This post may not be for the general reader although many will be intrigued at the malicious nature of the claim brought against me and this blog by Lisa McNally, the Director of Public Health at bent Labour Sandwell Council, which she expects the taxpayer to pay in excess of £100,000 for.
This is how this greedy and malevolent woman put her meretricious claim with the connivance of David Stevens (the now-sacked Chief Executive), Surjit Tour (the head of Sandwell's Legal [sic] team and statutory Monitoring Officer) and Cllr Maria Crompton (the political leader of the Council at the time).
McNally's QC (Queen's Counsel) - Aileen McColgan - has received in excess of £40,000 from the taxpayer - for this poorly pleaded document and other work on the disastrous, failed, case.
Page 1
- that the case is in McNally's own name. This is her case. She should pay for it and not try to **** over the people of Sandwell and beyond for over £100,000;
- she is making an allegation of harassment and a supposed data breach claim;
- the hand of scumbag David Stevens - the now sacked Chief Executive - in this conspiracy is immediately apparent;
- the bent Labour Council owes no duty of care to an employee in respect of his/her personal Twitter account. This is pure fiction to try and f*ck local taxpayers for McNally's costs.
Page 2
Bullet points:
- there is a completely gratuitous comment about my wife intended to imply an ulterior motive in respect of my journalism. This is a standard trope that bent Labour have been using over and over again for several YEARS;
- once again you will see that Stevens (with Tour's support) is pulling the strings here. Sandwell thought that his evidence would automatically be believed by the Court because of his status but robust evidence was submitted to counter his nasty and fictitious hatchet job;
- McNally cynically brought her pal "Dr" Alison Knight into the case. The odd thing here is that Knight did not provide a formal witness statement;
- in replying to this nonsense I stood by everything I had written about the hapless Knight. Yes, she was friends with Pam Pulsford/Eling; yes, she played a major role in the disastrous Click Sandwell shambles; yes, her second stint at Sandwell was also a disaster-zone;
- it is just going over the page but Stevens claimed that Knight's absolutely disastrous performance at the infamous bent Audit Meeting in 2018 was due to me being present! (The video is on YouTube for all to see.) The venomous McNally signed the document saying all this was true which is odd as she wasn't there and wasn't even working for Sandwell then! How the f*ck could any of this constitute harassment of her? Of course, it doesn't, and this was just a vicious smear by McNally, Stevens, Tour and Crompton.
Page 3
- McNally has signed a statement of truth which makes it plain that she will be in contempt of court if she is not telling the truth. So is she saying the stuff I have written about Alison Knight is untrue? As above, I gave a robust defence of my writing about the hapless "Dr" Knight to the Court;
- Why is Knight hiding behind McNally and Stevens? Why is Stevens giving her evidence, on her behalf, in an attempt to smear me?
- Note McNally's QC has used the word "vitriol" to denigrate my journalism?;
- Look who pops up providing evidence now - Surjit Tour! McNally gave a statement confirming that Stevens and Tour "persuaded" her to bring her spiteful case. This was shortly after I had made a formal complaint about Tour. Incredibly he was part of the conspiracy to bring the case using taxpayers' money and yet also provided evidence against me in the same case (I matter which is the subject of a formal complaint to the appropriate authorities.) Once again, Tour's attempted smear is not provided in a statement by him but via Stevens and yet the QC is pleading it as true information. Why?
Page 4
- Once again Tour is part of the conspiracy to bring the case using public money and is then a participant in trying to smear me. How is this being allowed to happen? He is the statutory Monitoring Officer of the Council!;
- Amy Hodgkins joins in the attack and I have written about that elesewhere*. McNally was quite happy to misuse junior staff to further her own ends;
- I put in a very robust response to Stevens's lies about me supposedly harassing staff. I have stood outside OCH for years and never shouted abuse as alleged by him or at all. You will see that vengeful McNally, Stevens and Tour are throwing the kitchen sink at me to destroy my reputation;
- It is patently obvious that Stevens, Tour and McNally are seeking to prevent me attending OCH and holding the corrupt Council to account - a direct collateral purpose to McNally's vicious claim - also apparently supported by Crompton;
- Note the absurd but particulalry nasty smear that staff fear for the safety of family members. This is outright lying and McNally was so desperate to destroy me she signed a statement of truth confirming what he says is true!
Page 5
- I do not accept, of course, that my journalism about McNally's private Twitter account constitued abuse (and neither did the High Court);
- At this time McNally was beginning to make what became very frequent appearances in the local media;
- McNally and Aileen McColgan QC chose selected extracts from my blog for this Court document whilst deliberately omitting further passages which put my comments in context;
- McNally makes it clear that the video was not put up on her personal Twitter account as part of her employment with SMBC;
- Even from the passages quoted I - perfectly reasonably - made it quite clear that many would not agree with my view which hardly chimes with me "harassing" McNally.
Page 6
Bullet Points:
- I accepted in my evidence to the Court that my use of the words "the f*ck" was probably going too far and that had McNally complained to me at the time, it is highly probable that I would have removed those words - but only those two words. I pointed out that McNally did NOT complain either via the legal notice appended to each blog post, or otherwise, and she confirmed to the Court that she made no complaint to me at the time. Of course, McNally's journo mates did try and stitch me up and attempted to organise a Twitter "pile-on" against me. They were Jane Haynes - an editor, no less, of the Birmingham Mail and the now dead troll, George Makin. McNally gave evidence that she made a complaint to Twitter but when challenged to produce the documentation relating to this she was unable or unwilling to comply;
- The point about "blocking" on Twitter is important since it shows yet again that McNally's malicious claim related solely to stuff she was putting on her own personal Twitter account. This had/has nothing whatsoever to do with her employers. For those unfamiliar with the workings of Twitter, "blocking" is a safety feature whereby a person can block interactions with anyone they don't want to communicate with - for whatever reason. McNally blocked me and then started going through the list of my followers and blocking them too (though in garbled evidence she suggested at one point that this was untrue leading to me presenting the Court with a number of "screenshots" showing that it most definitely was). She only stopped this absurd campaign when there was a torrent of complaints from people she was blocking - especially from folk who said she was discriminating against them in depriving them of her Covid output! In a particularly bizarre incident she blocked an old school-friend of mine in Lincolnshire who has no interest in Sandwell matters whatsoever!
Page 7
Bullet Points:
- My comment several months before this spiteful litigation that McNally had/has a thin skin was prescient;
- McNally attacked my description of her (twice) on Twitter as a "weirdo" after the "blocking" episode referred to above. Quite why a minor Twitter spat was being litigated in the High Court - unlawfully, at taxpayers' expense - remains a mystery and one for Sandwell's External Auditor, Mark Stocks of Grant Thornton, to unravel. In any event, I gave evidence to the Court that McNally's obsessive stalking and blocking of my own Twitter followers was, indeed, "weird" and so there was nothing wrong in describing her strange behaviour as such;
- Paragraph 22 is very interesting. Shortly before Stevens, Tour, McNally & Crompton conspired to use taxpayers' money for this litigation I had made formal complaints to SMBC about Tour and McNally. My complaint about McNally related specifically to what I perceived - along with many others - to be her overtly "political" propaganda. For reasons that I explained to the Court, I head 99% of correspondence to bent Sandwell with a header that the content is not "private and confidential". McNally seemed to be arguing - with unlawful taxpayer funding - that she was not complaining about the fact that I had made a formal complaint about her but that I had said this might be made public. This, she claimed, constituted "harassment". This is, of course, complete nonsense particularly as I am a journalist. My barrister made submissions that this appeared to be a chilling attempt by SMBC to prevent or hamper complaints being made about staff. Insofar as the rambling submissions of Aileen McColgan QC at the hearing in London made any sense, she appeared to retreat from this and many other parts of the malicious claim. Under pressure from the Judge she conceeded that her argument on this b*llocks was "not her best point"!
Page 8
Bullet Points:
- As a responsible journalist wishing to write about McNally's qualifications to question top Governement scientists, I had written to her about her CV. She claimed to the Court that the email went into "spam" but I will write further about this in another post. Suffice to say, mine seems to be the only email sent to her that "went missing". In any event, McNally did not provide information concerning her qualifications and career;
- Once again, McNally and McColgan QC have been highly selective in the parts of my blog posts they refer to. I did not question McNally's qualifications to be a Director of Public Health. What I did question was her medical qualifications as against those of the likes of Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer, and the members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation;
- McNally was somehow embarrassed when she was outed as a "clinical psychologist" (a perfectly respectable professional position) rather than as a medical practitioner (which ALL the people in Sandwell I have been in communciation with thought she was, due to the constant references to her as "Dr Lisa McNally"). The point here is that McNally could not sue me for defamation since what I was saying was absolutely true - she is not, and never has been, a GMC-registered doctor. Hence why the absurd "harassment" claim was cooked-up against me instead.
Page 9
Bullet Points:
- There is nothing much to add here. I make it completely clear that McNally has a PhD;
- I also go on to say that it is not her qualification per se that is relevant but her experience and expertise compared to others that is the whole point. Obviously I made this point forcibly myself and via my legal team once the unlawfully taxpayer-funded litigation commenced.
Page 10
Bullet Points:
- Again there is selective editing of the posts but I stood foursquare behind what I had written during the Court process. My lawyers (and another top media lawyer who looked at the papers early doors) were amazed that the quoted passages were being described as "harassment". At the hearing itself McColgan QC became increasingly desperate and basically fell back on a generic - and untrue - allegation that I was "denigrating" McNally's self-described serious mental health issues;
- Paragraph 26 contains the most absurd and desperate attempt to smear me by McNally even by the standards of this heap of ordure. It is true, as I explained in a detailed statement to the Court, that when I disseminate the blog via Facebook and Twitter the first photo in any blog post is shown with the title of the post. The post complained of did refer to McNally along with other issues. But the image of the "Bell End" Sandwell road sign was specifically illustrating a piece where I referred to an allegation that a male councillor was shagging a Sandwell employee whilst she was "working from home". Unbelievably, McNally is so poisonous that she claimed I was referring to HER as a "bell end". I pointed out to the Court that the term was a specific reference to the male anatomy, that - as above - the piece clearly referred not to McNally but to a male councillor and that it was ridiculous to suggest that this was peculiarly male insult was directed at a female! Desperate stuff.
Page 11
Bullet Points:
- Once again McNally is scraping the barrel. A third party put up a tweet that she should be sacked. I quoted the Tweet saying that Crompton thought she was "brilliant" and that we would have to wait and see how things turn out. In other words, I was specifically NOT agreeing that she should be dismissed (and I also did not call for this when I made the formal complaint referred to above) but McNally claimed that it did! (You, dear readers, have paid through the nose for this nonsense, as have I.);
- Of course, paragraph 28 is absurd. There was no "course of conduct" and it was perfectly obvious that my posts were newsworthy responses to McNally's personal Twitter output. In my responses to the Court I also explained that a Director being paid in excess of £105,000 per annum (+ gold-plated pension) out to have the sang-froid to accept legitimate criticism;
- I don't want to go into McNally's medical situation in any detail. Suffice to say that I presented evidence to the Court contemporaneous to her alleged "problems" wherein she boasted about her fitness levels etc. With regard to the alleged "facial twitch" I viewed much footage of her via her frequent media appearances and there was no visible evidence of this at all. Despite making these claims (as we shall see, to try and obtain financial compensation) McNally was upset that I investigated them to provide myself with a defence and accused me of "stalking her"! It should be remembered that she signed a statement of truth claiming all this stuff was true and that she realised she would be in contempt of court if it was not;
- I produced a schedule that her media appearances did not tail off as alleged;
- You will clearly see the plot by Stevens, Tour, McNally and Crompton to stop me attending Oldbury Council House. She was bizarrely trying to get an injunction to stop me going within 50m of her WHEN I HAD NEVER EVEN MET HER!;
- McNally has boasted of her close relationship with the Sandwell trade unions and they were only too happy to try to help her with her claim although the evidence was discounted as irrelevant. Once again, McNally had no compulsion in using junior staff to try and further her malicious claim;
- Please notice how the evidence is all manufactured "in house" - McNally tells the CEO etc etc. [There will be a further post on this soon.] The Court is expected to accept that these highly-placed individuals are not lying which placed me in a very difficult position. Happily, they so egregiously over-egged the pudding, their attempted stitch-up was all too obvious;
- The Claimant is only aware of matters before she started at SMBC though hearsay evidence that was certainly not impartial to say the least! Note also how Knight purported to give evidence through Stevens again rather than directly.
Page 12
Bullet Points:
- We are back to pure fiction. I have never met McNally and have no idea if she was at the meetings she refers to (where she fails to provide specific dates or details). If she was there when I was there she would have been surrounded my colleagues and councillors. You will see how desperate the little band is to nail me with ludicrous claims like "he has a loud voice". It is very rare for me to "loiter" in the Link reception unless I am in conversation with coundillors and have never seen her in that area of OCH. But here she makes the key admission that she cooked this nasty claim up with Stevens and Tour on 27th January, 2021. (She later told the Court - twice - she would resign if she didn't get an injunction - a preposterous threat to the High Court - but has not actually done so.);
- We are then into pure fantasy about me somehow suggesting SHE is a danger - which I didn't. Of course, when this started I knew nothing whatsoever abour her husband (although I do now following his attempts to infiltrate the blog Facebook Group etc);
- I will write in a separate post about the "in house" evidence manufactured re "counselling" etc;
- What is clear is that this woman did not want ANYONE "calling into question my qualifications and suitability for the job" - but especially me, and this suited the purposes of Stevens, Tour and Crompton to unlawfully splash the taxpayers' cash;
- I will deal with the date protection point in the next section.
Page 13
Note this first image was the original Particulars of Claim - see further below for the Amended Version as there is an important change:
Bullet Points:
- McColgan QC pleaded this fantastical data protection claim based on McNally's vengeful and risible allegation that I should not be allowed to comment on things she herself had put on her personal Twitter account! In particular, her "Lisa's Story" video. Leaving aside for the moment that I am a journalist, what she is saying is that it was fine for complete strangers to comment on her video but not me. This was totally absurd and McNally withdrew this part of the Claim on the morning of the hearing - but only after my legal team had expended time and money preparing a counter-argument. McColgan also left this Claim "hanging" under the rules of Court pleading. It's a bit arcane and technical but the QC did not repeat the claim under the "prayer for relief" - the bit that starts: "And the Claimant Claims". It is all absurd to the lay reader but not funny for me as Iwas paying hundreds of pounds an hour to my legal team who were concerned that the Pleading was deficient and as to what effect this might have on our application to strike out McNally's case. This was shoddy work by the QC which ended up costing me hard cash even though this part of the Claim was withdrawn on the day of the hearing. For the sake of completeness, the Judge also gave this aspect of the matter - and alleged Human Rights issues arising from McNally's own posts on her personal Twitter account - short shrift.
- McNally maliciously applied for an "interim" injunction and then a "permanent" one. She sought draconian provisions eg, that I did not go within 50 yeards of her in a seperate application. ONCE AGAIN I HAD NEVER EVEN MET HER! She later withdrew the "interim" application shortly before a hearing;
- It should be remembered that Cllr Rajbir Singh took over as political Leader at bent Sandwell from Crompton but was quickly made aware of the unlawful nature of Sandwell's attempts to use taxpayers' money to bring McNally's personal claim. Singh apparently did nothing to halt this nonsense and to save further costs.
Amended Page 13:
Bullet Points:
- This is a key page. Not only does it show the shocking greed of McNally but, even if there is a scintilla of doubt that Sandwell taxpayers' paying for her might somehow be legal, this blows that right out of the water. McNally - with no financial risk to herself (and remember she earns over £105k per annum plus all the trimmings) on the basis that YOU and I would pay for this nonsense - decided to also try and enrich herself at my expense. This avaricious xxxx made a personal claim with your money for £10,000. MCNALLY'S FUNDING AGREEMENT WITH STEVENS, TOUR AND CROMPTON WAS UNLAWFUL ANYWAY BUT THIS SHOWS THAT THIS WAS HER PERSONAL CLAIM BEYOND ANY QUESTION OF ANY MINISCULE ELEMENT OF DOUBT.
- Incidentally, quite where McNally thought I would get the money from if she won I don't know but I believe this embittered woman was just out to bankrupt me and this blog.
Page 14
- Julia Lynch, a senior Solicitor at bent Sandwell, messed this up as she used the wrong "statement of truth". This was corrected with, as above, McNally signing to say that she understood that she must tell the truth and that she would be in contempt of court if she did not. I will leave you to judge how much of the above is "true".
A quick reminder of what happened in the case:
- McNally withdrew her interim injunction application on the Friday before the hearing on the following Tuesday;
- My legal team applied to strike out her claim in its entirety, at the earliest opportunity;
- McNally withdrew her absurd data protection claim on the morning of the strike out hearing;
- The Court struck out her claim;
- McNally's costs exceed £100,000 which she expects the taxpayer to pay for her.
AGAIN, A SPECIAL SHOUT OUT FOR MY AMAZING SOLICITOR, MARK LEWIS OF PATRON LAW, AND MY BRILLIANT BARRISTER, RICHARD MUNDEN OF 5RB CHAMBERS.
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