Why is Rachel Riley demanding a huge amount of money in court costs if she didn’t actually spend anything?​

Take a look at the Jewish Chronicle report published after I lost my bid for permission to appeal against the judgment in my libel case. In it, her solicitor Mark Lewis stated about me:

“People have crowdfunded [a] quarter of a million pounds to pay his solicitors and barrister … He has outspent Rachel by approximately £250,000.”

This indicates that Rachel Riley paid no money at all towards her court costs.​

It’s entirely possible. All of her legal team could have worked for free. Obviously, payment in donations from somebody else would not count because Mr Lewis would have had to mention them, as he mentions donations to my CrowdJustice fund.

But then, why did Ms Riley claim such a large amount of money from me when I appealed against a decision to strike out my defences (and won), back in 2021?

In May that year, the Court of Appeal assessed my costs – for the appeal – at £22,180 and varied the High Court’s order on Ms Riley’s costs – for the strike-out – down to £25,808. That means I had to make a payment of £3,628 to her at that time.

Now, it seems Mr Lewis is saying she did not spend any money on that (or any) part of the case – but she still demanded thousands of pounds from me. Does that seem fair?

If not, does it seem fair that the High Court has gone on to say I should pay £100,000 to her for court costs that her solicitor appears to have said she never paid?

Whatever the facts of the matter – and I doubt we will ever hear them from either Ms Riley or her solicitor – I certainly did incur legal fees, some of which remain outstanding and my representatives deserve to be paid for the outstanding work they did in resisting Ms Riley.

If any of the above disturbs you as much as it does me, please help in the now time-honoured way:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

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!

There remains no agreement over a possible deal; Ms Riley’s legal team simply have not been in touch, to my knowledge.

While I welcome their apparent reluctance to bankrupt me, I think they are hoping I will make enough money in the future to pay the money the court has ordered – cash that they may not deserve, if the above is accurate.

You may wish to draw your own conclusions about that.

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