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.

Exactly this. Honestly, it's bloody sensible to be pragmatic. You never know which Judge / Master you'll be up in front of. It's best not to have anything which may potentially aggravate them before you even get in front of them. Caution is warranted.

Anybody who doesn't work in litigation doesn't necessarily understand this.

As I was publicly defamed and the complaint about me to the BSB made public, I have been very clear I will defend myself publicly. I never write or say anything that I would not be happy to have read out in a court. I

Yet no one has explained what is so fair about having to compromise language this way.

So far most of the conversation has been me stating I understand why you might avoid pronouns for pragmatic reasons and other posters stating “but she is being pragmatic!!!” and completely ignoring my point about it NOT being a fair compromise.

ArabellaScott can you explain why you feel it is fair to compromise our language this way as you state you disagree with me on this point?

No. Stop hassling people.

You could always start your own thread to discuss it instead of making this one all about you.

I have explained above why it's needed. RTFT.

I think it is quite clever really. @Spero has removed the bullets in the gun either way.

Use she/her and the whole thing is a debacle (not that she would)
Use he/him and Joly and the other dude will spend the entire time whining on about this point and diverting attention; as well as continuing to encourage more online abuse from other she/hims/whatevers.

Using nothing apart from titles or names negates both and keeps attention on the case itself. It brings clarity in a neat way.

take your twitter rubbish to twitter this isn't the place.

I give up. You seem incapable of reading my posts.

I've read them. They're nonsensical (polite description).

Clearly you just don't have it in you to understand the reasons for the PoCs being drafted as they are. Given your lack of understanding, it would be better that you stop targeting Sarah with grief.

I am late to this party but I hope that I have mostly caught up. I tend to follow SP, SM and many others on Substack but I thought that I would see what's being discussed on MN. Sadly a very important topic is apparently being derailed by a frankly unhinged argument about whether the well-explained tactic of SP and her team of avoiding the use of pronouns in court (in order not to incur delays or theatrical wailing from the other side about misgendering) is a betrayal of women's rights. Of course it isn't. It's a tactic. Obviously.
Good luck SP and thank you.

Hopefully I will be able to publish the PoC so you can see how using ‘Complainant’ comes across

good luck @Spero

It might help if you explained exactly what efforts you have made to advance our right to speak plainly about men.

Feel free to to list any bill boards you have funded or tv interviews where you have faced down the disgusted expressions of the presenters or work meetings where you have risked your job in order to speak these words that you value above all other considerations.

We’re all ears.

Yes, with my limited knowledge of court operations (but I’ve learnt so much over the last few years) it seems like the ideal solution.

To use an old but maybe apt saying ‘there’s more than one way to crack a nut’.

There is nothing fair about the demand for people to use factually and grammatically incorrect pronouns.
It is not fair that women are expected to refer to a man as 'she' 'her' etc.
It is not fair that any women has to compromise about pronouns at all.
It's not fair that SP has to consider completely avoiding the used of gendered ['gender' in the linguistic sense] pronouns because of how it might be used against her if she declines to use female pronouns.

So don't expect anybody to 'explain what is so fair about having to compromise language this way.' because nobody here thinks it is fair.

Including, I assume, SP, who is at the sharp end of the unfairness that we all condemn.

'Fair' can just mean 'impartial'. It means that neither side starts with an advantage or disadvantage through use of language. It seems particularly sensible, given that neither side knows what effect their preferred pronouns may have on the disposition of the judge.

And that includes you. @Spero is risking a huge amount in bringing this case, far more I'm guessing than you have ever risked. It's easy to be a keyboard warrior on social media, but extremely hard to stand up in court in a case like this, knowing how much is at stake. Like most people in this battle, I wish her every success.

Seeds now at 56,233 .

Using neutral pronouns isn't a neutral position. It can still make a clear point without capitulation and whilst appearing to give ground and respect. It's difficult to argue against without looking like a total dick.

Tactically it's smart.

It's enough to look clunky and draw attention to the fact that it's a man not a woman. Which is central to the case. It lays a groundwork in front of a judge to show you are 'willing to compromise in the name of keeping the peace'. It's not pushing too hard and too fast, which in front of the wrong judge could be interpreted as confrontational and give completely the wrong impression from the word go.

I suspect that Jolyon and Euan will still find it objectionable but they have a choice - challenge it and demonstrate they want to control women and are unwilling to accept any gesture of respectful disagreement or suck it up even though they hate it.

It's actually a very good ploy because it lays a trap whilst looking gracious.

If they walk directly into the trap it's a form of showing up the point that third spaces aren't enough for these two clowns in a subtle way. They want to make it their way or the highway and trample all over women's right to privacy and dignity, women's freedom of speech, women's autonomy and power to assert themselves.

Berating SP for this approach and saying it's a sell out, misses the point and doesn't understand just how much it will piss off these two in its own right.

I see it as a very firm laying down of the gauntlet. Given Euan is a man who has made a public point of saying he refuses to comply with the law and is unwilling to use third spaces, because he wishes to use women not the toilet, it's relevant. The whole point is he gets off on the transgression of the boundary. By moving the boundary to a place where you seem to have compromised and been 'fair', it also moves the boundary at which you can show up men being dicks to women to a space where objection to this 'neutrality' makes you look unfair and unreasonable more easily.

It immediately moves the conversation in court to 'hey I've listened to you, I don't agree with you, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to deliberately upset you either'. It's basically unsatisfactory for all parties concerned which is 'fair' from their respective trenches.

It IS frustrating from women's point of view that we can't just call a man larping in an offensively sexist manner 'as a woman' a woman. BUT this is about playing the long game and showing the behaviour of individuals for what it is.

If you think that these two dicks will see this as a fair compromise point to start from, you really haven't been paying attention. It will hurt all the same and they will probably say as much because they won't be able to resist not going through the 'its dehumanising and othering' speech at some point.

The whole point here, is whatever women do, it will never be enough for these men because the entire point is complete domination and submission of women to their flight of fantasy.

If I remember correctly, Euan doesn't have a GRC. This makes his legal status interesting. Euan has tried to incite others and has said a whole pile of shite that's demonstrably batshit bollocks.

It's poking the bear and seeing if he will take the bait and make himself look utterly unreasonable in court too as far as I can see it. All whilst trying to make SP look more than reasonable.

It's something of the art of illusion and using it to your advantage rather than capitulation and selling out women as far as I see it.

Thank you for your detailed thoughts. I agree and I do not see it as ‘capitulation’ or ‘betraying women’ if I refer to him as ‘the Complainant’. he isn’t the one who libelled me using the status of King’s Counsel, and I accept that physical proximity in a court room is very different to social media postings.

Others may of course make different choices in their own cases. I have been told I can publish the particulars of claim once they are served on Maugham - we still don’t have the sealed claim back from the court so can’t serve - and you can see how it looks.

I read a post where a trans identified man was not happy about being called 'my esteemed colleague' at work. He wasn't happy, of course, but it is perfectly polite just as ‘the Complainant’ is.

So a male person evidently thinks that 'my esteemed colleague' can only ever refer to a man.

Says a lot about what he thinks of women, doesn't it?

I agree and that’s funny 😁 but not happy or upset really! We can disagree and not be upset who’d have thought!

I remember that, it was both amusing and revealing.