Baroness Murphy of Aldgate in the City of London

While members of the noble house may have parliamentary privilege extended to them over what they say in the house this does not extend to what they write and is published on The Lords of The Blog website and Baroness Murphy of Aldgate in the City of London has really excelled herself by posting on the above mentioned blog, “I regret I find the web site Black Triangle Campaign to be nasty and inaccurate tosh and I am surprised that people should be taken in by it. The campaign to frighten people with disabilities is a disgrace. No wonder people are frightened, of something, remember, which hasn’t happened yet!”. (Note that she says “of something, remember, which hasn’t happened yet!”, not something that will never happen, which is inaccurate in itself).

Having read this today, I as webmaster of this website posted the following as a reply on the blog –

Dear Baroness Murphy,

Re – “I regret I find the web site Black Triangle Campaign to be nasty and inaccurate tosh and I am surprised that people should be taken in by it. The campaign to frighten people with disabilities is a disgrace. No wonder people are frightened, of something, remember, which hasn’t happened yet!”

As webmaster of www.blacktrianglecampaign.org I write here to advise you that The Black Triangle Campaign consider the above remark to not only be inaccurate, but libellous, and that the parliamentary privilege that you enjoy while on the floor of the house does not extend to what you post on this blog so I suggest that you consult your solicitors as that’s what we are doing at the moment.

With Hansard who run the blog moderating the reply and refusing to publish it with me receiving the e-mail message below from Becky, their moderator, telling me why.

From: R.Allen@hansard.lse.ac.uk [mailto:R.Allen@hansard.lse.ac.uk]
Sent: 04 October 2011 15:25
To: info@blacktrianglecampaign.org
Subject: Lords of the Blog comment

I’m afraid your recent comment directed atBaroness Murphyhas not been posted.

I don’t feel that it’s an appropriate comment to go onto the site. Lords of the Blog is a forum for debate and dialogue that is sometime challenging but is about encouraging different opinions to be shared, not to shut them down.

If you want to write a comment that challenges her opinion please do so within the terms of the debate.

Best wishes

Beccy

As a result of this I have sent the following via e-mail to Becky at Hansard – 

Hi Becky,

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Many thanks for your e-mail regarding the comment that I left regarding Baroness Murphy’s libellous, (to me personally as webmaster and The Black Triangle as a group), comment on The Lords of The Blog website that is moderated by you that you have refused to publish.

In view of you allowing the comment, “I regret I find the web site Black Triangle Campaign to be nasty and inaccurate tosh and I am surprised that people should be taken in by it. The campaign to frighten people with disabilities is a disgrace. No wonder people are frightened, of something, remember, which hasn’t happened yet!”, to be posted and published on the blog and not allowing us to contradict it may I advise both you and Hansard that as publishers of Baroness Murphy’s libel you also jointly share liability for this libel and we demand that you remove her libellous comment from your website immediately and publish an apology on your website for publishing this libel otherwise we will feel that we have no option other than to instruct our solicitors to commence legal action against Hansard as well as The Baroness Murphy and we will demand punitive damages from Hansard as you will be aggravating this libel by refusing to remove it from your website.

Believe you me, having personally been at the receiving end of legal threats from Atos regarding libel, (what has been described by many as the worst example of corporate bullying since the McLibel Trial), both myself and our legal advisors are more than familiar with the laws as they stand on internet libel and unless you agree to remove the libellous comments by the Baroness and publish the apology we will not hesitate to take the actions mentioned above.

Yours sincerely,

Phil L

Webmaster

www.BlacktriangleCampaign.Org

And this one to Baroness Murphy –

Dear Baroness Murphy,

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

I write to you with regard to the following comment that you posted on the Lords of The Blog Website on the 2^nd of October 2011 at 5:49 PM –

“I regret I find the web site Black Triangle Campaign to be nasty and inaccurate tosh and I am surprised that people should be taken in by it. The campaign to frighten people with disabilities is a disgrace. No wonder people are frightened, of something, remember, which hasn’t happened yet!,

I write to advise you that myself as webmaster and The Black Triangle Campaign as a group consider the above statement to be libellous and demand that you get it removed from the Lords of the Blog website and offer us an apology for this libel.

While you may have parliamentary privilege to wriggle out of what you say in the house this does not extend to what you may post and have published on a public website.

Any failure to do so will result in The Black Triangle taking legal action against you and claiming punitive damages as there is nothing on our website that is inaccurate, (with nasty and tosh perhaps being subjective).

Yours sincerely,

Phil L

Webmaster

www.BlackTrianglecampaign.Org

I will keep everybody informed regarding any developments on this issue and assure you that The Black Triangle Campaign will legally pursue The Dishonourable Baroness through the courts on this if it becomes necessary, we can’t have one rule for Atos & the House of Lords and another for us when it comes to libel can we?