5 July 2005

email to riotact's EDITOR

| johnboy
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Well the following was submitted as a story but I’ve taken it over in order to provide the relevant extra material, and to save other problems.

Sir,

I am writing to demand that you remove the defamatory article regarding Justin James Trevitt and that you refrain from publishing any further material in relation to myself. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Director of Public Prosecutions decline proceeding further in the prosecution of Justin James Trevitt due to NO EVIDENCE. (NOTICE DECLINING TO PROCEED FURTHER IN A PROSECUTION by the Director of Public Prosecutions, dated 7th of June 2005: reference: S2004 894).

Failure to remove said material or allow publication of any further commentary on this matter will result in defamation action.

ARTICLE BEING:

Drugs hidden in wooden block
by johnboy on Thursday, June 17 @ 10:45:15 EST

My word! What was all that about eh? Well the original story is here. I believe the court judgment is this one.

Justin also emailled us with much the same demand only with the following addition:

Your article has damaged my life quite considerably for the last year since my profession involves the internet. I really can’t stress the importance of it’s immediate attention.

Well I’d like to thank Justin for drawing our attention to another case of the boys in blue playing fast and loose with warrants.

Sadly though Justin I consider my comment to be both fair and true and have no intention of expurgating our record. That the charge was thrown out (which I offer my congratulations on) does not alter the fact that you were charged.

It’s been a couple of months since we had a defo threat but in my opinion yours is the funniest we’ve ever seen.

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Someone’s been auto-googling!

nik you are prob right. too many govt priorities, too few police, the thin blue line gets pretty stretched at times.

Funny how we always get the most comments on stories that turn into slanging matches, often not even related to the story at hand.

Anyway, back to the story at hand – from reading the court ruling that was one poorly written warrant. I can’t comment on how Mr Trivett came to have those items in his car but there is not doubt in my mind that the case was rightly dropped. I don’t always like the fact that there is so much pedantic little bits of paperwork to obtain and present evidence legally but it’s the best system we have and considering it’s our (the police’s) job to work within that system you would hope that we would be able to get it right.

I wonder if inexperience or fatigue had anything to do with the officers who produced that warrant leaving out those few important lines?

You don’t need to prove public interest in a defense of truth in all jursdictions (mainly only in the ones where there were convict origins). However, you do need to prove truth of all imputations, not just that the facts are true.
K

your article has damaged his life ?

So getting pulled over, cops finding inadmissable date rape drugs, going to court etc was just minor in comparison.

power of the blog/press!

How about an axis where the most stupid of evil tends to congregate (this is of course referring to P.Carr, not this fine site naturally)?

Is there any way we can turn this story into an Axis of Evil at all ?

Not even just a teensey little bit ?

redneck_ninja1:05 pm 06 Jul 05

So if he wants your article off the web, how come the ABC still has their thing about him online?…even though truth is a defence, it also needs to be in the public interest. However, if its a fair and accurate report of whats been heard in court, and also since you said he was let off, then I don’t see what the big deal is. He’s probably just pissed off when he did a google search for his name and found this website.

Absent Diane12:43 pm 06 Jul 05

My allies are my allies allies, whose enemies are the allies of my enemies allied enemies

Patcarr; On the other hand, the proximity of an army causes prices to go up; and high prices cause the people’s substance to be drained away.

What that means is if you get too many allies, you may have problems keeping them all together. (Just some logistical advice).

It’s also a bit of a spin on the fact that you may also find problems keeping them all focussed on the same agenda.

If you want to quote any other military history or militaristic quotations I have worked over the Command and Conquer side of the lake for a number of years and can discuss Sun Tzu with you all day.

I prefer more modern quotes though, such as ‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning, you know, the gasoline smell, it smells like – victory’

I’m sure JB will never forget that your enemy’s enemies are all cock gaggers.

Now; You take care.

Pat,

If only there were more people like you. That would allow us to thin our gene pool of poor, misguided, hoplessly deluded fools like yourself.

Now thats defamation!

Johnboy,

Never strike a blow in anger, and never forget that my enemy’s enemies are my friends.

Take care,

PS Johnboy, you seem to have been promoted;

Refer to the salutation in the letter of demand:

“Dear Sir,”

hahahaha

It is my opinion that the acquited gentleman should build a bridge. In fact, if I were in the same situation I would very likely just try and forget about the whole ordeal and get on with my life.

And what the hell is with Pat Carr and C*** G******? Methinks he may be a gagger of the closeted variety.

Samuel Gordon-Stewart12:32 am 06 Jul 05

Heh, I always look at Grapevine users sideways after one started abusing me on my blog. I don’t blame Grapevine users, I just size them up to see if they fit the profile of the anonymous idiot commenter.

In hindsight, one of the comments was semi-funny and relevant to my blog and has since become the tagline.

Samuel
“It’s just not normal”

Fascinating…, frankly I’d be more scared of the MIPI going after me for the contents of my iPod.

Nice try to get us in trouble patrick, do you realise it would have been you up for the defo action and not us?

We’d have been happy to give up your details, for instance your ISP is grapevine and I’m sure they could tell an inquisitive legal team who was logged on to the IP 203.129.42.42 at 10.57pm on 5 July 2005

Now quit your silly games and bugger off or the next time you’ll be in real strife.

Don’t worry about him Johnboy he is just another one of those c*** g******. [EDITED BY JB]

His profession involves the internet? Something in the adult line?

There are many defences, truth is one of them. It isn’t an absolute defence.

I’m not a lawyer, but a friend of mine who is (and has for various reasons been threatened with defamation suits in the past) told me that “it’s the truth” is a valid defamation defence (providing of course that you can show it to be the truth).
Of course, I may have misunderstood him or he may have been wrong, but that was my understanding of the situation.

Well potentially there’s damage to reputation even if it’s true.

But with the court ruling up there on the net I think we have very, very little to worry about.

Seems to me that the amount of defamatory material in that article is precisely “bugger all” (behold my immense grasp of legalese).
There are some factual statements regarding the case, and a (somewhat snide, but never claiming to be factual) piece of opinion which could reasonably be seen as calling into question the defence. Stop me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t something need to be…you know…wrong, to be considered defamatory?

… In my opinion.

Now everyone, Justin obviously feels very sensitive about this, so please phrase your comments as opinion and bear in mind that no charges have been proven.

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