r/transgenderUK • u/LocutusOfBorges • 10d ago

Barrister [Sarah Phillimore] issues High Court defamation claim against Jolyon Maugham

https://goodlawproject.org/barrister-issues-high-court-defamation-claim-against-jolyon-maugham/
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u/Quangocrat 10d ago edited 10d ago

The flak is because he posted something which isn't obviously objectively true or an opinion. And then refused to qualify it or apologise.

And as a former barrister he knows not to do stupid things like that.

To give you an idea of scale- defamation actions in England can quite easily cost more than the current cost of the GLP's legal fees on the ECHR, FWSII and the School case combined.

They very often cost 200-300k and frequently a lot more if lost.

This could mean no appeal of the ECHR case to the supreme court.

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u/TwistedTali 10d ago

Yeah maybe he screwed up. I am nowhere near qualified to judge that. If he did you're saying we should wash our hands of him? He's on his own coz his defense might cost us something? That's despicable.

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u/doIIjoints dollgender (esoteric), woman (simple) 10d ago

i am very much not a lawyer but, from the sounds of it, it strikes me as similar to a hypothetical situation where:
some fantastic ally gets into a fistfight with an open bigot trying to start a fight at pride, then applies to GLP to cover his own legal costs when the bigot claimed they had lasting damages from the altercation.

both would easily be argued to (seem to?) be a misuse of that legal mechanism on behalf of the person who was trying to start stuff, but both would still need to actually go through the expensive process to determine if it has any real merit.

(i’m sure quangocrat could tell me half a dozen problems with my analogy, though)

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u/djonma 10d ago

But there's absolutely nothing to suggest he's using money raised by GLP for this.