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.

I hope Mr Maugham agrees to settle. My offer remains. Delete, apologise and donate £5K to For Women Scotland and I will withdraw. If not I will continue to fund raise, investigate insurance etc. I do not want to lose my house for Mr Maugham. But I have a visceral hatred of bullies for a reason. If they are not checked, they become empowered and even more dangerous. The evidence of this is all around us.

Letter before Action

Mr Jolyon Toby Maugham KC

BY EMAIL ONLY

Letter of Claim

Seek legal advice

Response required within 14 days

Our Reference: B362/2

Date: 10 December 2025

Dear Mr Maugham KC

Our Client: Ms Sarah Phillimore

Proposed Claim: Sarah Phillimore v Jolyon Maugham

Defamation and / or Malicious Falsehood – Pre Action Protocol Letter

1. We are instructed by Sarah Phillimore.

2. This letter is sent in accordance with the Pre-Action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims (Pre-Action) Protocol). Please provide your client’s response within 14 days, ensuring that it complies with paragraphs 3.6 and 3.7 of the Pre-Action Protocol. If you fail to respond to this letter within 14 days, our client may choose to issue proceedings against you without further notice.

3. Please find attached a clip of papers, including:

a. your publications including screenshots from X, Bluesky and Tik Tok;

b. a transcript of the Tik Tok publication;

c. various replies to the Publications;

d. complaints (redacted).

4. Our client was informed by Mr Matthew Gill of the Good Law Project (GLP) that he would accept service of correspondence on your behalf.

Background

5. The name of the Claimant will be Sarah Phillimore. She is a Family Law barrister.

6. You are Mr Jolyon Toby Maugham and the intended Defendant in this proposed matter. You are a barrister, appointed King’s Counsel in 2015. You are currently the Director of the Good Law Project and make it known you have advised the Labour Party and the government on tax law. You are a regular contributor to national media and have written extensively for newspapers including the Financial Times, the Times and the Guardian. You are a well-known and committed supporter of gender identity ideology i.e. you believe that a subjective ‘gender identity’ is more important that the material reality of sex and you wish the law to reflect this.

7. Further, you identify yourself as “King’s Counsel” on both your X account and Blueskey account. You title yourself as “Founder and Director” of Good Law Project on your Bluesky account. Your X account carries the image of a book entitled “Bringing Down Goliath” with the text “How the Good Law Can Topple The Powerful - Sunday Times Bestseller”. This shows that you claim to speak with legal authority and knowledge and it is likely that readers of your publications will rely on your statements as accurate and authoritative on the law.

8. The GLP is an activist campaigning organization which predominantly campaigns in support of gender identity ideology It’s Tik Tok account has 157k followers. The GLP regularly solicits large amounts of monies to support its campaigning.

The Complainant

9. We have referred to the complainant in this matter as Mr Weddell. It is our client’s position that the complainant is a man and that she may lawfully have and express this belief. See for example the decision in For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers (2025) UKSC 16. Further, Lee v Ashers Baking Company Ltd and others (2018 UKSC 49 confirms that our client cannot be compelled personally (or by way of her solicitors’ correspondence), to refer to Mr Weddell with his chosen female pronouns. Given the jurisprudence of Ashers, our client readily accepts that you may refer to Mr Weddell in whatever way you feel is appropriate.

Our Client’s Protected Speech

10. This matter arises alongside your attempts as an individual and also by using the GLP as a vehicle for

your views, to attack our client’s political speech through the weaponization of a complaint(s) to the Bar Standards Board (BSB) brought and supported by Mr Weddell (aka Kate in the GLP publication “I knew if wouldn’t end: Trans journalist files complaint with barrister regulator” (Trans Journalist Complaint), but aka Sophie Sparkles on X and BlueSky).

11. Our client has been engaged in political speech and debate on social media since 2011. Her predominant political interest is the particular harm that is done to women’s rights and children’s safety by the imposition of gender identity ideology into law or policy. She holds the protected beliefs of Gender Criticism / Sex Realism, Forstater v CGD Europe UKEAT/0105/20JOJ and further her political and non-political speech is protected under Articles 9 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and various jurisprudence including Miller v College of Police (2020 EWHC 225 (admin).

12. That sex means “biological sex” and that biological sex cannot change (irrespective of the protected characteristic of gender reassignment) was confirmed in For Women Scotland approving Forstater.

13. In Beckwith v SRA (2020) EWHC 3231 (Admin) the High Court established “codes of professional practice may regulate what professionals do away from work if it realistically touched on the practice of their profession or upon the standing of the profession in the eyes of the public” .

14. In Holbrook v BSB (case 2021/441, 25 March 2022), approved in Farrukh v SRA (2025) EWHC 1170 (Admin) , the panel chaired by Lyndsey de Mestre QC said at (para 44)

given the importance ascribed to freedom of expression in the authorities referred to above (and many of the others to which we were referred at the hearing), it follows that, for the expression of a political belief to be such that it diminishes the trust of the public in the particular barrister or in the profession as a whole will require something more than the mere causing of offence. At the very least, the relevant speech would have to be ‘seriously offensive’ or ‘seriously discreditable’ as suggested in the Handbook Guidance. Even in such cases there would have to be a close consideration of the facts to establish that the speech had gone beyond the wide latitude allowed for the expression of a political belief, particularly where the speech was delivered without any derogatory or abusive language and the objection was taken to the political belief or message being espoused, rather than the manner in which that belief or message was being delivered”

15. Our client’s posts are the lawful manifestation of a protected political belief and do not realistically touch on the standing of her profession in the eyes of the public. Both your and the GLP’s attack on our client’s posts are obviously an objection to her protected belief and manifestation of that belief as

described in Holbrook/Farrukh. Your Publications referred to below contributed to that attack on her protected beliefs by way of defamatory statements and will not be covered by Article 9/10 protection.

16. In any case, our client’s position is that she cannot recall ever entering into conversation with Mr Weddell online and has blocked his X account for several years. Conversely, Mr Weddell did not block our client’s X account until sometime after September 2025. Our client notes that Mr Weddell engages in frequent provocative publications on social media. He was de-selected from the Green Party due to his misogynistic behaviour. Mr Weddell thought it appropriate to post online a picture of himself in the female toilets with text “Another day of destroying women’s rights /s” but then seeks to challenge anybody who criticises or mocks him online.

17. Our client has been subject to a number of complaints to her regulator, the Bar Standards Board (BSB) about her online publications and to date has received no sanction. We assert that our client’s right to manifest her political belief is now a settled matter of law and cannot be subject to interference unless a very high threshold of discreditable behaviour is met. Our client therefore anticipates that the BSB will take no further action regarding your / GLP’s most recent complaint dated 26 August 2025.

The Publications

Publication 1

18. On 25 August 2025 at 7.37pm you published on your “X” (formerly Twitter) account “Jo Maugham” @JolyonMaugham, the following:

“A barrister, Sarah Phillimore, led a campaign of harassment of a trans woman so wicked that she sought to take her own life.

J K Rowling saw Phillimore could be punished for that conduct, which jeopardized life, and offered to pay her legal costs.

That’s where Rowling now is”

Publication 2

19. A similar publication was made on your Bluesky account “Jolyon Maugham KC @goodlawproject.org,

we understand at approximately the same time:

“A barrister, Sarah Phillimore, led a campaign of harassment of a trans woman so wicked that she sought to take her own life.

Jk Rowling the threat of regulatory sanction for that misconduct and offered to pay her legal costs.

That’s where she now is.

No one will report negatively on this revolting conduct – of Sarah Phillimore or JK Rowling’s – because it aligns with what much of British Institutional life seeks: the elimination of trans people in the UK”.

20. Access to your X and Bluesky accounts are unrestricted and your publications are to the world at large. The extent of both publications was substantial. Publication 1 received 162.2k views, 171 replies 463 reposts, 2.4k likes & 111 bookmarks. Publication 2 (at the time of writing) has 665 likes, 216 reposts, and 17 replies Publication of both posts is continuing.

21. Please confirm by reply whether you (or the GLP) have published the same or substantially the same publications through other social media platforms (e.g. Instagram, Tumblr etc.) and provide copies of the same with their current publication figures.

22. On 30 August 2025, our client wrote to Mr Gill of GLP by email with reference FAO Jolyon Maugham (attached), saying that it was “clearly seriously defamatory”, asking you to delete, make a public apology and to donate £5k to For Women Scotland, and warning you about a defamation claim.

23. On or around 4 September 2025, following our client’s warning and therefore being on notice to avoid potential defamatory meanings to statements, the GLP published a video on Tik Tok and Instagram (reposted on Bluesky by both you and Good Law Project) in which you stated whilst reading from a script:

Publication 3

“A barrister has led a campaign of harassment of a trans woman on Twitter, wickedly and persistently.

So wicked and persistent that the woman in question sought to take her own life. We don’t think that’s how barristers should behave.

So after taking legal advice ourselves we reported that barrister to her regulator. When Rowling learned of this harassment, so wicked that the woman sought to take her own like, her immediate reaction was to invite the barrister to apply to the J. K. Rowling Transphobic slush fund for funding to deal with the regulator, not to condemn the harassment so serious that it might have contributed to somebody’s death, but to protect the harasser from consequence.”

24. You did not name our client in the video, but it would have been obvious to the ordinary reader of GLP’s social media that that it was about our client. The video on TikTok has some 10,600 “likes” with 743 comments and 590 bookmarks. We ask you to confirm how many views this post has, but we estimate it has around 300k – 500k views. The same video posted on Blueksy has 1.1k likes. Please confirm the number of views it has. Publication on both media is continuing.

25. You reposted Publication 2 on Friday 5 December 2025 with a further statement saying, amongst other things, you had not received a letter before action from our client.

The Defamatory Meanings and Serious Harm

26. The natural and ordinary meaning of Publications 1 and 2 is that:

The Claimant barrister led a campaign of harassment of a trans woman so wicked that the victim tried to kill herself.

JK Rowling saw that the Claimant could be punished for jeopardizing the victim’s life and offered to pay her legal costs.

27. The Publications are highly defamatory and entirely false. Our client did not harass Mr Weddell, nor did she lead any such campaign of harassment. J K Rowling did not intervene on behalf of our client, nor did she offer to pay any legal costs.

28. The Publications are defamatory at common law and have caused serious harm to our client’s reputation. She has received several complaints to her chambers as a direct result of the Publications. Moreover, she has been subjected to abusive messages on social media.

29. In addition, the considerable scale of publication, which is continuing, constitutes a proper basis for inferring serious harm to reputation in respect of each publication, separately.

30. In respect of Publication 1, the following are examples of serious harm:

a. The replies to Publication 1, including “This reveals the final solution these people intend for trans people” (attached) by Dr Andy on 29 August 2025. JKR is disgusting. She is always posting transphobic hate. Hopefully the barrister will lose her job. There should be no place for transphobic hate in 2025. Disgusting the barrister behaved like that” (attached) byAshamedToBeAWoman on 30 August 2025;

b. Our client will also refer to the number of likes and reposts as evidence of serious harm;

c. Our client will also refer to the complaints made about her to her chambers following Publication 1.

31. In respect of Publication 2, the following are examples of serious harm:

a. The replies to Publication 2, including “Here’s hoping she gets struck off” (attached) By Brinz7048.bsky.social”;

b. Our client will refer to the number of likes and reposts as evidence of serious harm;

c. Our client will also refer to the complaints made about her to her chambers following Publication 2.

32. The natural and ordinary meaning of Publication 3 is:

The Claimant barrister led a campaign of harassment of a trans woman so wicked and persistent that the victim tried to kill herself.

The campaign of harassment was so wicked and persistent that based on legal advice we have reported the barrister to her regulator.

Rather than condemning the Claimant’s harassment which was so serious it could have killed the victim, instead, seeing that the Claimant could be punished by her regulator, JK Rowling offered to pay her legal costs to protect the harasser from sanction.

33. The Publication is defamatory at common law and has caused serious harm to our client’s reputation.

34. She has received several complaints to her chambers as a direct result of the Publication (attached).

35. Again, the considerable scale of publication, which is continuing, constitutes a proper basis for inferring serious harm to reputation. Our client will also refer to the:

a. Replies to Publication 3 including “…This new barrister likely is also a grifter, and likely to edge Rowling towards taking action…” by Corni-Egalitarian Lovesongs on 4 September, “They’re so evil, and she’s a massive pervert too… That bullying barrister is not fit to be in the legal system” by Shreyabae on 25 October 2025 and “…looking forward to the barrister being disbarred. I can think of two more that should go” by Who let the boss out? On 26 October 2025;

b. Number of likes and reports as evidence of serious harm;

Malicious Falsehood

36. Your defamatory Publications amounted to malicious falsehoods. Each publication included the following falsehoods:

1. Our client had led a campaign of harassment;

2. Our client had harassed a trans woman;

3. Our client had jeopardized somebody’s life;

4. JK Rowling had intervened to protect our client;

5. JK Rowling had offered to pay our client’s legal costs.

37. The above falsehoods were published maliciously. They were part of an attack against our client because of her legitimately held and expressed beliefs and opinions. Your vindictive and malicious campaign against our client is manifest from your baseless complaint to the BSB designed to harm our client’s professional standing and deprive her of her living.

38. We rely on the above meanings in respect of the 3 publications.

39. Our client’s claim is actionable under section 3(1) of the Defamation Act 1952. She is entitled to recover damages representing the loss she is likely to suffer as the direct and natural consequence of the falsehood. The Publications were calculated to cause pecuniary damage to our client and

published in writing or other permanent form and / or calculated to cause her pecuniary damage in respect of her profession as a barrister in practice at the time of the publications.

40. England and Wales is the appropriate forum for our client’s claim.

Remedies Sought

41. Our client requires you to:

i) Immediately retract your Defamatory Publications and Malicious Falsehoods.

ii) Publish an apology, the wording and publication of which is to be agreed.

iii) Undertake not to repeat the same or similar libels or malicious falsehoods.

iv) Properly compensate our client, which compensation our client will donate to For Women Scotland.

v) Pay our client’s legal costs in this matter.

Disclosure

42. We remind you that the Protocol requires you to reply in detailed terms which should include confirmation as to whether the claim is accepted and, if it is not accepted, the reasons why. You are also reminded that the Protocol requires you to disclose key relevant documents. Our client reasonably believes that the following should be disclosed:

a. All copies of the Publications (or substantially similar ones) on social media not referred to above;

b. Publication figures for all Publications;

c. All medical evidence from Mr Weddell showing his alleged suicide and subsequent medical care and recuperation;

d. Documents showing the increase in payments to GLPs pro-trans campaign funds, including “the BBC must stop attacking trans people”, “keep out of Hampstead ponds”, “Virgin Active: Stop following transphobes, follow the law”, “Stop the UK’s attack on trans people”, “Protect trans laws”,

43. We welcome your proposals for ADR.

44. In the meantime, our client’s rights are reserved in full.

45. Please note that the Partner on this matter is Elliot Hammer and all further correspondence should be sent to eh@branchaustinmccormick.com

Yours faithfully,

Branch Austin McCormick