Episode #3 - the efforts to get me into trouble with the police
Why did the defendants' lawyers threaten, encourage or make reports about me to the police during the litigation?
This is episode 3 of what happened in the High Court defamation and privacy case Wilson v Mendelsohn, Newbon and Cantor. This post is about the defendants’ lawyers encouraging, threatening, or making reports to the police about me. These are in addition to the threats to bankrupt me, referring to my children and job, made by the defendants’ solicitor Mr Mark Lewis of Patron Law who hoped to use his fees to bankrupt me.
I set out three incidents here in relation to the police, but there is one more I know of and perhaps others I do not know of. Nothing ever came of the reports: the police did not charge me with an offence because I had not committed any offence. The three incidents are covered in separate parts of this post: part 1 is about a trial witness, Mr Alex Cleaver, who was encouraged to report me to the police; part 2 is about Mr Simon Myerson KC threatening to report me to the police; and part 3 is about Mr Lewis making a report to the police. I set out my opinions in part 4 as to what was going on and no doubt you can draw your own conclusions.
For this post, you do not need to know much background. If you do want to know the background: episode 1 (today we have naming of parts) is here. In that post I explain what happened and that I am publishing these posts in the public interest. My hope is that if people know what happened to me and the defendants, it might prevent anything similar happening to anyone else. Episode 2 (Mark Lewis’ initial legal analysis) is here. In that post I explain Mr Lewis’ analysis of my claims, why in my opinion his analysis was incompetent, what the likely consequences of his analysis were for his clients, and about his threats to bankrupt me.
The series recap is: in December 2018, someone posted false defamatory statements about me on Facebook, including that I was a “freak who takes pictures of kids” outside a school. The post was deleted shortly after it was published 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 that caused me to fear for the safety of me and my family. The Facebook post ought to have disappeared, but Mr Mendelsohn took a screenshot of it in the short time it was online. He gave the screenshot to Dr Pete Newbon. In August 2020, some 20 months after the Facebook post had been deleted, Dr Newbon and Mr Edward Cantor posted the screenshot on X/Twitter. I was - as you might expect - unhappy about this. In July 2021, after the defendants insisted - apparently on their solicitors’ advice - they had done nothing wrong and on their right to publish the screenshot, I issued a High Court claim for defamation and misuse of private information…
Part 1 - Mr Cleaver’s report to the police
Mr Alex Cleaver is the X/Twitter user @legendofthethe (also known as: ‘Paddy McGuintys Goat’; ‘Man Bun Wig Shoppe’; and, a seasonal reference, ‘Festive Arsehole’). Mr Cleaver was on the X/Twitter thread where the screenshot was published by Dr Newbon and Mr Cantor, and - as the judge found - was one of the people who abused me. I did not abuse Mr Cleaver or anyone else. It is perhaps unfair to describe Mr Cleaver as an anonymous troll, but he was anonymous and he did troll me. As I say above, there were intimidatory incidents when the Facebook post was originally published which caused me to fear for the safety of me and my family. I was worried that Mr Cleaver would - as Mr Cantor had done - republish the screenshot of the Facebook post. I expect Mr Cleaver copied the screenshot from Dr Newbon or Mr Cantor and I did not want to end up suing Mr Cleaver if he published it. It risked turning into a game of whack-a-mole.
Mr Cleaver had posted on X/Twitter photos of a church from his garden, so someone identified his street for me. I would have written to him but I did not know his name or which house was his. When I was out for a bike ride, I went to his street and identified his house because his dog was in the garden (he’d also posted photos of his dog). We had a fairly amicable conversation over his garden fence. I basically told him that if he did not abuse or troll me, he would never hear from me again; or he could carry on, and be sued as the other defendants were being sued, and that would be an awful experience for all concerned. As I said in episode 1, litigation is an awful experience and to be avoided if at all possible.
What happened next was weird. Mr Cleaver started posting on X/Twitter that I had been incoherent and that I had kept shouting “Pete Newbon”. None of that was true and I had an audio recording of our conversation. Mr Cleaver unwisely provided a witness statement for the defendants at trial in accordance with the version of events he had given on X/Twitter. That version of events fell apart when he was played the audio recording of our conversation and then cross-examined by my counsel. Mr Cleaver had the good sense not to maintain the evidence in his witness statement in the face of the recording and I thanked him afterwards for that. The judge decided, perhaps generously, that Mr Cleaver’s witness statement was exaggerated but not dishonest.
Going back to what happened after Mr Cleaver started posting on X/Twitter about our conversation, Dr Newbon sent a message to Mr Cleaver via the X/Twitter user @dubzky. This was the message:
Hi Dubzky - how’s it going? Can I ask a favour. If Paddy McGuinty [Mr Cleaver] has been visited at his home by James Wilson - uninvited - could I ask you suggest to him (in DMs) he contact the police, and make a complaint for harassment, invasion of privacy and breach of the peace? I - and a few others - are involved in litigation with Wilson, and my lawyer (Mark Lewis) says Paddy [Mr Cleaver] making a complaint would be really helpful (and might give him protection going forward). Thanks and best, Pete [Dr Newbon].
There is a bit to unpack here. After Dr Newbon’s tragic death by suicide, contact was made by his widow’s new lawyer. It was made clear that Mr Lewis was not instructed and would in no circumstances be instructed. Dr Newbon’s widow and me agreed that the entire claim should be settled immediately. The other defendants or their solicitors prevented this by refusing to engage in settlement negotiations (there is a future post about this). I settled with the estate for zero damages and a small contribution towards my costs and the estate agreed to disclose relevant evidence from Dr Newbon’s devices. The evidence disclosed included the above message. I do not know who @Dubzky is, but it was one of the X/Twitter accounts interacting with Mr Cleaver. The @Dubzsky account was deleted along with other anonymous accounts that had abused me. I suspect they were deleted to avoid the risk of direct messages having to be disclosed which would identify who was was operating the accounts or that there had been coordinated efforts to harass me.
Around the time of the above message, Mr Cleaver was posting on X/Twitter saying that he was “amused more than anything” about my visit and, in response to the suggestion that I had harassed him, “I’m fine guys but thanks”. So: although Mr Cleaver suggested no criminal offence had been committed and that he was not concerned about what had happened, it seems from Dr Newbon’s message that Mr Lewis advised Dr Newbon to get Mr Cleaver to make a report to the police about harassment because “making a complaint would be really helpful” with the litigation. There was nothing in Dr Newbon’s message to indicate why he or Mr Lewis believed I had committed an offence. The issue seemed to be that I had visited Mr Cleaver at his home, but it was obviously not a criminal offence to do that and then have a conversation over his garden fence. It also seems Dr Newbon and Mr Lewis did not try to find out from Mr Cleaver what had actually happened before encouraging him to make the report to the police.
My understanding is that as a result of getting the message from Dr Newbon, who was apparently following Mr Lewis’ advice, Mr Cleaver made a false report of harassment about me to the police and the Community Security Trust (CST). He posted on X/Twitter to say he was going to make a report, so to assist him I sent him a letter - I now knew his address - containing my name and address so he could properly identify me. Mr Cleaver’s evidence was that the police told him no recordable crime had taken place. I never heard from the police. Had the police got in touch with me, I could have played them the audio recording and the police would presumably have gone back to Mr Cleaver to tell him to stop wasting police time.
I expect the CST will have recorded this as Mr Cleaver being the victim of an anti-Semitic incident (Mr Cleaver told the court he had a grandmother who was Jewish) even though it was just me telling him to pack it in abusing and trolling me on X/Twitter. Given what happened to the defendants, I think it is fair to say I did Mr Cleaver a favour by visiting him and telling him to pack it in? I expect Mr Cantor - one of the defendants - would take that option over: instructing Mr Lewis; being told by Mr Lewis (according to Mr Cantor) that he could not lose any money; accepting Mr Lewis’ advice to refuse any nominal offer of settlement (like £5); taking the claim to trial and losing; and then losing the home he and his family live in to pay my costs.
Part 2 - Simon Myerson KC’s threat to report me to the police
There is going to be a future post dedicated entirely to Mr Myerson - who was a judge and is a KC - and here I only really address his threat to report me to the police for blackmail. It was reported in the Daily Telegraph that Mr Myerson was acting for Dr Newbon (“But Simon Myerson QC, who was acting for Dr Newbon in a separate case in which he was being sued - and which was also causing him deep upset…”). Mr Lewis never confirmed explicitly that Mr Myerson was instructed; and his name never appeared on the costs schedules filed by the defendants’ solicitors. Perhaps Mr Myerson was advising pro bono on a confidential basis, though that raises the question as to why it was reported in the Telegraph that he was acting.
After they lost their applications to strike out my claims (get them dismissed without a trial) in February 2023, the defendants started crowdfunding. In support of the crowdfunding, the X/Twitter user Tom Doran (@portraitinflesh) posted “James [Mr Mendelsohn] is a mensch being targeted by the scum of the earth. Don't let them do to him what they did to Pete [Dr Newbon].” The judge’s conclusion about this was:
The “scum of the earth” plainly meant Mr Wilson [me]. It well illustrates the crude and abusive level of so many of these exchanges, and the irony (apparently lost on Mr Doran) of hurling abuse of the same dehumanising kind as was used of Jewish people by the Nazis in the 1930s. The tweet also suggested that Mr Wilson was in some way responsible for Dr Newbon's suicide. Nonetheless, it was retweeted by various others, including a senior barrister, Mr Myerson …
While Mr Doran’s post was a particularly bad example, it shows the sort of abuse I received and there was a lot of it. Mr Doran’s post was reposted - I still struggle to believe this - by Mr Myerson. You might wonder how it came to pass that a judge and KC - in ongoing litigation in which he was or had been advising - reposted allegations that the other side in the litigation was the “scum of the earth” and responsible for the death of a person he had been advising. It seems inconceivable that Dr Newbon’s widow or the other defendants approved of Mr Myerson’s public intervention. You are through the looking glass when the KC who was advising you abuses your opponent on X/Twitter, thereby increasing the amount of damages you have to pay your opponent? This was just one of many occasions where the conduct of the defendants’ lawyers seemed to make the defendants’ position worse rather than better. Mr Myerson’s response to the judge’s analysis was - as you might expect if you are familiar with Mr Myerson on X/Twitter - to publicly accuse the judge of making “an anti-Semitic allegation”.
That was not the only time Mr Myerson implied someone else had a causative relationship with Dr Newbon’s death. Mr Myerson also posted on X/Twitter that “[Michael] Rosen’s use of his own children’s book led to tragedy”, which I understood as a reference to Dr Newbon’s ‘Bear Hunt’ post. My future piece on Mr Myerson will include some opinions as to why people might want to imply that Dr Newbon’s death was somehow the responsibility of me or Mr Rosen; and what happened before Mr Myerson decided to stop sitting as a judge.
I was - I think justifiably - unhappy about a judge and KC repeating that I was the “scum of the earth” who was responsible for Dr Newbon’s death, so I emailed Mr Myerson to ask him to delete his post on X/Twitter. I said:
I can sort of cope with people on Twitter such as Tom Doran …. or whoever having an uninformed pop at me. I am going to try to deal with him next. What has to be clear though is that I do have an elastic limit, at some stage I am going to have to defend my conduct and the most obvious way of defending my conduct is to simply explain what Dr Newbon did to me. What does really stick in my craw is you - someone who really should know better - encouraging people such as Tom Doran by re-tweeting their attacks on me. I’d like to make it clear that if my elastic limit is reached and I have to explain what Dr Newbon did to me, then I am going to clearly identify those who have attacked me - attacked me without knowing the truth of what has happened - as responsible for my having to explain the truth.
I hope this is all clear. I’d invite you to delete your tweet and pack it in encouraging others to have a go at me because of the risk you are creating that I will have to explain the truth. We must surely agree that the overriding normative interest here is that Dr Newbon’s posthumous reputation - for the benefit of his children and family - remains intact. You must surely see the point?
Throughout the litigation and despite the awful attacks on me, I did not respond publicly, nor did I attack the defendants. My reasons for this were: (a) it would make settling the litigation more difficult and I genuinely believed the defendants would settle rather than go to trial; (b) I was keen to protect Dr Newbon’s posthumous reputation because that was in the interests of his family and the right thing to do morally; and (c) I suspected - accurately given the information that continues to emerge - that the primary problem was not the defendants themselves but Mr Lewis.
Mr Myerson’s response - this is proper weird - was to refuse to delete his post; to accuse me of blackmailing him; and to send my email to Mr Lewis. To unpack just how weird this is: (a) Mr Myerson, leading counsel who had been advising the defendants, had - presumably without any approval from Dr Newbon’s widow or the other defendants - reposted extremely serious and false allegations (I was the “scum of earth” and responsible for Dr Newbon’s death) attacking the opponent of those he had advised in litigation; (b) in doing this (the judge called it “disgraceful abuse”), Mr Myerson increased the damages the defendants - those he had been advising - would have to pay; and (c) Mr Myerson’s response to this was to refuse to delete his repost and instead accuse me of blackmail.
The basis of Mr Myerson’s complaint of blackmail was:
The use of threats is both unpleasant and concerning. Because they are aimed at making me do something you want me to do, they seem to me to be a potential criminal offence, in that they may contravene S21 Theft Act 1968.
Blackmail (basically demanding money with menaces) is the only offence under section 21 of the Theft Act 1968 and the maximum sentence is 14 years in prison. Perhaps Mr Myerson could not bring himself to type “blackmail” in his email because he realised how absurd it was. In terms of the ingredients of the offence of blackmail: I did invite Mr Myerson to delete his post accusing me of being the "scum of the earth”, so perhaps that might constitute a demand; but my email could hardly be understood as menacing him personally? And it is only blackmail if the demand is for money or other property and, plainly, I was not asking him for any money or property, but inviting him to delete his repost on X/Twitter that accused me of being the “scum of the earth” who was responsible for Dr Newbon’s death.
I cannot see how my email could amount to blackmail or how Mr Myerson believed it could be blackmail. One possible inference is that he knew what he was saying about blackmail was false and he was saying it to intimidate me. Another possible inference is that Mr Myerson genuinely did not understand blackmail, but this seems unlikely given he had been a criminal barrister for 35 years and had sat as a judge - deciding legal issues and advising juries about the law - for over 20 years.
I was - as you might expect - worried that Mr Myerson might report me to the police. Being reported to the police by a judge for blackmail - even if it is not true - can only end up being a bad experience? I emailed Mr Myerson back stating:
I am genuinely sorry to contact you again but I am feeling increasingly anxious and unwell about your threat to report me to the police for blackmail and harassment. It is no small threat from a KC and a holder of judicial office? … It is, as I say, making me feel seriously unwell. My partner is at work all next week and I am the sole carer for my children … I do not exaggerate in saying it would be a disaster if the police were to turn up at my house to arrest me. I’d much prefer to arrange childcare and hand myself in …
Mr Myerson responded:
In order to make a sensible decision I need to read the available pleadings and judgments in your litigation. I then need to think. That is work. … I am perfectly happy to assist by saying that I will not make a decision next week. That will allow you to fulfil your childcare obligations without anxiety.
I cannot explain why the pleadings (the documents filed at court about my claims) were relevant to Mr Myerson’s allegation of blackmail, but it does seem to suggest that he had some sort of involvement in the litigation if he had access to them and considered reading them as work. This was the last I heard from him about reporting me to the police for blackmail. He never apologised or withdrew the threat to report me to the police, I assume because he wanted to carry on causing me anxiety. He also never apologised for reposting that I was the “scum of the earth” who was responsible for Dr Newbon’s death. I can only attribute Mr Myerson’s conduct towards me, and his conduct in accusing the judge of making an anti-Semitic allegation, to some sort of cognitive bias such that Mr Myerson cannot see how awful his conduct was.
Mr Myerson was provided with a draft of this post by email and his responses by email, so far as relevant, were:
I make this clear: I was not retained by Peter Newbon in his defamation action.
I am simply not prepared to talk through this with you, because you do not listen, or regard any view other than your own as reliable, as both your previous behaviour towards me, and your current attack on your own regulator demonstrates.
Mr Daniel Berke of 3D Solicitors, who acted for Mr Mendelsohn before Mr Lewis acted for him, was provided with a draft of this post by email and his response was:
3D Solicitors did not engage Simon Myerson KC to act for Mr Mendelsohn, nor are we aware that he was engaged to act for Dr Newbon or Mr Cantor.
Part 3 - Mark Lewis’ report to the police
So, I had told Mr Myerson that his threat to report me to the police for blackmail made me feel anxious and unwell, and that it could be a disaster for my family. Can you pause a moment and guess what happened next?
[pause]
If you guessed that Mr Lewis reported me to the police for blackmail, well done. The background is that in April 2023 Mr Lewis decided there was a conflict between him and his clients. I started communicating with the defendants directly and could see they had drunk the Mark Lewis Kool-aid in terms of their understanding of their situation, who was in the wrong, and what their prospects of success were at trial. What I now know is that even after identifying a conflict, Mr Lewis carried on advising and encouraging the defendants. So, extending the metaphor, Mr Lewis was still supplying the Kool-aid, but was doing so covertly. As I said in my earlier posts, I do not blame the defendants for believing Mr Lewis, his firm Patron Law falsely hold him out as the “UK’s foremost media, libel and privacy lawyer”.
When I was communicating with the defendants directly, I had information - I am being a bit sketchy here for understandable reasons - that another defendant was psychologically unwell and I had reasonable grounds for believing there was a risk of serious harm to him. All I can say is that my concerns were justified. Dr Newbon had died by suicide during the litigation and I knew something of what had happened. I was completely horrified at the prospect of another defendant coming to harm and it made me extremely anxious to the point of not being able to sleep. I said in episode 1 that the parties found the litigation intensely stressful and perhaps traumatic, and that includes me.
Given that position, I wrote to Mr Lewis and his partners at Patron Law on 23 May 2023 about the situation. I have omitted much of the letter because it would not be fair to Mr Lewis to include that material yet without properly explaining it. What my letter stated was:
Clearly, [name of defendant] is finding this litigation extremely challenging just as the late Dr Newbon found the litigation extremely challenging.
…. it is clear that the defendants have gained from you a completely unrealistic view as to the likely outcome of this litigation. They adopt the same lines set out in your recent without prejudice letter. I fear for what is going to happen as reality dawns in relation to the matters on which their defences rely.
…
I expect you will be unhappy to receive this letter. But: I do not want you to do what you usually do. I do not want to hear that you have instructed a high profile KC who is going to bankrupt me with his costs, I do not want to hear that Patron Law is going to sue me, I do not want to hear that I am in contempt of court, I do not want to hear that you are reporting me to the SRA, and I do not want to hear that you are sending my correspondence to the judge.
What I want you to do is to accept that you or your firm must contribute to quietly settling this claim now to avoid the far greater harm that might occur. What I want your colleagues [at Patron Law] copied into this letter to do is to sit you down and explain: “Look Mark. You’ve made a total mess of this case and we have to take action now to quietly settle it to avoid the far greater harm that might occur”.
The far greater harm I referred to was obviously harm to another defendant - one of Mr Lewis’ and Patron Law’s former clients - because he was psychologically unwell. Neither Mr Lewis nor anyone at Patron Law did what I suggested and they continue to deny any liability to the defendants. It has always been my opinion - and it is reasonable - that Mr Lewis and Patron Law should pay my costs because of Mr Lewis’ conduct. That conduct includes Mr Lewis’ awful advice before litigation started (see my second post) and him continuing to advise and encourage the defendants after he identified a conflict between himself and the defendants.
What did happen a couple of months after this letter, though, was that I got a phone call from a police officer saying they had had a report that I was blackmailing someone in Israel called Mr Mark Lewis. The officer said Mr Lewis had reported me on the basis that I was motivated in part by him being Jewish, so the allegation was racially aggravated blackmail. I pause there to note that the defendants are Jewish and I had no animosity to them. Indeed, I was obviously trying my best to protect them. The only evidence of blackmail seems to have been my words “to avoid the far greater harm that might occur” in the above letter. Mr Lewis’ report to the police was on the basis that those words meant I was going to do harm to him unless he contributed to settling my claim. So: what was (a) obviously an attempt by me to secure a contribution from Mr Lewis and Patron Law to settle the claim to prevent another of their clients coming to serious harm; ended up with (b) Mr Lewis making a report to the police that I was blackmailing him because he is Jewish.
I volunteered to be interviewed under caution by the police and - this was weird - it seems the report they got from Mr Lewis contained very little background information. In particular, the police officers did not appear to know that one of Mr Lewis’ and Patron Law’s clients had died by suicide. The police officers looked visibly shocked when they heard about Dr Newbon. I had nothing to hide, so I provided the police with a complete explanation of events and a bundle of evidence to show my explanation was true: I was asking Mr Lewis and Patron Law to contribute to settling the claim because I wanted to protect a defendant from serious harm, in circumstances where I had reasonable grounds to believe he was at risk of harm; and a client of Mr Lewis and Patron Law in the same litigation had died by suicide. The view of the police seemed to be “Yes, we know this is a bogus report, but it is an allegation of racially motivated blackmail and we cannot just ignore it. We know it is a waste of your and our time.”
Apart from the obvious lack of any threat to Mr Lewis, and that the serious harm in my letter referred to a defendant, how could I have harmed Mr Lewis? It is matter of public knowledge that he lives in Israel which is 3,000 miles from my home. He surely cannot have believed I was going to fly out to Israel like some sort of hit man to harm him. A police officer phoned me up a few days after the interview and confirmed apologetically that no further action would be taken. I got the impression that he had sympathy for me and thought I was acting reasonably in trying to prevent another defendant from coming to serious harm.
Mr Lewis and Patron Law were provided with a draft of this piece by email and given the opportunity to: (a) correct or contest anything; (b) explain why it was not in the public interest to publish; or (c) provide a statement in response. They declined to comment. For the record, I’m happy to include a response if they change their minds.
Part 4 - conclusions
The question is: what was going on with reporting me to the police? The position was: I had been defamed, I had my private information misused, and the safety of me and my family had been put at risk. Rather than quietly sorting out these problems - something that was obviously in the best interests of all the parties and their families - Mr Lewis seemed set on causing me serious reputational and financial harm by making or encouraging reports to the police and hoping to bankrupt me with his fees. There is a lot more to come on what, in my opinion, was driving this conduct, but a few points for now.
Mr Myerson and Mr Lewis are lawyers and they must surely have known I was not blackmailing them. Taking a far less serious offence, if they believed I was harassing them and it was troubling them in any way, they could have gone to court to get an injunction against me. The problem with doing that, though, would be the judge thinking they were taking the piss because on any fair view of what had happened - Mr Lewis’ repeated threats to bankrupt me, referring to my children and my job, and Mr Myerson reposting that I was the “scum of the earth” who was responsible for Dr Newbon’s death - I had a far better case for harassment than they did. Making a report to the police is easy because it costs nothing and the police take what you say at face value. Speaking for myself, I never made any reports to the police about the harassment I experienced because I figured the police had more important things to be dealing with.
When it comes to Mr Lewis making or encouraging reports to the police, they are of a piece with him hoping to bankrupt me? My opinion is that it was part of a strategy to intimidate or browbeat me. As to the reasons for this, I speculate as to three possibilities. First, Mr Lewis had some sort of irrational animosity to me, perhaps because I had stood up to him in the litigation and refused to be bullied into giving up. Second, Mr Lewis, who is said to have set his sights on Israel’s enemies and has made his love for Israel plain even if it leads to a conflict of interest, had set his sights on me - he was out to get me - because of my views on Israel and Palestine. Or third, Mr Lewis knew his clients’ defences were weak and he was trying to improve their position, or to get me to withdraw my claims, by getting me in trouble with the police.
There is a lot more to come about Mr Lewis’ conduct, but so far I have covered his awful legal analysis of my claim; his conduct towards me in terms of threatening and hoping to bankrupt me, referring to my job and my children; and him encouraging and making reports to the police. Perhaps it is becoming clear that his conduct in the litigation might not be what the public are entitled to expect from solicitors? And, if what is driving this conduct is his love for Israel and setting his sights on those who he perceives as enemies of Israel, then this is a problem.
As to what the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) make of all this, I wrote in episode 2 a bit about the SRA’s investigation into Mr Lewis’ and Patron Law’s conduct. The SRA has had all the evidence in relation to what is above. The investigation was done by a solicitor at the SRA; the outcome was approved by an investigation manager at the SRA; and, apparently, a very senior member of the SRA’s management team, had oversight of the investigation. The SRA’s decision was:
There is no evidence that Mr Lewis made false reports to the police about you. Reports to the police about you related to their perceived harassment by you.
That is the entirety of the SRA’s decision on this issue. There is nothing more. It is another inadequate decision in that:
To say the reports related to perceived harassment does not reflect that Mr Lewis reported me to the police for blackmail. That the SRA does not mention or recognise the report was for blackmail is inexplicable.
There just is evidence that the report made by Mr Lewis to the police was false because it was obvious that the words “far greater harm” in my letter to Mr Lewis dated 23 May 2023 referred to harm to another defendant and not harm to Mr Lewis.
A police officer (a detective constable) understood: (a) that my letter to Mr Lewis was evidence; but (b) it was not evidence of blackmail because it was obvious that the harm to which I referred was harm to another defendant caused by himself and not harm to Mr Lewis. That is why the police officer concluded - and he was able to explain this - that Mr Lewis’ report of blackmail was false.
Unlike the police officer, the SRA - the body responsible for regulating solicitors - was apparently unable to recognise that my letter to Mr Lewis was (a) evidence; and (b) it was evidence that Mr Lewis’ report to the police of blackmail was false because it was obvious that the harm to which I referred was harm to another defendant caused by himself and not harm to Mr Lewis.
As to the report by Mr Cleaver to the police for harassment, it was obviously false given the evidence and findings of the judge at trial; and there was evidence - Dr Newbon’s message for Mr Cleaver - to suggest that Mr Lewis had encouraged the report to gain an advantage in the litigation (“making a complaint would be really helpful”).
The credulity of the SRA and the superficiality of its decisions are worrying. I am trying not to be rude, but how is it that legally qualified and highly paid staff at the SRA seem to have a worse understanding than a junior police officer of: what is evidence, and whether the evidence is relevant to and probative of the issue in question (whether Mr Lewis’ report of blackmail was false); and are then less able to explain their decision?
There’ll be another post on 21 February 2025. I think the next post will be about the rejection in December 2021 by Mr Lewis on Mr Cantor’s behalf of any offer to settle for a nominal sum (like £5). Mr Lewis insisted Mr Cantor would only settle if I paid Mr Lewis’ fees of £5,400 and this increased to over £40,000. Mr Cantor was on a no-win no-fee agreement, so had no liability for Mr Lewis’ fees if he settled. It seems to me there was a fundamental conflict here in that it was obviously in Mr Cantor’s interests to get out of the litigation as quickly and cheaply as possible. Mr Lewis’ insistence that I pay him - to the sole benefit of him and Patron Law - before Mr Cantor could get out of the litigation was an obstacle to achieving what was obviously in Mr Cantor’s interests.