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.

Great news!

Great news.

Great news for her, glad to see it.

Yes good news, but as others have said what a waste of time and money.

So and

Excellent news

Brilliant the ball is in JM's court now. Be interesting to see what he does.

He has a clear out. On the other hand his case relies on Mr Molly whose instability and issues have been well documented on this thread and are even more apparent from the new details in the recent Polycule meltdown thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5560961-polycule-falls-apart

So his choice is - apologise to a woman and pay her costs or go to court and rely on arguments that have already failed before the BSB and rely on uncertain testimony from an awful unreliable man which is likely to fall apart in court.

Apologising would be bad and paying costs, but JM's ability to spin utter defeat has been seen time and time again. If he apologises it will result in a few articles in the right wing press and Mumsnet laughing at him - A LOT. Nothing new. The TA echo system will not even notice significantly. They are even likely to accept attempts to spin the apology as being forced by evil Terfs/government/JKR.

He has been humiliated many times before, so it would be interesting to see if this is his breaking point. It might be different because those defeats were by the legal system, this is way more personal and the defeat will be at the hands of a woman and the legal system. JM's misogyny may force him on an uncertain path and to gamble on going to court.

There is also the recent Arday disaster as well. JM's dumb letter played a part in that whole situation. So emotions must be running high there which may tempt him to double down.

Looked at rationally the court case will result in months of coverage which will expose his dodgy practices and is far more likely to damage his reputation permanently and if he loses the pay out will be far more substantial.

Yet dangerous male egos like JM's have a history of plunging into risky territory hoping that he will win and others will suffer. What will he do?

Whatever happens Sarah is a hero for standing up to this bully.

Great news, Sarah. I am really pleased for you!

Sarah's latest update reveals the legal trickery and delays JM is relying on. Looks like he is hoping to outspend and frustrate Sarah's case. Worryingly she has spent more than half of what she has raised so far before really getting to court. Meanwhile JM is getting extra cash out of grandstanding on a suicide.

Don't forget Sarah's garden always needs more seeds currently at 58,952.

https://nitter.net/SVPhillimore/status/2089984206357008694#m

Great news Sarah!

Duplicate post

Another repeat post...sorry

Will plant more seeds next month.

Twitter Thread by Harry Cole (editor at the Sun)
Many years ago I emailed Jolyon Maugham for a right of reply to a fairly innocuous diary story gently teasing that his ginormous multimillion pound property had been photographed in a posh glossy magazine, resplendent with quotes from his Labour councillor wife. He had publicly discussed owning the landmark windmill in the past.

Back then Jolyon was a mere celebrity tax lawyer turned mild Brexit bore, famous only for bludgeoning a fox to death while dressed in his wife’s negligee, rather than the noted civil rights leader we know today. But it was always a struggle to find anyone from the Bar with a good word to say about his conduct or character.

The then QC immediately took to Twitter to publicly claim that I - and my then employer - were threatening to publish his home address in tomorrow’s edition as punishment for his legal work frustrating Brexit. Simply put: a lie. He just completely made it up.

All hell predictably broke loose on here with legions of his droogs piling in - he knew exactly what he was doing. Now I’m a big boy, I can take some social media loons, but here’s where it got weird…

Soon the red phone started ringing.

Editors, the executives, perhaps even proprietors, were being disturbed at the weekend and demanding to know why a reporter was harassing or threatening such an upstanding member of society. Cue: mild newsroom clucking.

God knows what shit he pulled, but it worked for the 100 word diary story that day, even though the POS was lying through his teeth. And Lord knows how many other times this dishonest and pernicious narcissist has attempted a similar ruse.

But I for one was not surprised to see the fox clubber’s reputation as a manipulative bully explode into the public eye this week. The warning signs were always there! And you wonder why they want to regulate the Press…

Cole is a good journalist though he's definitely right wing. He was excellent over Brexit and all the drama in the May / Johnson governments.

It's interesting to see him talking about Maugham ( in the context of Arday) in this way. And that Maugham somehow had a significant amount of influence. It does raise an eyebrow.

If back then he couldn't get anyone at the Bar to say a good word about him, I doubt the situation has changed for the better. It's also fascinating to see that he allegedly had form for lying going way back.

It strikes me that Maugham either had some interesting clients when he was a tax lawyer or he knows where some bodies are buried (or both). Either way, I doubt he's made many new friends in more recent years and you have to wonder if there is going to be a crunch point for him eventually because there's so many questions here.

The fact that Harry Cole is now saying this openly, makes me think that some investigating into Maugham himself by journalists may well eventually come to pass. There's something here which doesn't sit right and it's getting noticed because of his Arday action.

The bleating about muzzling regulating the press from the vulpicide and various omnicausers in the wake of the Arday scandal and tragedy will be concentrating journalistic minds wonderfully, I would have thought.

I think that the murky finances & governance of the GLP will one day be be exposed. Hiding behind a Jersey trust is not normal behaviour for a campaigning organisation in the UK. They are a bunch of grifters.

This reply is a bit late but if you click on the 'eye' symbol at the bottom of the captcha box it should option the old photo-based captchas instead of having to download an app for QR code--based captchas.

I think the Guardian has just recently posted an expose on the free speech union. Something about them raising legal funds for a case that was at least partially pro-bono. Reading it I did think GLP should be worried if more scrutiny was going to directed at fund raising in this manner.

Maugham has alienated many in the legal community through his clownish antics.

Likewise the wiser journalists must increasingly have his number as you say.

As Cole's post shows he has always been a bully. Now he is being more exposed,

Yet it maybe JM is only going to get more reckless from this point on. I think this libel case is now always at the back of his mind and as I just said he may double down. Desperate men do crazy things.

Fingers crossed for Sarah.

Thank you! Next time it does it I will try that.

Edit Wrong thread. Enjoy the cat.

edit: answer to wrong-thread post. Nice cat though.

It seems that some omnicausians are hoping for a British George Floyd, and have been gearing up to make this happen. However, this time I think there's a wide coalition of very different groups, some of them with power, who will make a stand against this. They don't want to round off 2026 with fiery but mostly peaceful protests.

Maybe but they're going to have difficulty spinning this, because Arday wasn't the focus for the press, they were. The people who promoted and enabled a liar and a fraud to become a professor, the more they try to dieify him the more attention they will bring on themselves.
It could be the omnicause's undoing instead. 😁

The problem with the omni-cause is it's led by unreasonable people, with unreasonable demands who act in an unreasonable manner and just end up pissing everyone off including those who otherwise would support them.

It's a self righteousness that just gets everyones backs up.

Its enabling and supporting disordered and bad faith actors. If Russia didn't invent the Omnicause, they sure have seen the disruptive potential.

Institutionalised national self harm.