This is a truly grotesque miscarriage of justice, but unfortunately, it isn’t the only one by a long chalk, nor the least important. A few years ago a book by an America academic, ‘Funding Terror’, was successfully sued for libel in Britain by a billionaire Saudi princeling, because it described how the bank account for a waqf – an Islamic charity – set up by the prince had been used to channel money for terrorists. The book explicitly stated that the prince was unaware that the charity was being used for such purposes, and had nothing to do with it. This was no defence. The princeling won because he claimed that the book’s revelations, while factually correct, were damaging to his reputation. This decision has damaged the reputation of Britain’s justice system, as several American states and courts passed legislation and legal decisions declaring that British legal rulings had no validity in the Land of the Free. And rightly so. Since then, there have been a succession of foreign despots and Russian oligarchs, all trying to use the British courts to close down criticism, both here and in there own countries. British libel law is a shambles, a mercenary laughing stock protecting the venal, corrupt and thuggish.
(not satire – it’s the UK today)
A psychotherapist who was struck off by the UK Council for Psychotherapy for serious sexual misconduct – and was described by them in a report as a “risk to female patents” – is threatening anyone who reveals his identity with libel:
I get a legal threat from a struck-off psychotherapist
Rich and powerful sexual predators like Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith also used UK libel laws to prevent anyone from investigating – and putting a stop to – their evil crimes.
UK libel laws are a joke.
They exist simply in order to allow the rich, the influential, the powerful and the downright criminal to threaten people to shut the f*ck up about their wrongdoings.
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More details here:
UKCP strikes off psychotherapist
Struck-off psychotherapist rebrands himself
I get a legal threat from a struck-off psychotherapist
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Please feel free to comment.
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Beastrabban\'s Weblog 
December 14, 2014 at 9:53 am |
Hi. I’m the recipient of (Bott-)Holland’s legal threats.
I’m not overly worried by his threats, to be honest. Even under the UK’s draconian libel laws he simply has no case. Everything I have posted is verifiably true – he doesn’t even deny that it’s true.
That said, there may be a secondary issue in that various rogues often try to snuff out criticism not through litigation itself, but through spreading the fear of litigation. A legal threat is a frightening thing to receive, intended to spread panic and make people do what you want them to do. However, I fully intend to show no fear.