"Dont give him your name Pike!"
The shitshow for the reputation of the glamour girls and boys of 5RB (sounds like an experimental back rub) continues apace.
Warby will rule sometime in August whether the Five Former Friends (FFF) have "a super-charged right of privacy" (what the fuck you might ask is that?) because they are (birdies tweet and butterflies fly) "young mothers" and "journalistic sources" doing the right thing by their much loved and widely admired friend who has been the victim of bullying by the baying racist mob that is the British public led by "Bloody Elizabeth" their hated monarch and her evil army of tabloid Orcs.
I could be wrong but - Good luck with that Justin.
We also now know a lot more about just how much money is being burnt in public here. She has agreed to pay nearly £70k of hard fought costs in respect of Mays disaster. Her own costs of that, a minute part of the overall picture, must be at least the same. Thats nearly £150k down the kazi. If as I suspect everyone expects, she looses in August thats at least another £150k. This is just on two small procedural Applications. The Claimant has also paid to write letters to the Mail; draft and issue a Claim; answer two sets of Further Particulars; consider a Defence and Reply and prepare for the next step which is a Directions Hearing. I would be amazed if shes spent less than £500k of someones money! The costs of the next stages and trial will take that into millions - and if she looses? Will it by 2% on Income Tax?
This is what happens when you give a showgirl your credit card and suggest they buy themselves something nice because theyve been crying. They come back with a Sikorski helicopter and a pilot who looks like Brad Pitt.
Just what is this litigation actually about? Its not protecting anything private. That bird has flown. Its not righting any kind of wrong and the Daily Mail (which is just loving this - the best PR campaign ever; its even managing to make the bastards look good) is unreformable. No this Claim was initially about money and vengeance and now its about protecting the identity of the FFF. I mean what the actual fuck?
As clever poppet 50'sGirl (I cant do that underlining thing sorry) commented perhaps shes looking for an excuse to bail out on the grounds she is protecting her friends. In which context the line in her Witness Statement "To disclose their identities at this stage in public is an unaceptable price to pay..." sounds very interesting.
People get involved in litigation for various reasons. For us lawyers its just an often interesting but also dangerous and demanding job for the "Clients" its often existential. The worst problem of their lives: involving life changing sums of money, reputation, sometimes even liberty itself and at huge unpredictable cost.
The best clients are poor people. Its rarely their fault that they have got involved whereas greed and lies often lie at the heart of litigation for people who can afford it; they are a joy to work with and they are the only ones who are ever grateful. Oh and murderers. They are often perfectly happy having done what we'd all secretly like to do to someone who has pissed us off, and resigned to their fate.
The worst are the liars, the crooks, the fraudsters the common enemies of mankind. They often dont want to win and are undertaking the litigation to punish someone or because they love the drama or because they are not paying and have no intention of paying and being shits is what they do.
What do you think we are looking at here?
The National Theatre should dump her and find another patron. I can't believe anyone would want the skanky bitch now. She has no interest in the plight of actors who are no longer working and it would be a great tragedy if the National Theatre had to close.
