GLP are going after Sarah Phillimore and are going to lose - Part Two

[fromorbit]

The Story so Far

Part 1

The first thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5400132-glp-are-going-after-sarah-philmore-and-are-going-to-lose?page=1

Get the popcorn folks. GLP is getting ready to lose again.

They are going after barrister Sarah Phillimore for referring to a man as a man. They think they are going to lawfare her into silence.

Her blog:
Here we are now: Entertain us
I have had now 7 years and counting of the various tactics used to 'silence' those who won't comply with prevailing orthodoxy. How are those tactics holding up?
https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/here-we-are-now-entertain-us?

The only thing is other TAs have already tried this on Phillimore multiple times.

They went to the Bar Council their claims were dismissed. They all failed. More to the point this ‘Kate’ is the same guy complaining again who already failed. Sarah Phillimore knows the law and likes explaining it to TAs and making them lose. So she doesn't even resent the attempt.

As Sarah has stated "They pick on someone who not only enjoys this but has now a vast repository of knowledge about the law in this area."

Part 2

So the Fox Basher decided to tell massive lies about Sarah Phillimore now he faces a defamation action.

GLP's case against Sarah rested on evidence from "Kate" and this turned out to be the infamous man in a dress Sophie Sparkles. A guy who was too obnoxious, chaotic and threatening even for the Scottish Greens to tolerate. Even for someone as incompetent as the Fox Basher this plan seemed particularly bad.

A band of helpful gardeners assembled and planted a lot of seeds and soon Sarah's garden was blooming.

Sarah assembled a huge dossier of evidence about Sparkles showing his instability. She carefully built up her case using her excellent legal skills.

After giving the Fox Basher plenty of time to apologise Sarah took action for defamation in December and her blog outlines the story so far nicely:

Letter before Action
I publish here my letter to Jolyon Maugham. There is no freedom of speech to tell harmful lies about others.

For the background to all of this, please see my response to the complaint of the Good Law Project which they made to the Bar Standards Board on August 26 2025. Shortly after this complaint, Mr Maugham chose to assert to his many followers online that I had ‘led a campaign of harassment’ so wicked that it led a trans identifying man to attempt suicide. I deal with that claim at some length in my response. It is not true.

I asked via email on 30 August 2025 for Maugham to delete, apologise and make a donation of £5K to For Women Scotland. His refusal came a few days later in a series of videos posted to TikTok and Instagram where he was clearly excited about the (false) idea that JK Rowling would be joining me in legal action against him. Being able to tell his followers that he faced attack by the Nasty Billionaire Transphobe would clearly have more cachet and would attract more funds to the Good Law Project than a much less sexy tussle with a junior provincial barrister.

I am sorry to disappoint Mr Maugham. It’s just me. Well me, and the so far 990 very generous people who have helped me raise the money to be able to even contemplate this kind of legal action. My grateful thanks to every one of them. I do not think that anyone has ‘freedom of speech’ to tell harmful lies about another person and certainly not a senior member of a regulated profession, who will rely on his status to give his words power and cause harm.

https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/letter-before-action

Now the Bar Standards Board has decided that Sarah has no case to answer and released a letter explaining how the GLP had failed again. Details here:

Right Here. Right Now.

Another stunning technical victory for the Good Law Project shows that sanity is being restored to the public debate about gender identity, slowly but ever so surely.

On 27 March 2026 I received the welcome and to be honest not entirely expected news that the Bar Standards Board was not going to investigate further the complaint of the Good Law Project against me on behalf of trans identifying man Euan Weddell, aka Sophie Molly/Sparkles.

https://sarahphillimore.substack.com/p/right-here-right-now

GLP are planning to release a statement which will no doubt spin what has happened as much as possible in its usual style.

Will the Fox Basher's long history of misogynistic hatred for any women who has knowledge about biology and legal incompetence come back to haunt him again?

If he is defeated it will be a warning to all TAs that this type of bigotry and massive lies are not going to be accepted legally in a country where women and men are legally equal.

Whatever happen's Sarah's bravery once again will pay a significant part in restoring a world in which discussing the reality of the existence of male and female human beings is accepted.

Her garden still needs more plants, and harvest so far has been excellent and you can keep watching this thread for more proof of that.

The decision reflects a continuing pattern in which the BSB has relied on Article 10 protections when assessing complaints arising from barristers’ commentary on gender-identity issues, particularly where statements are made in the context of ongoing legal and political debate.

https://solicitornews.co.uk/bsb-complaint-rejection-social-media-posts/

On the Guido Fawkes website https://order-order.com/2026/04/07/bar-standards-board-dismisses-jolyon-maughams-trans-complaint/

Maybe the story will make some mainstream press, it seems to be picking up interest.

The coverage of this has been awful.

They've repeated the claims that Sarah is challenging as libellous.

Gosh that ¡No pasarán! is making me cringe so hard 😬 It’s like those privileged white British students wearing a keffiyeh, an appropriation of someone else’s real struggle. Freedom fighter cosplay.

It brings to mind Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love where she satirises upper-middle class/aristocratic English people (mostly intellectuals and students) who go and fight in the Spanish Civil War because they romanticise struggle, resistance etc and have no idea of the reality. Linda even assigns the best rooms to those who have their status as 'Labrador' because she thinks of the dogs rather than realising it means 'Labourer' in Spanish.

History might not repeat but it sure as hell echoes...

As I said earlier the press will pick this up at some point. It is too good a story to miss.

Which hopefully will boost Sarah's garden.

NB Sparkles has rejoined the Scottish Greens - interesting they let him in after his violent outbursts - he is involved in the Civil war over Maggie chapman's continuing position with other gender types.

Esme Houston, a friend of Sparkles and Green MSP candidate, organised the Trans Wrath mob which ended up attacking a women in Duthie Park, Glasgow in July 2023. The Bash Back concept is very dangerous with this long history.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5313420-scottish-greens-being-sexist-again?page=16&reply=151543606

I still haven’t read it, but it is in my TBR pile. I’ll move it up on your recommendation, Otter 😁

I thoroughly recommend Love In A Cold Climate too! There's a third book in the series, set later and in Paris, called Don't Tell Alfred and a spin off from that called The Blessing.

LIACC is my favourite.

From The Times’ Law newsletter:

Bar wars
There’s not much more fun in these grim times than a catty row between barristers – especially one that kicks off on social media and then threatens to spill into the defamation courts. Step up Sarah Phillimore and Jolyon Maugham KC.

Maugham, the ubiquitous founder of the campaigning organisation the Good Law Project, had complained to the Bar’s watchdog that Phillimore had posted 50 social media comments that referred to a transgender woman in “frequently derogatory terms”. The Bar Standards Board dismissed the complaint, saying that Phillimore, a family law specialist in Bristol, was entitled to her opinions and that her comments had not amounted to harassment.

But that is not the end of the saga. The Good Law Project said it would refer the case to the Bar Standards Board’s independent reviewers – and if it got no joy there, it would consider applying for a judicial review.

In the meantime, Phillimore has issued Maugham, a former tax law specialist, with a threat to issue libel proceedings. She claims that the KC defamed her in social media comments over the row and has sent him a letter before action, the step before issuing proceedings. Watch this space.

Do you have a link to this? What a depressing and infantile way to report on this.

It's very much in the style of Private Eye, isn't it?

It was in my weekly Law email from them, hopefully this works:
link.thetimes.com/view/65babe5040d7cfe21a078ea5quy22.g17/28be1a3c
If not, DM me your email and I can fwd on the email.

Good luck in your case, am cheering you on! :-)

If only Private Eye wasn’t so lame on this issue.

That Times Law piece is in the section Blue bag: this week’s gossip

God, Sarah is starting libel proceedings over this bollocks affecting her livelihood and all these journos are reporting on it like she's equally involved some silly spat.
Hello, journos, wake up? GLP singled her out spitefully and attempted to get her sacked because she is gender critical and she has had to defend herself.

Solidarity with you Sarah, you're dealing with it with in such a composed way but it must take a toll.

What Leaves said.

For “lame,” you should substitute “cowardly.”

I’ve read the Eye since I was about 14 and they’ve studiously ignored the harm that the whole TRA movement has done to women. Hislop likes to dismiss it as culture wars froth.

Let’s see what they do when I issue. Might wake some of them up, but I doubt it given their determined failures over last decade.

Yes, I was thinking that describing as ‘catty’ an attempt by one barrister to destroy the career and reputation of another barrister for entirely spurious reasons and wanting to go as far as a JR is rather nasty and dismissive.

Has this been posted? Only just came up on my feed today:
https://labourheartlands.com/good-law-project-labelled-busybodies

... A reminder that the gains of one generation are never banked for the next; that the powerful do not concede ground permanently; that vigilance is not optional. Women in this country have lived that truth with a particular and exhausting intimacy. The suffragettes were told the vote would settle things. It did not settle things. Equal pay law was passed in 1970. It did not settle things. The Equality Act was consolidated in 2010. It did not settle things either.

And so, when a litigation company describes the process of fighting settled law over and over again as principled resistance, it is worth pausing to apply Benn’s wisdom a little differently.

There is an alternative formulation for those who are not fighting the same battle out of conviction, but raising money from it out of habit. The definition of insanity, as the saying goes, is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. But then again, if you keep getting paid for it, win or lose, why would you stop?

The only group fighting the same battle over and over again are women, from suffrage to recognition. That distinction matters. ...

It's heartening to see sense talked by at least someone in the Labour movement. Whether they'd let that guy into their Conference, though, I don't know! 😁

I dont think it is just one writer but there have been quite a few articles by them on various threads on FWR - see https://labourheartlands.com/labour-heartlands-authors/

And what is heartening is that they say they are left wing, and certainly dont seem to have taken the Labour Party line.

Great article. Well said, Mr Knaggs.

Wow! Totally nailed it. It's about time the spotlight was focussed on the motivation of GLP to continue flogging a dead horse.