Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Kaschke v. Gray & Hilton....you thought is was all over?...it is now!

After nearly 4 years of extensive litigation, Lord Justice Thomas today at a hearing in Court 68 of the Royal Courts of Justice refused Johanna Kaschke leave to appeal against her libel case being struck out.

He supported previous rulings that the difference between what Ms Kaschke has admitted to be true and what she thinks is libel, is so insignificant to be an abuse of a full Jury trial.  It is simply not worth the candle.  Even is she was to win (and of course she would not) her damages would only be minimal at very best.

Why this statement of the bleeding obvious has taken such a long time to come about at such a huge cost to the public purse is another matter.

This is now the end of the matter for Alex Hilton and myself.  Ms Kaschke of course intends to take the matter to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).  However, in the extremely unlikely event that the ECHR consider this a case worth examining it will be the British Government who will have to defend it not Alex or I.

Fellow defendant Dave Osler also had the case against him kicked out last year.

Many thanks to Robert Dougans, David Allen Green (Jack of Kent) and former members of the CCCP Young Pioneers for their outstanding help and support. Also last but not least thanks to Stroppy and Montrose. 

The final irony (of many) in this is that Ms Kaschke claims that she got involved in British Politics because she was worried as a Council tenant about her security of tenure. She then made her long march from Labour to Respect to CPGB to CPB to Labour (again briefly) then to the Conservative Party.  Her beloved David Cameron and his Tory-led government is now responsible for introducing changes to the Housing benefit system which will mean that Council tenants such as herself who under occupy their homes (have more bedrooms than they are deemed to need) will face being evicted.

Picture from last July when case first dismissed.

UPDATE: Check Index against Censorship press release and David Allen Green's post in the New Statesman about the case "with no merit whatsoever".