Dave Walker has been threatened. The person doing the threatening is Mark Brewer. The basis for the threat is Dave’s “people’s journalism” exposing and highlighting the awful saga of SSG/SPCK and the slow destruction of a much respected chain of booksellers. The threat, of a libel action, appears to be an empty threat. Unfortunately, having large sums of money can turn empty threats into very real and dangerous ones for those without money.
Dave has been very careful about what he has said and what comments have been allowed on his blog. He has tried not to say things he can’t verify, or repeat things from sources he did not know and trust. It seems the purpose of the libel threat is the removal of the best published record of a long saga of multiply-attested claims of mismanagement. Mark Brewer’s claim of libel, however, would appear to be without merit. Everything Dave has posted has either been factual, or material he has had reasonable grounds to believe to be true.
It is unfortunate that the libel laws are such that those with money can seek to, and sometimes succeed in suppressing the truth. It has happened before, and Robert Maxwell is the most notorious example of someone using libel as an instrument of intimidation, to secure the silence of those who knew how corrupt he was. Sometimes it backfires, as with Jonathan Aitken’s trusty sword of truth, or delightfully, as when Mr Justice Popplewell found that calling former MP and author Rupert Allason “a conniving little shit” was not libellous.
We can but hope.
(For additional comment see the Wardman Wire.)
Update 21:50: Dave now seems to have removed his notice of this. I hope he has not been further threatened.
