Mrs Mike thinks this is turning into harassment.
Today (February 16) may be the first working day since my application to appeal was lodged last Wednesday, when I don’t receive an aggravating piece of correspondence from Rachel Riley’s solicitors.
I submitted a witness statement with the appeal application, pointing out that I am far from rich, because Mark Lewis was seeking to enforce an expected decision by the High Court judge to award £27,000 in costs to his client. I am disputing this amount in my appeal as it is far too much, according to the rules by which Lewis is supposed to work.
On February 11, Lewis informed my own legal team that he believes my statement of means (as it’s known) was misleading because I had not mentioned the current position of my crowdfunding efforts; he wanted to get his hands on the cash raised by my CrowdJustice site.
In a further communication the following day, it seems Lewis expanded his interest to include cash raised by donations direct to me.
The CrowdJustice money is nothing to do with me. People donate it direct to CrowdJustice, who pass it on to my legal team, and they take cash from that fund to pay my costs as they come up. I simply don’t know how much is in that account at any time.
Donations direct to my site are passed into the CrowdJustice fund – by me – whenever there is an amount available that makes it worthwhile. The account I keep open to receive those donations contains very little cash as it is simply a conduit for money that goes elsewhere.
So I haven’t misled anybody.
I have instructed my solicitor to ask Lewis to produce any material he has that may show that my statement is inaccurate. If not, he is invited to desist from making wholly inaccurate – and serious – allegations about me.
Meanwhile, dear reader, you are invited to continue contributing to the CrowdJustice fund, in the knowledge that the cash will only be used to support my court case against Riley and will not be used to enrich her in any way. Here are the instructions:
Consider making a donation yourself, if you can afford it, via the CrowdJustice page.
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.
After three weeks of extreme strain, both raising funds for the appeal and dealing with its grounds – while Riley’s legal team threatened to send the bailiffs round to enforce a costs order that still hasn’t been made, I think we can all sympathise with my partner’s belief that Lewis is piling on the pressure purely to cause grief.
Mrs Mike (as she has become known on Vox Political ) is the unseen other victim of Riley’s libel case against me. She has had to endure every stage of this trumped-up and unreasonable court process with me. For a woman with long-term illnesses and disabilities, who has suffered mental illness in the past, it has not been easy.
She has been hugely supportive – and it is a bitter blow to see her becoming upset by something that amounts to nothing more than playground bullying.
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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