could i get sued if...

[juicychops]

i wrote a book about past events in my life and bad things that my ex put through, and used his real name? there was never enough evidence for him to be taken to court so he was never found guilty, so could he sue me if i wrote about all the things he did?

I would be more worried about exposing my childrens identities. If you want to write a book because of whatever reasons then I would change all names and places.

If its about exposing him because he previously escaped court then I don't think this is the best way to do it. If you really feel the urge write a letter to whoever in his family that you feel needs to read it, but again would that achieve what you want???

I would be very careful if I were you. Constance Briscoe wrote a book about her life story and what her mother did to her. All true as far as she is concerned (she is a judge so I reckon she knows the laws of slander). Her mother is now suing her.

What you consider to be 'true' and what your exp thinks may be very different and unless you have independent corroboration you will have difficulty if there is anything in the book that could identify him. I assume you have children so why would you want to put them through this? I assume you have all been through enough.

Constance Briscoes mum lost her case, though I dont know if the mum is appealing?:

link

If what you write it true then you cannot be sued for libel. CB's story was true and her mother still thought she could get money out of her and sued but lost.

It may be too hard to get it published anyway although you could self publish it on the internet.

I think that depends on who he is GG....
Juicy- is he well-known?

I thought the problem with the British legal interpretation of libel was that the writer had to be able to prove it was true. If there wasn't enough evidence to take ex-p to court... I think Xenia's point that you may have difficulty finding a publisher is more pertinent.

good point EachPAQUE - unless he's famous and you'd get money from a book deal, seems all rather pointless. Sitting down to write a, say, 250 page book, seems a lot of labour just to wind up an ExP who was an arse and risk exposing your children.

And, if the OP doesn't know what a pseudonym is, I'm not sure she'll going to get very far down the traditional book publishing route

well thanks GorgonsGin for that, next time i dont understand a word il just keep it to myself to save someone taking the piss out of me.

i doubt i will ever get it published, its just something i want to do for myself. i just want to write a book and it would be easier for me to write about something i know or have experienced and as there is a whole load of stuff that happened to me in a short space of time (before ds was born) i thought it would be good to write about that.

plus the therapy side of it it would be goodfor me to get it down on paper as its just costant thoughts in my head which need getting out.

thanks for the help everyone, its much appreciated

If you really want to write it for yourself, go ahead. As long as no one reads it, you can't be sued.

And to be fair, GorgonsGin wasn't slagging you off, she made a fair point.

Surely people with literary knowledge enough to write a book would know what a pseudonym is?