Appeal against Riley libel verdict is under way – but she has demanded £100,000 in legal costs
The Royal Courts of Justice: that could be a misnomer, as there was little justice to be seen in a High Court judge’s decision against Vox Political’s Mike.
Now Rachel Riley wants me to pay £100,000 to cover her legal costs – on top of the £50,000 in damages a High Court judge has already awarded her.
I haven’t got anything like that kind of money. I am an online journalist with no huge corporate machine behind me – and a carer for my disabled partner, not a millionaire TV celebrity.
And I would not willingly cough it up, even if I did have it. The judgment against me is a mess. The judge has cherry-picked pieces of evidence that she thought would support her decision instead of having regard to all the circumstances of the case – as the law required her to do.
None of her findings explain why it would not be reasonable for me to have believed that publishing my article was in the public interest. She just made bald statements that my conclusions were unreasonable and expected me to swallow them.
I decline.
I have spent the last week and a half analysing this dog’s dinner of a judgment and passing on my thoughts to my legal team. My Counsel is likely to start writing an appeal later this week, to be submitted to the Court of Appeal before the December 7 deadline.
It can’t happen at all without funding – and the more we get now, the more likely we’ll be to get it done.
Please help us make this last bid for sanity from the justice system by doing one or more of the following:
Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.
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On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.
Use other social media in the same way.
And don’t forget that if you’re having trouble, or simply don’t like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it’s for the crowdfund!
Riley is also facing the prospect of a libel action over her ill-advised tweet suggesting that I had been dishonest in my fundraising because I had not mentioned her confidential offer of a settlement.
I’m working on putting together the cash for that by other means. It does arise from this case but I think the money raised here should be focused on the appeal.
I’ll keep you updated on both matters – and I hope the news will be good.
Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.
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