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.
Recent Comments