. For instance, the UK does not have the First Amendment, whereas the US does. This means that enforcing a libel ruling upon an American citizen would be difficult even if not entirely impossible. This, in turn, makes the attacker more invulnerable to counterclaims - a fact that has been exploited twice in the same year by two vexatious litigants. As such, there's basis upon which the Court can be approached to proactively dismiss the legal action as opportunistic, abusive, and deeply inappropriate. It's not fair when one shelters oneself in another continent to dodge accountability for one's own actions. That includes abusive litigation, wherein seeking full costs (or compensation) would be harder both for legal and logistical reasons. The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition (or Alliance) and other NGOs have spoken out about such abuse or misuse of British Courts, e.g. in relation to lawsuits filed (originally) from Russia. To quote a statement made by the Coalition in 2025: "Higgins was sued for libel by Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch often referred to as ‘Putin’s Chef’, in December 2021 over five tweets linking to investigations by three media outlets reporting on Prigozhin’s connections with the Wagner Group, a private military company. None of the media outlets were sued."
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5.Further to this, it said: "The UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition is highly critical of the decision by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to close the complaint brought by Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins against Discreet Law, the firm that represented Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, without any further action."
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6.The Coalition further stated (in relation to abusive litigation by Brett Wilson LLP against someone who had correctly explained tax evasion): "At the first SDT trial, held in December 2024, Ashley Hurst, Head of Client Strategy at Osborne Clarke LLP, was found guilty of improperly stifling public scrutiny in relation to correspondence he sent to tax lawyer Dan Neidle when acting for ex-minister Nadhim Zahawi. Hurst’s breach of the SRA’s Code of Conduct and Principles resulted in a fine of £50,000, plus the requirement to cover the SRA’s legal costs. However, the SDT concluded that the case was not a SLAPP because “there was no attempt to prevent scrutiny of Mr Zahawi’s tax affairs per se.”
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7.Quoting Dan Neidle from an article he published 4 months before Brett Wilson started sending Roy and Rianne similarly threatening letters (from the exact same lawyer!): "We said their landlord tax avoidance scheme didn’t work and, worse, could default your mortgage. Their lawyers have ordered us to retract our opinion, because they’ve paid for a secret KC opinion which we must defer to, but can’t publish. Our opinion is widely shared within the legal and tax professions, and we won’t be retracting it. We’re publishing the SLAPP and our response. The KC opinion turns out to be largely irrelevant – we’re publishing it, together with our analysis."
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8.Dan Neidle shows letters with an ID indicating the exact same lawyer that targeted him also targeted Roy and Rianne. There are similarities therein, and Neidle was in touch with Roy. A month later Dan Neidle wrote: "We recently wrote about two landlord tax avoidance outfits: Less Tax for Landlords and Property118. They together advised thousands of landlords, and avoided £100m+ of tax; we believe both firms, and their clients, are now the subject of HMRC investigations. [...] Property118’s initial response was to instruct law firm Brett Wilson LLP to threaten us with defamation proceedings. This was backed by an opinion Property118 had obtained from a KC which they claimed upheld their structure. When we read their summary of the opinion, it became clear the opinion failed to even discuss the key problems with the structure."
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9.In guidance issued by the SRA (published 28 November 2022) it was stated: "We continue to recognise public concern that solicitors and law firms are using the legal system improperly by pursuing SLAPPs. We set out below a more detailed explanation of the term SLAPP. However, this is commonly used to describe a misuse of the legal system, by bringing or threatening proceedings, to intimidate or harass another to discourage or shut down lawful scrutiny of matters in the public interest or to distort the accurate public record. The key aim of a SLAPP is to prevent publication of information that relates to a matter of public interest, such as academic research, whistleblowing or campaigning or journalism, by preventing the publication of public interest information or by removing information from the public domain. Claims of defamation, misuse of private information and data protection breaches are the causes of action most associated with SLAPPs, but other causes of action (such as breach of confidence) could also be used for this purpose. We recognise the need for a free press in a free society. We also acknowledge the critical role that lawyers (both in private practice and in-house) play in protecting and defending the legal rights of their clients. This includes defending a client's right to privacy and protecting their reputation, including by way of litigation, where appropriate. It is not in the public interest for false or misleading information to be unlawfully published. However, proceedings must be pursued properly, and that means making sure that representing your client's interests does not override your duties to the courts and wider regulatory obligations, which act to protect the public interest. All solicitors must act honestly, with integrity, in a way which upholds the constitutional principle of the rule of law and the proper administration of justice, and in a way that upholds public trust and confidence. These obligations take precedence where they conflict with your client's interests."
These people are just "printing money" (for themselves) by copy-pasting a bunch of templates, boilerplate texts, or prior works. Is this ethical? How is this not a matter of public interest?
A year ago, according to Garrett's own spouse, he was already running out of money. He then began speaking in public about borrowing money and making complicated arrangements to pay his legal bills. See below. █
In 2025:
Early in 2025 (Garrett's spouse speaking about 2025):
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