This sounds like an absolutely fucking nightmare. What makes it so sad is that you know, even now that this is public, the people directly involved will never get proper punishments, maybe some slap on the wrists and retire early.
Then there’s a bigger question. Was this a one-off? Or have other injunctions been granted, supposedly to prevent harassment, but actually silencing people even in private conversations with friends, family and the police?
How likely is it, that this truly was the first and only time this guy thought he was god and could do whatever he wants? Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if the original claims were true, but imho this Justice Jay should rot in a dark cell.
Gotta love it when they say behaviour that any reasonable man would find contemptible is contempt of court.
Mr Justice Jay should consider his position. Same of the judges who sat on the 3 appeals she’s been denied over the last 12 years.
I have so much contempt for that court
Appeals courts cant overturn based on vibes. There needs to be some procedural error or new information, and judgement is on that. They arent retrials.
We’d expect the judgment would contain the discussion of whether these restrictions were necessary and proportionate, and whether they were compatible with the exclusions in the Protection from Harassment Act. It does not. A lawyer would surely have raised these arguments, but Ms Berki of course had no lawyer.
Without going through the appeals with a fine toothed comb, I couldn’t say whether she raised these arguments along the way or if this is just an observation of the author. However she never really had an appeal, she was denied the chance to any full hearing at any stage over the last 12 years.
Which puts meat on the adage that a person who represents themself has a fool for a client.
That adage assumes you are rich. A poor person who represents themselves is just poor and a victim of the system.
That’s why you have to make sure to only rape poor women. Good rule of life there.
How very presidential of you. Now all you need is a couple Billion dollars that your father left to you (most of which you will piss away).
Increasingly so. Even the court-appointed solicitors are hugely overworked and underpaid, and often lose money on cases.
Somewhat, but it also seems Mr Justice Jay is just an asshole to litigants in person - in direct contradiction to the rules he was supposed to follow.
Mr Justice Jay does not have a good record of dealing with litigants-in-person. Two years later, in a different case, he behaved so poorly that the Court of Appeal and then the Supreme Court found that he’d bullied a litigant-in-person. The Supreme Court found that he had aimed a “barrage of hostility” at the litigant-in-person, and “harassed and intimidated him in ways which surely would never have occurred if the claimant had been represented”.
Hes a prize dickhead in general. Other judges mock him in their appeals judgements. Utter cock.
There is no justice, only the interests of the powerful.
Broadly disagree but agree about a specific element.
I think there’s plenty of justice between two people of give or take equal wealth.
Money, unfortunately, does help one prepare a defense or attack better than those without money. So in that sense, justice is very unevenly served between parties of unequal wealth.
Its also power in and of itself. Two rich people in dispute, one with connections to political power, will have the advantage over the other.
I agree that, in practical terms, the ability to absorb costs is a decisive factor in most legal cases.
She had no lawyer. No trial. Yet she was silenced for life - even barred from speaking to the police.
It looks like the intention was then to bankrupt Ms Berki.
The judge had mentioned she had no money, but the order says:
You’d expect the judgment would contain the discussion of whether these restrictions were necessary and proportionate (or even lawful).
It does not.
A lawyer would have raised these points. Ms Berki had no lawyer.
This puts her situation in a different light.
If she speaks out, she’ll have her assets seized by the Court. If she doesn’t speak out, she’ll have her assets seized by her rapist.
If you’re gonna lose everything either way…
That Ms Berki wasn’t then tried for murder is a genuine fucking wonder. She’s a stronger soul than I.
This judge deserves to be removed for this Jesus fucking Christ
Re. “The Hon.” Mr Justice Jay:
In May 2019, the Court of Appeal adopted his own terminology, describing one of Jay’s own judgments as being hardly “pellucid”. As well as levelling this mocking criticism at his legal writing, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal on every ground raised, including the ground that Jay had been so overbearing, rude, and bullying to the claimant (whose first language was not English but Polish, and who was acting without legal help), that the trial had been unfair. In June 2020, the UK Supreme Court went further and found that Jay had “harassed and intimidated [the claimant] in ways which surely would never have occurred if the claimant had been represented”.
He seems like an amiable fellow. It would certainly be a condign punishment if he were the first high court judge in living memory to be removed by parliament.
The entire system is corrupt. There is no law only a facade.
Both of them.
And the appeal court judges.
So does that also mean that the minutes of the trial couldn’t be accessed by a journalist with use of an FOI request? Surely it was done in open court at the time?
Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that this is legal in a so-called democracy.
That’s because it’s a so-so Democracy.
This is the part that got me:
It prohibits Ms Berki from telling anyone what she says happened to her – not journalists, not friends, not family, and not even the police. The court also orderd Ms Berki to pay £50,000 in legal costs within two weeks (which she couldn’t afford) and authorised her bankruptcy.
Don’t forget the bit where it explicitly names the only doctors she’s allowed to speak to about this, who don’t work at her GP surgery anymore. So she can’t speak to a doctor about any of this except in an emergency.
Fuck you government, I’ll say what I want. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from talking to a journalist the next day
I’d bring the malicious compliance in force.
“Hi Mr. Journalist. You should take a look at this injunction the court laid on me. I’m an unable to speak to you about this, but you can read it yourself. I’d be glad to come on TV and talk about how I can’t talk about this.”
The thing is the injunction also prevents anyone who knows about it from publicising it. Even taxpolicy.org.uk here are on very shaky ground, and they explicitly didn’t publish parts of the order.
Quiet word with the local MP so they can ask about it as PMQs
Bold of you to assume the local MP wasn’t a friend/fan of Russell too
So a reform MP then? They probably all shower WhatsApp group.
I haven’t seen Obsession, so I don’t know the plot, but…
I think it’s more of a V for Vendetta sort of situation.
Superinjunctions were popular at the time but are less used now. Case in point with the current proceedings brought by a Very Famous Person who wishes to restrain two news orgs from reporting serious allegations about him from several women (and from them coming forward otherwise), on the basis that he will commit suicide if it becomes public and this is a breach of his human right to life.
Back in the 2010s this would be a superinjunction with no-one even allowed to mention there is a case before the court, and the Very Famous Person even tried to supress that the news orgs in question were the Guardian and ITN, but he was refused that, and indeed his attempt at an injunction was denied on tuesday, on the basis that his mental health was up to the NHS which has him in secure detention, not up to the news media. He was given leave to appeal but unless that goes forward the stories will run.
So things have changed a bit.
That’s utterly insane.
I hope she goes to his sentencing and does a slow clap as he gets several years
The UK is a great example of what happens when you’ve got zero right to free speech. God knows what we will find out about the Royals when they’re finally kicked out on their ass. It will be horrifying
On the other hand, at least Prince Andrew is facing legal consequences, which is more than the USA can say about Trump.
Fuck Russel Brand, lock him up for life.
Nah, the UK is just a shithole.
Also the US is a great example of what happens when there is absolute free speech.
So maybe the problem is letting Epsteinis run countries.
The US’s problem is not free speech, it is that the rich are the only ones free to speak.
When anyone can say anything, those who yell loudest will drown out the others. That is definitely a problem. But more fundamentally, while differing opinions are useful on many issues, there are also many questions where one answer is right and another wrong. You cannot have people publicly saying that vaccines cause autism, or that deworming tablets can cure Covid-19. That stuff gets people killed.
Freedom of speech is a complicated thing, and a lot of peope have trouble understanding where the line is, even though it is fairly clear in principle.
Freedom of speech “ends” when that speech is a mechanism by which another crime is committed. It’s not the words that are illegal. It’s what the words bring into action.
If you offer to pay someone to kill your wife, you can’t get off by claiming freedom of speech, because you’re charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
If you lie about the terms of a contract, the crime is fraud, not speech.
If you yell “fire” in a theatre and people are hurt attempting to flee, the crime is inciting panic, not rhe word “fire.”
Ideally, telling an angry mob to march on the capital and “fight like hell” to prevent the certification of an election is fomenting an insurrection, not speech.
We do have a right to free speech under article 10 of the human rights act - the thing that all the right wing parties are saying we should remove.
No, this is only limited freedom of expression.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom
There is no general right to the freedom of speech in the UK.
How sad some powerful people protect the abusers all over the world. Do better and stop abusing others in the first place!
Fuck that!
