Some Notes on a Sunday Mirror Hit-Piece on Barbara Hewson

From the Sunday Mirror:

Bar this troll: Human rights barrister accused of vile rants against child sex victims

A probe has been launched into a top human rights barrister after she was accused of trolling a string of child sex abuse victims online.

Law chiefs are looking into the claims against Barbara Hewson, 56, following complaints from survivors about foul-mouthed posts.

Messages sent on social media sites from various personal accounts in Hewson’s name have seen her brand victims “lunatics”, “manipulative”, “dangerous”, “cowardly” and “nutwings”.

…She appears to brand one alleged victim “as vulnerable as a lorryload of gravel” and criticises victims “whinging” about their ordeals.

The complaint was made by one Clare Sheahan; according to the article:

Clare, from South London, who has spent many years campaigning against child sex abuse and reached out to other survivors online, said she was targeted by Hewson after disagreeing with a point the lawyer made on Twitter.

Barbara has a public profile as someone who is critical of police investigations into historic allegations of child-sex crimes, which she sees as likely to lead to miscarriages of justice and in some cases as disproportionate. She expresses her views scathingly on social media, and has been known to use profanity. As such, she’s an easy target for the mainstream media outrage economy, which also likes to police social media by deciding who is and who is not a “troll”.

The news hook for the article about Barbara is apparently the “probe”, which means nothing more than that Sheahan has lodged a complaint. We’ve been here before – last April The Times ran an article that reported on a similar complaint against Barbara by one Mesul Desai, which I wrote about here. The existence of Desai’s complaint was deemed news, but not so much the fact that it went nowhere and that he was making a series of wild and bizarre allegations, including the claim on Twitter that Barbara had arranged for his cat to be skinned (more below).

Similarly, the Sunday Mirror hack (a features writer named Geraldine McKelvie) has cherry-picked the information she has chosen to include – most significantly, she has failed to disclose that the “survivors” criticised (at times abusively) by Barbara are part of a loose network of social-media activists who promote lurid conspiracy theories about VIP abuse and who recklessly throw around allegations of paedophilia . Sheahan, for instance, suggested in 2014 that any panel member of the British Journalism Awards who did not agree that David Hencke should win an award he had been nominated for must be a paedophile or involved in cover-ups – perhaps this was meant in jest, but if so it was in very bad taste and it undercuts her righteous pose now.

Further, Sheahan is an Operation Midland truther, who continues to trust in allegations made by “Nick” against Harvey Proctor, Lord Bramall, and others. Meanwhile, the “alleged victim” whom Barbara described as being “as vulnerable as a lorryload of gravel” is none other than Esther Baker, who once mocked a woman as a “cow bag” for suggesting that Bramall had been falsely accused, and whose narrative of abuse by VIPs in woodland has not been substantiated. Barbara has not always dealt with this crowd in the way that I would consider wise, but she has been relentlessly targeted and mocked by these people as a hate figure.

It should also be remembered that Mirror titles have been heavily invested in promoting sensational false VIP abuse allegations about politicians: in 2014 the Sunday People even put Operation Midland’s Nick on its front-cover (the back of his head, anyway), and the Daily Mirror led the way in publicising allegations against Edward Heath. For some reason, though, the latest twist in the saga of Nick seems to be of less interest than a Twitter spat.

Phillimore and Desai

The Sunday Mirror also refers to the ground previously covered by The Times:

Hewson got a harassment warning from police last March following a report from fellow lawyer Sarah Phillimore.

The Bar Standards Board also looked at claims by law student Mehul Desai, a supporter of Phillimore, that he had received death threats from Hewson, which saw her receive a harassment warning from the Met Police.

Phillimore has been in a long-standing dispute with Barbara, initially about family courts but now more generally expressing mutual contempt. Phillimore’s rhetoric about the supposed “warning” and her continuing taunts (often in social-media communication with the likes of Baker and Sheahan) are strong grounds for scepticism.

A “harassment warning”  – more properly, a “Police Information Notice” – is simply a piece of paper that notifies someone that a complaint has been made against them; in harassment cases that come to trial, police believe they may be useful as evidence should a defendant claim that they did not know that a particular “course of conduct” was unreasonable or causing distress. However police do not investigate the initial complaint before sending these “warnings”, and despite being shrouded in pseudo-legal terminology (e.g. the warning is supposedly “served”; it may be “breached” or “rescinded”) they have no legal standing. Barbara did not desist from criticising Phillimore after receiving one, yet there has been no further police interest the matter.

The Sunday Mirror article (and the Times article before it) also fail to make clear that the supposed “death threat” to Desai was sent anonymously by someone using the name “Harry Troll”, and that Desai had simply inferred that it must have come from Barbara. “Harry Troll” has never been traced, but it seems likely that the message was sent to Desai by an unknown person with the express intention of giving him something that he could take to police.

The police (actually Leicestershire rather than the Met) concluded as follows (in a letter shown to me by Barbara, which quotes the police worksheet):

The original report of harassment was reviewed…… and found no evidence within the report that we could progress. ……….. there is no evidence to support Mr Desai’s allegation of social media harassment…. Suspect Hewson will be updated no further action will be taken.

I published this some months ago – and the page on which it appears is one of only two sites that bring up a Google result for the “vulnerable as a lorryload of gravel” phrase (ironically, because Sheahan posted it in a comment). It therefore seems very likely that the journalist would have seen the above. So why report the allegation, but not the outcome or the proper context?

Phillimore appears to have had a hand in both Desai’s and Sheahan’s complaints. To repeat what I said in April: complaints to police and the BSB have served as a media strategy – and those now tasked with assessing their merits ought to take that into consideration.

45 Responses

  1. A barrister who indulges in this sort of name calling should be struck off. The legal profession needs to support high standards behaviour from its members.

  2. Scribe
    @BarbaraHewson
    ‘She appears to brand one alleged victim “as vulnerable as a lorryload of gravel” ‘ – interestingly Geraldine doesn’t want to say to whom this comment expressly referred. She knows who. The reality is that I was referring to a notorious false accuser, promoted by #Exaro Oh dear.

    12:14am · 11 Feb 2018 · Twitter Web Client

    Reply to @BarbaraHewson

  3. Scribe
    @BarbaraHewson
    Note to anyone reading: Esther Baker is about as “vulnerable” as a lorryload of gravel.

    12:34am · 23 Apr 2017 · Twitter for iPhone

  4. Scribe
    @BarbaraHewson
    Ian has called me a Cunt, and I didn’t mind! Esther is about as vulnerable as a lorryload of gravel.

    This Tweet is unavailable

    1:01am · 15 Apr 2017 · Twitter for iPhone

  5. Since when did ET arrive on the csa scene?

  6. Amazing that the Mirror has the money to burn, sending out a ‘real’ photographer to take the shoddy article’s accompanying snaps instead of filching a couple off the ‘net. Incredible.

  7. What an amazing set of own goals from Lynda Keen aka @forumeditor on Twitter.

    Two sides to every story and the Mirror article only published one side.

    Maybe Ms Hewson will now expose some of the really nasty stuff she’s been subjected to from Keen and others for nigh on 3 years. – all for daring to have a controversial opinion and question the actions of Sheahan, Keen and many others in the “Nick” and Baker stable of utter frauds.

    Or maybe she’ll be really clever (again) and wait to reveal such in High Court actions … imagine a High Court judge reading all those anti-semitic tweets from some of Keen and Sheahan’s more gobby mates or the attacks on family members of Hewson.

    None of you have stopped to think that you provoke her responses to you then you scream victim when she does. It’s pathetically childish what you’re doing to her but also potentially a course of conduct amounting to criminal harassment.

    • Evidence that I’ve ever subjected Ms Hewson to any “really nasty stuff”? You don’t put any evidence in your comment because there is none.

      • Ms Keen, re-read what is said: “Keen and others” – it is not for me to present the evidence of that allegation it is for Ms Hewson to do so as she was the specific target of it and also because I personally have to respect some legal niceties at this time.

        It’s not only your actions it’s a group of individuals who are doing it towards her. But bluntly your personal actions are part of the problem, deal with it.

        Rest assured she is doing (presenting and readying legal action) and rest assured the evidence has been gathered, will continue to be and will be presented in the correct manner in the correct environment – not here in blog site comments sections.

        You’ll all find out that specific evidence in due course and as part of that legal due process in disclosure processes.

        But anyone reading your own twitter timeline can be in no doubt about your part in the (especially) more recent attacks on Ms Hewson. You made that choice, for which there now have to be legal consequences because it was and has been for a long time very, very clearly organised and done for a specific reason: in order to silence critics of specific individuals’ actions.

        You would be wise to read Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and then learn what the Twitter block function is for and stop deliberately seeking out views that you claim are offensive.

        What I’d like to know however is why are Ms Hewson’s views SO important for a cabal of nasty individuals to challenge so vociferously and why in the face of massive amounts of evidence challenging your views you persist in your attacks and seek out any responses from her? What is it that you’re all so scared of?

        The only logical answer is that she’s telling the truth about the lot of you and you need her silenced in order to continue to propagate your lies etc unchallenged. Think about that whilst reading the ECHR.

        Good luck in court when you all have your day in the High Court, I may be there to grin avidly from the gallery. After all, it would only be fair given all the crap generated towards myself and my family too from your little cabal.

      • p.s. Ms Keen you went out of your way to seek out this blog site, post 4 comments above to try and further your vendetta. What more evidence is required of your biased actions towards Ms Hewson and for actively seeking out material in order to propagate such actions?

  8. She is very good on false allegations. Ched Evans anyone? Nick is about to be named abroad.

  9. […] Richard Bartholomew’s similar article to this today details one of Sheahan’s many such attacks: http://barthsnotes.com/2018/02/11/some-notes-on-a-sunday-mirror-hit-piece-on-barbara-hewson/ […]

  10. Hewson’s post that Esther Baker is ”lorry load of gravel’ etc is mild. I reckon she’s a nasty piece of work. Not only does she defame Lord Brammal but says he’s as “guilty as Cliff Richard ” (which actually means they are both innocent no that isn’t what she means.)
    Why we are continually having gutter rags imply we should feel sympathy for twisted cases like Baker yet the real damage they cause to innocent people with their false accusations is ignored?. The Mirror got into the gutter a long time ago with The Sun.

  11. These people work on the basis that if enough mud is thrown then some will stick. More strength to BH. She and the spirit of Anna R will eventually reveal the truth about these people.

  12. This is worse than pretending to have s terminal illness for sympathy. Imagine how genuine patients would regard them in a hospice? Such revulsion is currently felt by the genuine survivors on social media..Proven Frauds should be jailed..

  13. Barth is not troll. Barth Snotes is blogger.

  14. Interview with Clare Sheehan here:

    https://www.mixcloud.com/Survivors_Voices/

  15. No comments recently from “Sunny Clare” regarding Terry Armstrong.

    Bit odd, that.

    • To add in passing, while I disagree with many of ‘ciabaudo’s tweets, I agree with him here:

      https://twitter.com/ciabaudo/status/1000826424473866246

      ‘Murun’ did indeed do a fine job in researching and collating articles from numerous MSM sources. The accuracy of some of those articles may be up for debate, but ‘Murun’ is not to blame for that.

      • I’m finding it hard to summon the energy to type this, TDF, but if you recall I found something in ANOTHER archive of old newspaper articles, something relating to Chris Fay, Mary Moss and – obliquely – the third ‘guest list’ scribbler, Clive Godden.

        As it seemed to be of rather obvious significance to those considering the truth of their 21st Century claims (not least because they were re-using the same poor unfortunate they’d similarly exploited decades previously in a totally different tale) I was surprised to see it not incorporated into Spotlight On Abuse’s own archive. (I contacted them to point it out at the time.)

        Perhaps it has since been included, I really can’t be bothered looking. Oh, David Hencke similarly showed a lack of interest at seeing the same dubious sources spinning a different tale using the same ‘victim’ while supposedly seeking the truth over his insane ‘boy brothel’ claptrap.

        But I’ll leave others to join those dots (and what a bloody mess they’re making of it at the moment!).

        P.S. The ‘oblique’ reference to the third ‘list’ scribbler was of course the inclusion of some crap about the ‘infamous’ film, “Nightmare In A Damaged Brain”, whose UK distributor had been jailed (illegally as it later turned out). His distibutor’s arch nemesis – the lunatic former husband of his partner – had been plaguing his every step for years, and would soon team up with Fay & Moss to produce a ‘list’ that would include – as if by magic! – the name of HIS arch nemesis as being involved with… well, all that rubbish I can’t be bothered going through yet again.

        No, I really really can’t be bothered!

      • Bandini, you are preaching to the converted on that one, I was initially a believer in the EGH stories, but those particular scales have been lifted from my eyes. The fact that most of the ‘MSM’ abruptly stopped reporting on EGH some time in the mid 1980s (before reviving the stories all over again in the wake of the JIMMY SAVILE WORST ABUSER EVER 2012 SHOCK HORROR OUTRAGE media event) seems to be more likely to have not been due to any huge over-arching VIP conspiracy or orders from ‘up high’ but more likely that Fleet Street’s finest realised that they’d been led up the garden path.

        Rather than admit they’d got it wrong, of course, they choose the easier solution of….just dropping the story entirely! Today’s news, tomorrow’s chip wrapping indeed. Chippers in my part of the world don’t necessarily always meat the highest hygiene standards, but mind you I’ve never heard of one attempting to warm up chips from 20 years ago, lol.

      • Coincidentally, TDF, here’s TODAY’S chip wrapping…
        http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44157428

        “A knock on the door by two detectives changed everything for Mark, bringing back the horrors of sexual abuse he had suffered as a child. Like other survivors of child abuse, he says he found it hard to get any support afterwards.

        The black and white photo of Mark was taken in December 1980 on his first day at Grafton Close…
        … Shortly after the police visit he discovered to his horror that someone had posted the names of a list of child abuse victims online, and that his name was listed among them. Another post described him wrongly as a “rent boy”.”

        The Radio 4 piece in the link starts around the 30 minute mark.

        http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-44157428

      • And here is Mark @ 17 minute mark on the Panorama programme from a few years ago:

        [Foggo] Chris Fay told us that he was one of the boys trafficked to Elm Guest House… … Were you ever taken to Elm Guest House?

        [Mark] No.

      • Ah yes the Panorama broadcast from 2015 by Daniel Foggo, IIRC the ludicrous Mad Mark Watts tried to stop the broadcast on the basis that Foggo once lived on the same street as Leon Brittan’s third cousin twice removed or somewhat.

      • Mad Mary sort of apologises in the most unconvincing way for her role in turning Mark´s life upside down, while managing to squeeze in a recommendation for prominent firm of PI compo laywers:

        http://oi64.tinypic.com/i6bggh.jpg

        https://mobile.twitter.com/justjomakinglaw/status/1001495553996402694

    • ^ And bizarrely, someone has put up Exaro’s old site back online.

  16. Terrible article by Mad Mark Watts today in the Sunday Mirror.

  17. Watts is heading for a jail cell at the rate he’s going.

    First Nick’s bullshit, then Baker’s, now this?

    He’s as mad as a Hatter but also hiding behind his press card in order in order to invent news and harass people he doesn’t like, inciting his followers to do similar based not on facts but on his prejudices.

    Incitement to harass, use of a derogatory hashtag (mal comms targeting a specific individual with serial incitement), harassment, publishing material marked private and confidential into the public domain to silence critics – wonder where I’ve heard that latter one before btw? – to name but some of the legal problems he and his mates should be facing.

    Couple that with all the other crap surrounding Nick etc.

    One of the complainants against Hewson has leaked confidential info to Watts. That is now a distinct problem for that individual on multiple levels. Again playing into the hands of that individuals’ opponents.

    The “nutterbus” (as Hewson likes to call them) have stepped up their attacks in the lead up to Nick’s reappearances before the wigs at the beginning of Sept and because of other events not yet in the public domain.

    Unfortunately for them they’ve now given her all the ammo she needs to expose the lot of them. Hope she does so in a court environment whether it be BSB tribunal, Crown/Magistrates or High Court. It needs to happen.

    Imagine Hewson cross examining Watts… now that would make good Telly.

    Lastly, Watts seems to be under the impression that Ms Hewson has already been found in breach of something.

    She hasn’t. She’s been alleged to have breached the BSB Code of Conduct BUT has the right to defend her actions in the tribunal (which could take 6 months or more to organise by which time other matters will also have likely played out too).

    That very “guilty until proven innocent” is a very common theme of Watts and co. Yet another pattern of their behaviour which demonstrates their own prejudices.

    • I suspect the cupboard – or should I say dock – may be as bare in early September as it was in late July.

    • Mark Watts: “But BSB concluded that Hewson had breached “Core Duty 5” of Bar’s code of conduct.”

      RTE: “Watts seems to be under the impression that Ms Hewson has already been found in breach of something. She hasn’t.”

      Rather than make a damned fool of herself by denouncing “derogatory hashtags” – ridiculous, laughable, absurd – she’d surely have a watertight case for libel if Watts is falsely making this rather specific claim. And it’s a claim that he also makes in print in the Mirror:

      “The Bar Standards Board, which regulates barristers, has found that Hewson was in breach of their codes of conduct.”

      • Agreed, Bandini. If Watts’ info is accurate (and I agree with RTE that he is a silly boy to leak confidential info), they have decided Ms Hewson has a case to answer, which of course doesn’t mean a finding against her.

      • Equally TDF it could be the case that a finding HAS been made against her by the BSB, but that it is a finding/conclusion which can be appealed.

        I’m inclined to go with this interpretation despite Watts’ deserved reputation of being a crank. The fact that I/others consider it to likely be true would only bolster a claim for libel against Watts were it NOT to be the case… but let’s waffle on about has#tags, eh?

  18. IS ANUL AL WORKING FOR THEM?

    Answers on a postcard (from Jersey) please!

  19. Not a Hewson fan but revolting to see failed journalist Watts and his band of ghouls, anti-semites and fake complainants take pleasure in her BRB tribunal.

    Apparently her legal team, in mitigation, have to find examples of other barristers that have tweeted the dread ‘c’ word and escaped sanction. Shouldn’t be too difficult, English barristers not necessarily known for their compliance with PC-speak.

    • ^ BSB, I meant. And Watts’ followers include not only ghouls, anti-semites, and fake complainants, but also weird nutjob religious fanatics. Where errors occur in my comments, it is my policy to rectify them.

      • Two year suspension.I reckon her legal team did a good job and it could easily have been more. She has the option of appealing. The behaviour of some of her enemies has been even worse and arguably provoked her Twitter outburts in the first place, but the problem she has is many of them are outside the reach of the British legal system, plus they mostly are not barristers so don’t have to comply with the barristers code of conduct.

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