Interesting outcome of libel case

[Imnobody4]

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/6e469759-86a1-44c8-a0e7-4ededf5379b3?shareToken=858add9270ce4c0085a7bf5a8986de0e

This is a good outcome. Men will have to think carefully about threatening their victims with the courts.

Nina Cresswell, 33, claimed that she had been sexually assaulted by a tattooist, Billy “the bastard” Hay, at a nightclub in Sunderland in 2010 when she was a 20-year-old student.

She reported an attempted rape to Northumbria police immediately after the alleged assault, but within hours officers decided that her complaint would not be treated as a crime.

A decade later, when the #TattooMeToo campaign was exposing the prevalence of sexual abuse in the tattoo industry, Cresswell publicly named Hay as her attacker in a blog, an email and social media posts to alert other women about his behaviour towards her.

Hay sued for libel, claiming that her defamatory publications had caused serious harm to his reputation and resulted in him losing work.

Cresswell relied on the defences of truth and public interest, set out in the Defamation Act 2013. After a four-day trial at the High Court in London, Mrs Justice Heather Williams ruled that Cresswell’s allegation that Hay had violently sexually assaulted her was “substantially true on the balance of probabilities” — the civil law standard of proof, which is lower than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

Thank you for sharing this. Thank goodness she won!

I'm sure I read somewhere that she was supported by the Good Law Project. Althougha quick read of the article doesn't seem to mention them. I note she's referred to as an 'alleged sexual abuse victim'. It must have been a dreadful experience for her. Shame on the Police, but no surprises there. I hope Northumbria Police review her original complaint and perhaps consider reopening it. I'd like to know why it was dismissed considering she reported the assault immediately and it was said to be violent.

Its possibly due to the burden of proof being lower for a civil case than a criminal one. A criminal case having to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

However, things have changed recently - about 4 years ago - when NCRS (National Crime Recording Standards) came into effect.

So in this case - it would have been crimed at the point of a victim confirmation. Hence an investigation should have been conducted and not written off.

All forces now follow NCRS rules, where as before different forces had differing standards or recording & investigating crimes.

I thought there was another post on this thread but all I can see is fuzz. Weird!?

Have you ever been picked up by the fuzz, cake? 🤣

Only out of my bellybutton. Oh, and off record player needles, I miss that.

@cake have you put your glasses on?

🥂 hic! Still fuzzy.

This an article in the Guardian about the case, which mentions the GLP and more about the piss poor police response to her original report of the crime.

She's a warrior for taking this court case on and pushing through it to a successful conclusion.

amp.theguardian.com/law/2023/apr/26/nina-cresswell-named-sexual-assault-attacker-blog-defeats-billy-hay-libel-action

Thanks Roses good article.

Let's hope such cases can be better prosecuted in future rather than going through bullshit libel cases.

The action of the Police in the original case seems surreal. She used a simile and they took it literally!

A fantastic outcome, Cresswell has been so brave.

That's why its right that the police should listen to victim's & reporting persons and the investigation is done properly.

The court heard that Cresswell told Northumbria police that the assault was “like a nightmare” but officers misconstrued her words, in a manner described by Williams as “frankly bizarre”, to mean that Cresswell had “dreams of being raped”.

Bizarre doesn't even cover it. I'm all for plain talking but even I would not be able to misunderstand this one.