Claimant get £75k Costs Judgement against him in Richard Dawkins, Amazon and Vaughan Jones Libel "strike out".

We have the most stupid, wasteful and self destructive libel laws in the world. Last Friday afternoon in a hearing at the Royal Court of Justice an application to strike out libel action against Richard Dawkins, Amazon and Vaughan Jones (see 2nd left) was agreed and a £75,000 cost judgement

awarded against the claimant Christopher McGarth.

I do actually blame the court process and the law  for this complete and utter waste of time and a huge amount of personal, company and public money.

Litigants in person who have frankly ridiculous legal cases are allowed by the Court to bankrupt not only themselves but also those they perceive to have grievances against almost regardless of the merits of their often weird and wonderful claims.

There is a 39 page written judgement with regard to this latest case which is mostly legal gobbledygook. However I was pleased to see a couple of references in the judgement justifying the strike out to the completely bonkers Kaschke case that I had been most unfortunately a party to. Fellow libel survivors David Osler and Hardeep Singh joined Vaughan outside the Court (see 2nd left with legal advisers including the indomitable Robert Dougans 3rd right).

Afterwards we went for some celebratory sherbets in a local hostelry followed by the traditional basement "libel victory curry" (joined by my best mate ever Mrs Stroppy Olser!).  Media lawyer David Allen Green (aka Jack of Kent) also assisted with the defence. When he posts on case I will link.

Rally for Libel Reform

Picture is from last night's Rally for Libel Reform which took place at the Great Hall in the historic Inner Temple.

There was a number of speakers including Lord McNally, who is the Lib Dem Minister for Justice ,who said about the (probable) Libel Reform bill "This is not the end, not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning".

Sir Stephen Sedley "The draft bill hasn't answered all the questions but has some of the answers", Simon Singh (a libel survivor see in picture with the fetching Mohican haircut), Nick Cohen (Observer) "not one of the stories in the NOTW and Sun enquiry has a public interest defence. Not a single one", DAG (New Statesman and free speech libel hero aka Jof k), Charmian Gooch (Global Witness), Tracey Brown (Sense About Science), Jonathan Heawood (English PEN) and Jo Glanville (Index on Censorship).

While picture on the right is of DAG, me, Vaughan Jones and top solicitor advocate Robert Dougans.  Vaughan is currently being sued by a Creationist for libel in the High Court. There is a strike out hearing next Friday. I am convinced that the litigant in person who is trying to sue him must be related in some way to my own favourite litigant ever!

Check out the radio podcast (36 minutes) interviewing Vaughan and Hardeep Singh (who is also in the top picture and who I met in the pub afterwards. He won the barmy libel case taken out against him but now has to sell his house to pay his legal costs! Which is an absolute disgrace. I can't at the moment find his interview. Will update when I do)