There have been a couple of acts of explosive self destruction this week, one literal and one metaphorical.
At the literal end is the more than somewhat sad story of Donald Joyce (Guardian, Daily Mail) and his apparent response to facing eviction. We reported the proceedings here.
At the metaphorical end are the actions of Marc Beaumont, a barrister.
I’m not concerned with the allegations of a creative billing technique. Those have been widely reported. [Edit 1 July 09: the proceedings brought by Ms Sheikh were struck out, with costs against her, on 25 June 2009. So the allegations have been held to not give rise to a viable claim]. Rather I am concerned with what Mr Beaumont did next.
John Bolch (who is a long standing friend of NL) at Family Lore linked to the story on the Daily Telegraph website, noted the allegations (as being just that – allegations) and included a link to Marc Beaumont’s Chambers’ website and a photo that was used in the Telegraph story. Here is John’s post.
Mr Beaumont then emailed John, saying:
“Please immediately remove reference to me on your website as well as my photograph and the link to my website”
When John replied, asking if it was true that allegations were being made against Mr Beaumont as reported in the Telegraph, and offering to take down the post if it was not true, Mr Beaumont threatened to join him as a party to future defamation proceedings.
There is no legal basis for Mr Beaumont’s threat, as explained in Geeklawyer’s detailed but not exactly safe for work post. There is no defamation in John’s report of a newspaper report of legal proceedings, or if there is, there is an absolute defence. There is no basis for Mr Beaumont to demand that a link to his publicly available website be removed. Further, it does not appear that Mr Beaumont has copyright in the photo used and so has no right to constrain its use.
Moreover, it does not appear that Mr Beaumont has made an attempt to have the story and photo removed by the Telegraph, the Sun or other papers that have reported it. If he has made such an attempt, it has clearly failed.
In making the demand of John Bolch, let alone threatening to join him to legal proceedings, when he must have known (being a self described ’senior barrister’) that he had no basis to do so, Mr Beaumont has engaged in bullying and threatening behaviour against a fellow lawyer. One can only imagine that he thought he might get away with it against a solo blogger, when he clearly wouldn’t against a newspaper. If so, that is disgraceful behaviour.
The affair is also Mr Beaumont’s introduction to the Streisand effect and the counterproductive effects of such bullying behaviour. Charon QC, Geeklawyer and Head of Legal have each posted to condemn it.
All Marc Beaumont has achieved is to add another layer of unflattering google reputation baggage to his name, and to ensure that those of us who hadn’t bothered with the story of the allegations against him now write about his attempt to bully a law blogger instead. Carl at Head of Legal suggests Marc Beaumont apologise to John Bolch. That sounds like a good idea and the only possibility for a graceful exit.
I was a bit surprised to read the name of the woman making the allegations…..
The claim made by Miss Anal Sheikh against Mr Marc Beaumont has now been determined by Mr Justice Simon in the High Court. In all, it contained some 19 allegations. On 25th June 2009, all claims against Mr Beaumont were either struck out or he was awarded summary judgment. He was awarded the costs of the action, including a payment on account of £ 50,000, payable within 14 days. Several applications made by Miss Anal Sheikh were deemed by the Judge to have been “totally without merit.”
On 5th May 2009, Miss Anal Sheikh was struck off the roll of solicitors by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, having been found to have acted dishonestly in the conduct of her practice.
Duly noted, and a line added to the post to that effect. But please note, Rev., that this post was not concerned with Ms Sheikh’s claim or the substance of its allegations at all.
The Reverend has made enquiries and discovered that all due apologies are proffered to Mr Bolch if he has been offended at any time. The case was one of complexity. The situation is described as having been overwhelmingly upsetting. Mr Bolch as an experienced family lawyer will perhaps make all due allowances for this.
Rev. I’d suggest that any apology should be made to John, as I’m merely an observer – but I don’t think ‘John being offended’ was actually the issue…