Episode #1 - today we have naming of parts
Wilson v Mendelsohn, Newbon and Cantor - the background
I am the Wilson in Wilson v Mendelsohn, Newbon and Cantor, the High Court defamation (libel) and privacy litigation that has been going on for over four years. I am writing about the case because I do not want what happened to us - the parties in the litigation - to happen to anyone else. This is the introductory post. It sets the scene for what’s coming in later posts. This post is split into three parts: part 1 explains why I am writing these posts; part 2 is an overview of what happened; and part 3 is the dramatis personae, the people who appear in later posts. I’ll add to this list of people as I publish further posts.
Part 1 - Why am I writing this?
I do not actually want to write about what has happened. I certainly never wanted the exposure and aggro that come with High Court defamation proceedings. I am not a litigious person and I never expected my case to go to trial. The process has been horribly intrusive for me and my family and, no doubt, for the defendants and their families.
My main reason for writing these posts is that the litigation between me and Mr Mendelsohn, Dr Newbon and Mr Cantor should never have happened. It ought to have been settled quickly and quietly in August 2020. It could have been settled for zero damages, zero costs and undertakings not to further publish defamatory and private information about me. The reasons why my case did not settle in August 2020 - or at any point after - are going to be examined in future posts. Because my case did not settle, it went to trial in December 2023. I won and, since Mr Mendelsohn and Mr Cantor are unable to meet the order for costs from their savings, Mr Mendelsohn will go bankrupt and Mr Cantor will lose the home he and his family live in. Dr Newbon tragically died by suicide in January 2022, shortly before the first court hearing.
I think it is fair to say that all the parties found the litigation enormously stressful and, perhaps, traumatic is not putting it too highly. What worries me is that what happened to the parties in my case will be repeated because: (a) those who are responsible for what happened do not recognise what went wrong; and (b) those who supervise those who are responsible for what went wrong will not act to prevent any repetition. So, my primary reason for publishing these posts is that it is in the public interest for people to know what happened. And, when I am done, I hope that what happened to me, Mr Mendelsohn, Dr Newbon, Mr Cantor, and our families, will not be visited on anyone else. That has got to be in the public interest?
Part 2 - What happened?
The events that gave rise to the litigation are simple: in December 2018, someone posted on Facebook false defamatory statements of fact and opinion about me. I was accused of harassment and - worryingly - of being a “freak who takes pictures of kids” outside a school. The Facebook post included a clear photo of me. The Facebook post was deleted within 24 hours because a police officer went to the house of the person who posted it to tell her to delete it. As a result of the Facebook post, there were intimidatory incidents which caused me to fear for the safety of me and my family.
In the short time the Facebook post was online, Mr Mendelsohn took a screenshot of it. The screenshot included the defamatory statements and the clear photo of me. Mr Mendelsohn never published the screenshot publicly but, in July 2020, he published the screenshot to Dr Newbon privately. Late in the evening on 12 August 2020, Dr Newbon repeatedly republished the screenshot publicly on X/Twitter because he was angry with me. He was angry because I mocked him about his claim that Sir Stephen Sedley did not understand the law and anti-Semitism. Sir Stephen had written a piece in the London Review of Books on the subject. He is a retired Court of Appeal judge, former visiting professor at Oxford University, and is Jewish. Dr Newbon deleted his X/Twitter posts the following day.
On 15 August 2020, Mr Cantor, having downloaded the screenshot from Dr Newbon’s posts, published it publicly on X/Twitter. He refused to delete it and - despite me telling him it was defamatory and he should delete - it remained published for eight months until April 2021. Somewhat ironically, Mr Cantor’s reply to me on X/Twitter was: “If you’re looking for the absolute best in defamation litigation @mlewislawyer [Mr Mark Lewis of Patron Law solicitors]”. Nine months later, Mr Lewis agreed to act for Mr Cantor. Mr Lewis’ opinion was that my claims were “devoid of merit” and - according to Mr Cantor - Mr Lewis’ advice was that there was no way he could lose any money in the litigation. Having refused to settle my claim for a nominal sum (like £5) in December 2021, Mr Cantor now owes me around £100,000 and will lose his home. I expect Mr Cantor has changed his opinion about Mr Lewis being “the absolute best” in defamation litigation.
There was a 4-day High Court trial in December 2023. Judgment was given in April 2024. The judge decided the defamatory statements in the screenshot were false and I was awarded £30,000 in damages and my costs. The total is around £150,000.
As to how one should deal with the publication of defamatory information, the Guardian columnist Marina Hyde recounts advice she received from a lawyer friend:
… that advice was: never litigate. Never, never litigate, unless it is absolutely unavoidable. Unless we’re talking about some serious crime, which is obviously different, then just don’t go to court. Do anything to avoid it. It is totally consuming, and it weighs on you in a way it never could for all the lawyers making money off it (and off you). In the months and even years you wait for your case to be heard, it’ll be the first thing you think about when you wake up, and the last thing on your mind when you go to bed at night. In 99 out of 100 instances, the best advice is to leave it, and get on with living your life.
This advice is sound. It applies especially to defamation litigation because of: the uncertainty as to who will win or lose (less certain than with, say, personal injury claims); the risk of having to pay enormous costs (a risk which may be difficult to minimise by no-win no-fee agreements and/or insurance); and - if you are a claimant - starting litigation declares open season for the defendants to do further harm to your reputation.
People have published defamatory things about me before on X/Twitter and I have not sued. But, again, when the Facebook post was originally published it led to several intimidatory incidents which caused me to fear for the safety of me and my family. This was a 1 out of 100 case where I could not leave it. Nobody wants to suffer intimidatory incidents because others falsely accuse them of being a “freak who takes pictures of kids”. Although I could not leave it, my claim could, again, have been settled in August 2020 for zero damages, zero costs and undertakings not to further publish the defamatory and private information about me. I did not sue or seek damages from the person who originally posted the defamatory statements on Facebook because she deleted them and agreed not to publish them again. I only sued the defendants because they refused to agree not to publish the screenshot again (though to be fair to Mr Mendelsohn, he did offer to agree to this after the litigation started).
The approach of the defendants and their solicitors to my claims and why they went to trial are going to be analysed at length in future posts. Here are five points to set the scene:
It is very difficult to understand why the defendants maintained that any further publication of the screenshot was lawful, not least since: (a) they had themselves deleted the screenshot; and (b) it made litigation and a trial inevitable, and exposed the defendants to huge financial risks, including losing the homes they and their families lived in.
To win at trial, the defendants had to persuade the court that it was lawful to publish something that, when it was published previously, had created a risk to the safety of me and my family, and was deleted following police intervention. The defendants’ case was hardly very attractive?
The defendants could never benefit financially from the litigation. They were never going to receive any damages or costs themselves.
The defendant’s solicitors - Mr Lewis and Patron Law - could benefit financially from the litigation by recovering their eye-watering fees (£600/hour). But: because Mr Lewis and Patron Law had no-win no-fee agreements with the defendants and had no insurance to cover costs, the only way they could recover their fees was by: (a) forcing me to agree to pay them; or (b) getting the court to order me to pay them.
If the defendants settled my claim at any point between August 2020 and trial in December 2023 - even if they only undertook not to publish the screenshot again - Mr Lewis and Patron Law would not get paid for any of the work they had done.
When in future posts I describe what happened, you might think “That is very strange. Why on earth did that happen?” What you need to keep in mind are points (1) to (5) above. If you keep those points in mind, what happened may seem less strange. Maybe you will end up thinking: “Hmmmm. There seem to have been conflicting interests in this litigation. In hindsight, it looks like it was: (a) in the defendants’ psychological and financial interests for the litigation to never start or to settle; but (b) in Mr Lewis’ and Patron Law’s financial interests for the litigation to continue because it was their only chance of getting paid”.
Part 3 - dramatis personae
James Wilson - I am the claimant. My privacy has been invaded enough already by the litigation and judgment. Future posts will contain only limited information about me.
James Mendelsohn and Edward Cantor - they are two of the three defendants. Their privacy has also been invaded enough already by the litigation and judgment. Future posts will contain only limited information about them. They have - give or take - very limited moral culpability for what happened. No doubt they and I profoundly disagree about Israel and Palestine, but I expect we agree that the litigation was utterly awful and what happened to us should never be repeated.
Pete Newbon - he was also a defendant. As with Mr Mendelsohn and Mr Cantor, you do not really need to know much about Dr Newbon. Future posts will contain only limited information about him. What you do need to know is that Dr Newbon somehow got tangled up in two unnecessary pieces of litigation where his prospects of winning were poor and the financial consequences of losing were likely ruinous to him and his family. Dr Newbon tragically died by suicide in January 2022 while he was: (a) being sued by me; and (b) suing the children’s author Michael Rosen for defamation. It is unfortunate that I have to write about Dr Newbon, but I refer to what I said above about the reasons for writing these posts and making sure that what happened is never repeated. This includes someone in Dr Newbon’s position.
Mark Lewis and Patron Law - Patron Law’s website states that Mr Lewis is the “UK’s foremost media, libel and privacy lawyer”. This is a bold claim. In an email to me dated 1 March 2023 Mr Lewis stated “I do not think that you will succeed [at trial] given that [the person who published the Facebook post originally] has indicated that she honestly held the opinion that you were a weirdo. … However, that is the point of litigation and you might be able to persuade the Court that [she] did not hold an honest opinion that you are a weirdo.”
Mr Lewis’ statements make no sense at all and suggest a frightening lack of understanding about defamation law and the issues for trial. That Mr Lewis charges £600/hour for analysis such as this is mind-boggling. In reality: the opinion of the person who published the Facebook post that I was a weirdo, and whether I could persuade the court she did not hold that opinion, were irrelevant. What actually had to be proven - by the defendants - was that the defamatory statements in the screenshot were factually true, or their own honest and reasonable opinion. The defendants’ case here completely fell apart when the person who originally published the Facebook post gave evidence for them at trial. She was a truly awful witness whose evidence the judge found to be “wholly incredible” and “plainly untrue”.
There’s an old joke about Ringo Starr: “Ringo wasn’t the best drummer in the world… Let’s face it, he wasn’t even the best drummer in The Beatles”. Given what is above, the equivalent joke here is: “Mr Lewis is not the UK’s foremost libel lawyer… Let’s face it, he may have been only the seventh best libel lawyer in the Wilson v Mendelsohn case, behind four other libel lawyers and Wilson and Mendelsohn themselves, and they were amateurs.”
Mr Lewis and Patron Law acted for Dr Newbon from 15 August 2020 until his death on 15 January 2022. They acted for Mr Cantor from 21 May 2021 to 4 May 2023 when Mr Lewis identified a conflict between himself and Mr Cantor. They acted for Mr Mendelsohn from 21 February 2023 to 4 May 2023 when Mr Lewis identified a conflict between himself and Mr Mendelsohn. You might think that Mr Lewis and Patron Law acting for all the defendants raises issues about conflicts of interest. You would be right to think that. How they acted for all the defendants at different times in different combinations is going to be unpacked in a future post. What is very strange is that, even after Mr Lewis identified a conflict between him and his clients, Mr Lewis carried on providing Mr Mendelsohn and Mr Cantor with legal advice and encouragement. Whether he had Patron Law’s approval to do this - specifically from Mr Benjamin May who is in charge of compliance at Patron Law - is another issue to be unpacked in a future post.
Patron Law is not a conventional law firm. Some of its solicitors are self-employed rather than employees. Patron Law has 20 or so lawyers, but only 15 employees (according to its last accounts), some of whom must be support or admin staff. The way this usually works is that, rather than receiving a salary, the self-employed solicitors share their fees with the firm. The solicitor might get 70% of the fees they personally generate and the firm 30%. Obviously, I do not know if Mr Lewis is employed and/or self-employed, or has a fee-sharing agreement with Patron Law. All of that is confidential. Mr Lewis was until recently assisted at Patron Law by another solicitor, Megan Tolkien, but she left the firm in September 2024. I do not know why. Ms Tolkien did significant amounts of work for the defendants as a trainee solicitor or solicitor.
Mr Lewis’ political views and professional approach are going to be relevant. He was formerly a director of UK Lawyers for Israel. In 2017 it was reported that Mr Lewis had set his sights on Israel’s enemies and that “[Mark] Lewis never hides his beliefs, making it plain, where necessary, of his love of Israel if that might lead to a conflict of interest. So far, such plain dealing has not cost him any clients”.
Mr Lewis helped re-launch Herut UK in 2018. Herut was a right wing Israeli political party which argued for Revisionist Zionism or Israeli sovereignty over all of Mandatory Palestine (including Gaza and the West Bank) and much of Jordan. Mr Lewis is in favour of “unapologetic Zionism”, whatever that means. Six months after re-launching Herut UK, Mr Lewis and his wife, Mandy Blumenthal, were interviewed by the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire and said they were leaving the UK for Israel because they no longer felt safe because of anti-Semitism. Mr Lewis now runs his cases from his home in Israel and is said to “take no prisoners”. Future posts are going to contain lots of information about Mr Lewis’ conduct in my case and other cases.
That’s the first post done. Feel free to share it with others - I think the more people who know about what happened, the less likely it is there will be a repetition.
I hope to publish further posts in fortnightly instalments. There might be a delay because before I publish the posts that are coming, I need to give others the opportunity to respond to what I am going to say and incorporate their responses in the posts.