Fake News?
There is no justice, just us – Part 2
The Appalling Trial of Richard D. Hall
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I have not received any encouragement or inducement from anyone to write about or discuss any information related to the Manchester Attack. All research discussed is exclusively my own and based solely upon information freely available in the public domain.
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The investigative journalist Richard D. Hall has recently been found guilty of harassment by Karen Steyn. Please read Part 1 before reading this second article.
Karen Steyn has yet to rule on the alleged GDPR breaches and I won’t mention them. That said, fair dealings (fair use) is relevant for our purposes.
Criticism, review or quotation is legally permitted for any type of published or broadcast work—copyright or not—including photographs. The exception is that you cannot reproduce copyright protected photo journalism images, without permission, when reporting related current events. You can use such an image for criticism or review, providing you give proper citation.
Once you publish or give authorisation for the publication of anything in the public domain, you open it up for fair criticism.
We have a complete trial transcript we can reference. To differentiate between quotations taken from the transcript and the judgment, I will preface each with [Transcript] and [Ruling] as appropriate.
The role of a judge in a bench trial—without a jury—is to ensure proper procedures are followed and oversee a fair trial before making a judgment on the basis of the evidence presented and legal arguments made at trial. In doing so, the judge will consider any relevant case law or precedent.
It is not for the judge to make the case for either the prosecution or the defence. That responsibility lies solely with the respective High Court barristers: Jonathan Price, for the prosecution, and Paul Oakley, for the defence in this case.
Karen Steyn could only judge the balance of evidence put before her in the court during the trial. As we shall see, that does not appear to be what she did.
I am not a legal scholar and I am not qualified in the law. I’m sure there are legal issues I have overlooked or not properly understood. But, like you, I can think critically and the criticisms I offer here are of Steyn’s logic, not the legal legitimacy or otherwise of her ruling. Where I have questioned her judgement, that is merely a reflection of my lay opinion. If any legal objections are valid, qualified legal professionals can certainly identify and argue them far better than I.
By contrasting Steyn’s ruling with the evidence presented at trial, it seems to me that Steyn’s judgment is logically unintelligible. She appears to have overstepped the remit of a bench judge in my view.
How did this trial ever come to the High Court?
Eve Hibbert [claimant] has a brain injury—a reading age of a 9 year-old—and was represented at the trial by her mother Sarah Gillbard who acted as Eve’s “litigation friend.” For all legal matters related to the claim, Sarah Gillbard was effectively Eve Hibbert: the co-claimant alongside Martin Hibbert.
The purpose of the pre-action protocol is to make sure each party understands the other’s position and can make informed decisions about how to proceed—with a view to trying to settle any dispute without going to court. It provides an opportunity for alternative dispute resolution to be explored, thereby reducing costs, especially if the need for a trial can be averted. In all circumstances, litigation should be the last resort.
On behalf of the claimants—Martin Hibbert and Sarah Gillbard (Eve Hibbert)—a pre-action protocol letter was sent to Richard D. Hall by Hudgell Solicitors. While a letter is not mandatory, once issued the High Court should have expected protocol to be followed thereafter by both parties.
In response to the letter, Hall explained that he recorded the public road outside of Eve Hibberts home, reviewed the footage and then deleted it. The only images he used in relation to the claimants were already in the public domain and therefore subject to fair use for the purpose of his investigative journalism.
Hall wrote:
[Transcript] I am not currently, nor do I intend to in the future, pursue any activity that could amount to harassment of your clients. [. . .] I will be willing on this one occasion to make an exception to what is standard journalistic practice and hereby make a conditional offer to remove the images of your clients that are contained within videos currently hosted on my website.
Perhaps this could have been sufficient to conclude the matter or could have led to alternative dispute resolution, but we’ll never know. Under cross examination by Paul Oakley, Sarah Gillbard confirmed that she had seen neither the pre-action protocol letter nor Hall’s response. One of the two claimants appeared not only to have taken no part in notifying Hall of the intended prosecution but had no idea what his position was before agreeing to proceed to trial.
Paul Oakley addressed this directly in his summation.
[Transcript – Oakley] [. . .] it is astonishing, gravely astonishing that the solicitors for the Claimants did not direct Sarah Gillbard to the essential correspondence in this matter. [. . .] [T]his matter perhaps could have been resolved by other means. [. . .] But that opportunity in line with the overriding objective was lost, and the opportunity was lost I say because the Claimants’ solicitors did not inform Sarah Gillbard of pertinent parts of this litigation. [. . .] [T]here was no reply to Mr Hall’s response, but this matter could potentially have settled without having to come to court.
Karen Steyn recognised that Eve Hibbert—via Sarah Gillbard—had a general right to be fully informed:
[Ruling] – [. . .] it was better that Eve, who is an adult, albeit she has cognitive deficits, was not kept in the dark.
Sarah Gillbard agreed and, with respect to the pre-action protocol, said Eve should have been fully informed:
[Transcript – Oakley] – Indeed, when Sarah Gillbard was asked: “Had you known about the responses from Mr Hall, would you have told Eve?” She answered: “Yes.”
Yet, contradicting her own view and effectively the same view held by one of the claimants, Steyn decided this “gravely astonishing” oversight by the claimants’ solicitors—keeping Eve “in the dark”—was irrelevant. Steyn didn’t bother to mention it in her ruling:
[Ruling] – It is unnecessary to do more than briefly summarise the key features of the procedural history. [. . .] The claimants’ solicitors sent a pre-action protocol letter to the defendant. [. . .] The defendant responded on 11 January 2023. [. . .] The stance taken by the defendant in his Defence and Part 18 request and response prompted the claimants to make an application for summary judgment on four issues
The summary judgment, issued by Steyn’s High Court colleague Richard Davison more than five months before the trial began, barred Hall from seeing evidence that would have potentially proven the claimants case and ruled the evidence he could have submitted in his own defence inadmissible. In his written judgement, Richard Davison stated that Sarah Gillbard had supported the application for the summary judgement and had confirmed that Eve sustained her injuries in the bombing.
Sarah Gillbard is only mentioned once in the summary judgement hearing transcript and then only to list her as Eve Hibbert’s litigation friend. There is no mention of her submitting the evidence Davison later relied upon. Given the pre-protocol letter debacle, one has to wonder if Sarah Gillbard—effectively Eve Hibbert—knew anything about the claimed basis for the summary judgement prior to Davison’s ruling.
Irrespective of Steyn’s dismissal of the protocol failure, it might appear to the rest of us that a trial could have been averted but the prosecution was eager to bring it to the High Court. This was evidently on the pre-condition the prosecution could omit the evidence that would have, theoretically, substantiated their claim while Hall couldn’t present the evidence bringing their claim into question.
Clearly, to some degree at least, one of the claimants was not fully aware of the basis of the claim. Other matters discussed at the trial strengthen this suspicion.
It seems Eve Hibbert had little involvement in the claim and was merely added in as a co-claimant by Martin Hibbert and his legal team. The case looked more like The State & Martin Hibbert vs Richard D. Hall.
Given the precedent Steyn set with her ruling, and its possible implications for freedom of expression and press freedoms, perhaps there were other parties who wanted this case to be heard in the High Court of so-called Justice. Certainly there was evidence presented in the court to support this contention. We’ll discuss this in the concluding Part 3.
Hypothetically Ruling
In Part 1 we established the unreasonable “course of conduct”—deemed in Karen Steyn’s ruling to constitute harassment of the claimants by Hall—was his investigative journalism. Emphasising this point, Steyn judged:
[Ruling] – In my judgment, Mr Price’s [Jonathan Price’s] summary of the defendant’s conduct which I have set out at paragraph 13 above is accurate.
Where paragraph 13 read:
[Ruling] – [. . .] alleging that the event which catastrophically and fundamentally changed both of their [the claimants’] lives simply did not happen; making those allegations concertedly, publicly and commercially; alleging that the claimants (and many hundreds of others) are committing the most heinous dishonesty, a deception upon the whole world; taking each and every public statement made by Martin Hibbert and subjecting it to purported statement analysis; gathering together, and making it clear he will gather together, any snippet of the claimants’ information that happens to come into, or close to, the public domain; and seeking out and finding Ms Gillbard on social media, visiting her and Eve’s home, and taking video footage of them. [Jonathan Price] said that the claimants feel suffocated and permanently surveilled by the defendant, and his followers who believe his theory.
The summary judgement stopped Hall from showing the evidence revealing there was no bomb and the presence of crisis actors—though not the claimants—in the Arena that night. Karen Steyn was among the people who rejected Hall’s appeals to overturn Davison’s shocking decision.
Having upheld the decision to strike out the crucial evidence, Steyn was able to rule all of Hall’s journalism unreasonable, and ultimately criminally liable, without acknowledging any part of it except the elements relating to the claimants. Therefore, every “opinion” Hall consequently expressed—with regard to the claimants—was characterised as the full scope of his journalism.
Under cross examination, Jonathan Price asked Hall if he had “been compelled to believe that the Manchester Arena bombing was a well organised and well planned fake terrorist incident?”
Hall replied:
[Transcript – Hall] – I have not been compelled to believe it. I believe it because the primary evidence shows that there was no bomb in that room that exploded. Primary evidence which was omitted from the public enquiry [sic].
Jonathan Price then took Hall through a hypothetical argument which imagined the evidence—showing there was no bomb—did not exist. Price repeatedly asked Hall how he would feel about the claimants in this hypothetical scenario.
[Transcript – Price] – [. . .] What if it is true that that is what happened to these people? If that is true, would you accept that it would be wrong to accuse them of lying about it? [Hall] – Well, you can get the evidence to show me that it is true by agreeing to my, my application for the CCTV evidence. [Price] – Just answer my question. [. . .] If it is true, just use your imagination and enter a world in which it is true that this happened, is it wrong to accuse them of lying about it? [Hall] – I am not a legal person, I do not know what the rules are on answering completely hypothetical questions that I believe there is no evidence for, so perhaps the judge can help me on that. [Price] – That is OK. That is, if that is the position you wish to adopt, I am not going to take that any further.
Jonathan Price did take his line of hypothetical questioning further, repeatedly asking Hall what he he might think if Price’s own Manchester bombing hypothesis were true. Hall accepted the claimants sustained injuries but maintained they had not been injured in a bombing. Ultimately, Hall explained why, in reality, he thought the claimants—specifically Martin Hibbert—were upset.
[Transcript – Hall] I can give you a more plausible explanation as to why they are upset. [. . .] I accept that there is some upset, and my opinion is that upset is caused because of what I have exposed.
Both the prosecution and Karen Steyn were in agreement with Hall on this point. Steyn said that Price was correct when he highlighted that Hall’s “allegation” that the bombing “simply did not happen” and Hall’s subsequent investigation of and speculation about the claimants, inferring they were among those engaged in “a deception upon the whole world,” had left the claimants feeling “suffocated and permanently surveilled.”
Contradicting herself, Steyn then ruled:
[Ruling] – The attack on Mr Hibbert’s honesty is not just a consequence of Mr Hall’s theory: it is a central building block.
Steyn’s ruling is based on the hypothetical argument outlined by Jonathan Price. It imagines that the real “central building block” of evidence exposing the Manchester hoax—reported by Hall—is not in the public domain. This fiction enabled Steyn to portray the “attack on Mr Hibbert’s honesty” as if it were baseless. The High Court did not permit Hall to present the evidence that could have fully justified his subsequent investigation, analysis and criticisms of the Martin Hibbert’s media persona and his many public statements.
What Harassment?
According to Steyn, Hall’s journalistic unreasonable course of conduct commenced in “June 2018.” In Steyn’s view this included the visit Hall made to Eve Hibbert’s home in September 2019 and Hall’s recording of the street outside her home.
Citing the relevant case law, Steyn outlined why she thought Hall’s journalism met the test for harassment and sustained criminal liability:
[Ruling] – [. . .] “harassment” is an ordinary English word which is left undefined in the PHA. Section 7(2) provides that references to harassing a person “include alarming the person or causing the person distress.” [. . .] Harassment is “a persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct, targeted at another person, which is calculated to and does cause that person alarm, fear or distress.” [. . .] The hallmark of harassment is conduct that is unacceptable and oppressive, not merely unattractive or unreasonable. It must be of an order which would sustain criminal liability. [. . .] I find that Mr Hall’s course of conduct amounted to harassment.
By Steyn’s own reasoning, Hall’s harassment of the claimants began in June 2018. She described the full extent of Hall’s purported “persistent and deliberate course of unreasonable and oppressive conduct, targeted at [the claimants]”:
[Ruling] – Mr Hall intended to try to speak to Ms Gillbard. [. . .] I accept that his intention was to ask politely for Ms Gillbard’s help. Nonetheless, it would have involved springing on her a request for an interview, on her doorstep. [. . .] He knocked on the front door several times but there was no answer, and he did not speak to Ms Gillbard, Eve, or anyone else in Ms Gillbard’s home. [. . .] Mr Hall then left his vehicle for a few hours parked in the street “about three doors down” from Ms Gillbard’s house. On the dashboard, he left a camera rolling. [. . .] The camera recorded footage which Mr Hall later viewed. [. . .] [Hall] set it up to capture any images of Eve leaving her house, including images of her on her driveway. Mr Hall subsequently deleted the footage from the memory card. He did not publish any of the camera footage that he obtained.
Defence Barrister Paul Oakley asked Martin Hibbert:
[Transcript – Oakley] Do you have any evidence whatsoever that Mr Hall has ever attended the vicinity of Eve’s home after 1 September .. 2019?
Martin Hibbert confirmed that he had none.
Nearly two years after Hall’s single and brief September 2019 investigatory visit to Sarah Gillbard’s street, in July 2021—for some not entirely clear reason—Greater Manchester Police’s (GMP’s) Operation Manteline team conducted enquiries in the street. They reviewed Hall’s film Manchester the Night of the Bang and, with respect to both the film, his accompanying book and the visit, concluded:
[Transcript] – [. . .] no further activity was reported to the Manteline team, and no further action has been taken
In July 2021 GMP found no evidence that any aspect of Hall’s enquiries as an investigative journalist were criminally liable. At that time, GMP saw no reason to take any “further action.”
In her ruling, Steyn omitted this evidence. She truncated GMP’s written findings and edited the record:
[Ruling] – GMP confirmed in their letter that “no further activity was reported to the Manteline team.”
During the trial, Paul Oakley asked Sarah Gillbard when she first became aware of Hall’s investigation and his visit to her home. Sarah Gillbard confirmed that it was Operation Manteline investigators who initially alerted her:
[Transcript – Gillbard] – [I] first heard the Defendant’s name . . . [in or] around the summer of 2021.
Sarah Gillbard also confirmed that Martin Hibbert had not raised any concerns with her (Eve Hibbert) about Hall prior to the summer of 2021.
Oakley drew Sara Gillbard’s attention to her written statement about the notification she receive from GMP. She said:
[-Transcript – Gillbard (written)] – I laughed it off to begin with. I did not think it was serious until the officers advised me to inform our neighbours and Eve’s school in case they were to see anything suspicious. Once they left I informed our neighbours and phoned Eve’s school. I also rang Martin to say that the Defendant had been videoing Eve.
Martin Hibbert confirmed that he too only became aware of Hall’s September 2019 visit as a result of the phone call he received from Sarah Gillbard in the summer of 2021:
[Transcript – Hibbert] – [. . .] Sarah rang me. I remember her saying that Mr Hall had been posting on the internet about how he had set up a camera outside their house to film Eve.
Oakley asked Sarah Gillbard how and when Eve Hibbert first became aware of Hall’s activities:
[Transcript – Gillbard] – Because she will have overheard me either speaking to my mother, or Martin. [. . .] She was very confused, did not know who the Defendant was.
Oakley asked Gillbard to confirm when Eve overheard her conversations about Hall:
[Transcript – Gillbard] – It will be around the time that I was notified [by Operation Manteline – July 2021] and was having a discussion with my mother.
In July 2021, GMP found no evidence to suggest Hall had caused Eve Hibbert any “alarm, fear or distress.” Eve Hibbert did not even know who Hall was and only heard about him from her parents.
Oakley asked Sarah Gillbard when she became fearful for Eve’s safety—consequently experiencing presumed “alarm, fear or distress.” She replied:
[Transcript – Gillbard] – When the police had actually looked around outside, asking me what was over the back of the property, and also with them telling me to inform neighbours and school, just as a precaution.
Paul Oakley enquired of Gillbard if either Hall or any of his “supporters” had done anything to cause Eve Hibbert any alarm, fear or distress after July 2021. Gillbard agreed there had been “no other incidents of any kind, either from Mr Hall or from any of his supporters, which have required the police to investigate.”
Sarah Gillbard averred she was eager to distance Eve from any association with the alleged Manchester Arena bombing and stated that she did not want Eve to be perceived as “that girl from the Arena.” The prosecution claimed that Hall had disclosed how Eve reportedly sustained her injuries to her neighbours. Sarah Gillbard presented the evidence that thoroughly contradicted this claim.
Sarah Gillbard alleged that the “whole street” knew about Eve as a result of Hall’s September 2019 visit. Yet, Sarah Gillbard admitted to the Court that she knew nothing about Hall’s September 2019 visit herself until the summer of 2021. Therefore, she had no evidence and no reason to claim Hall told any of her neighbours about Eve’s injuries prior to July 2021.
Paul Oakley logically deduced:
[Transcript – Oakley] – [S]elf evidently, neither you nor the neighbours were aware of his activities because you certainly do not mention that you were aware of him, until September of 2021.
If any neighbours are now aware, the evidence presented to the High Court clearly indicated that it was Sarah Gillbard and probably Operation Manteline officers who informed them.
Again, Karen Steyn found otherwise, contrary to the evidence:
[Ruling] – [Hall] spoke to three of her neighbours, ascertaining their lack of knowledge that a victim of the Attack was living in their street (paragraph 83 above), thereby disclosing information about Eve that her mother had sought to keep private.
Paragraph 83 read:
[Ruling] – [Hall] decided to knock on neighbours’ doors to ask if they knew anything about the Manchester incident. [Hall] only got a response from three of [the claimants’] neighbours and none of them knew that there was a Manchester ‘victim’ in the street. Similarly, in [his] Film, Mr Hall said, “I couldn’t find anyone in the street who knew she had been involved”.
There is no evidence in paragraph 83 that Hall disclosed information about Eve Hibbert to any of Sarah Gillbard’s neighbours, only that he asked what they knew about the Manchester Arena incident. It would have been easy enough for Hall to deduce from their lack of knowledge that no one knew Eve was reportedly involved.
The Stalker Man
The evidence presented at trial revealed there were no objective reasons why Eve Hibbert should be concerned about any of Hall’s activities or be fearful of his “supporters.” Neither Hall nor any of the people who agree with his “hoaxed attack hypothesis” have ever done anything to cause Eve any alarm or distress. Unless questioning her account is the sole cause of that distress.
Without any rational justification, Sarah Gillbard chose to use the epithet of “the stalker man” to describe Hall to Eve Hibbert. When asked by Paul Oakley, Sarah Gillbard said that the term did not imply a person who is stalking or hunting a person. Oakley challenged this, putting it to Gillbard that “stalker man” was patently a “threatening monika.”
Contradicting herself and acknowledging that calling Hall “the stalker man” did indeed imply to Eve that Hall presented some sort of threat to her safety, Sarah Gillbard rhetorically asked:
[Transcript – Gillbard] – [Hall] did not make his presence known when he chose to set up a camera down the street did he? Is that not a stalker?
This is not the definition of a stalker. It is a description of standard investigative journalism. Despite her denials, it was clear that Sarah Gillbard was fully cognoscente of the implication of using “stalker man” to describe Hall to Eve Hibbert. Gillbard intended to instill a sense of fear in Eve and Karen Steyn acknowledged this fact:
[Ruling] – Ms Gillbard first told Eve about the defendant when she learned from the police about his visit. She wanted Eve to be on her guard, and it is unsurprising that Ms Gillbard perceived what he described doing in his video as stalking.
It is not surprising if you are unfamiliar with how journalists conduct investigations. If you are aware of investigative journalism it is unconscionable to describe Hall’s actions as “stalking.”
Steyn clearly understood that describing Hall as a stalker to Eve served as a warning. Steyn’s reasoning thereafter was inexplicable. She judged:
[Ruling]* Mr Oakley submitted that any harm to Eve has been caused not by the defendant’s activities, but by her mother’s decision to [. . .] to call him “the stalker man.” [. . .] I reject that contention. [The claimants cannot] be criticised for explaining to her [Eve], in simple terms, what [Hall] has done.
But referring to Hall as a stalker was not an explanation of anything Hall had done. It was a completely irrational, pejorative interpretation of his behaviour, presumably based upon a perception that visiting your house once—to politely request an interview—and then observing your movements on one occasion, before deleting and never publishing any part of that recorded observation, constituted stalking. Frankly, this is a risible contention.
With respect to the “alarm, fear and distress” Hall purportedly caused Eve Hibbert, a clear timeline of events was presented to the court by the prosecution witnesses.
Nothing Hall did, prior to July 2021, was of any concern to GMP or the claimants. There was no activity in relation to the claimants after July 2021. There was no evidence presented in court to substantiate the claim that anything Hall or his supporters did caused the claimants “alarm, fear or distress” or constituted anything criminally liable.
If Eve was alarmed by or fearful of Hall or his supporters, the evidence presented during the trial made it abundantly clear that this was a result of her parents describing Hall to her as a stalker. Clearly, there was no justification for them doing so.
Steyn’s finding, that Hall’s 2019 visit was part of his supposedly harassing course of conduct was not supported by the evidence presented in court. The only remaining part of Halls conduct that could have possibly caused the claimants any “alarm, fear or distress” was that he had reported the evidence showing that the Manchester Arena bombing “simply did not happen.”
The High Court pointedly refused to examine any of that evidence.
Martin Hibbert’s Self-Contradictory Evidence
Karen Steyn said that she found the testimonies of all the prosecution witnesses to be honest. Therefore, where the witnesses made statements in court that thoroughly undermined their claim against Hall, Steyn should have considered these presumably honest disclosures as evidence suggesting she should reject their claim. Steyn ignored all of the contradictions.
These glaring deficiencies in the claimants case were most notable in the testimony of Martin Hibbert.
Martin Hibbert said that he first became aware of Hall’s work in May 2018 after a friend had told him about Hall’s videos posted on YouTube. In his written testimony, which he attested to in court, Martin Hibbert said:
[Transcript – Hibbert (written)] In early May 2018 [a friend told me about] a Youtuber who stated that the arena bomber had never happened. [. . .] [My friend] told me the person’s name was Richard D Hall. [. . .] According to the videos all of the survivors, including me and Eve, and deceased victims had been actors paid for our services. It deeply angered and infuriated me, but I was too busy with work and campaigning to give it too much thought at that stage. I thought it was something that would pass. I tried to ignore it.
Martin Hibbert claimed Richard D. Hall had posted multiple videos on YouTube in May 2018. These videos, whoever made them, obviously did not cause either him or Eve Hibbert any “alarm, fear or distress” at the time. Hibbert clearly stated he was angry.
Under cross examination, Paul Oakley asked Martin Hibbert what he knew about Richard D. Hall’s alleged offending videos:
[Transcript – Hibbert] – I remember it well [. . .] the one bit I, I remember of it [one of the videos] was Richard seemed to have an issue with me talking about the number 22.
Under oath, in the High Court, Martin Hibbert said he clearly remembered that in May 2018 he was aware of Richard D. Hall’s videos which were quizzical about his and Eve’s accounts.
Martin Hibbert recollections were fuzzy to say the least. He could not have been aware of any Richard D. Hall videos—in May 2018—even remotely like the ones he described. As Steyn noted in her ruling:
[Ruling] – However, the 2018 Video does not refer to the claimants by name or show any images of them. Nor does it address the number of shrapnel wounds [22] Mr Hibbert received.
Martin Hibbert’s reliability as a witness was highly questionable. His account of events in May of 2018 was entirely false. Yet, Karen Steyn said:
[Ruling] – Mr Hibbert was undoubtedly an honest witness, it seems probable that his recollection of when he first heard of Mr Hall and the content of the first video that he saw is, understandably, in some respects disordered.
It wasn’t “in some respects disordered.” It was entirely wrong or deceptive, who knows which? Steyn’s claim that Martin Hibbert was “undoubtedly an honest witness” was not evident from his testimony. Martin Hibbert brought his own testimony into further doubt.
Paul Oakley asked Martin Hibbert about how he had reacted when Sarah Gillbard first told him about the information she received from GMP in July 2021. Oakley drew Martin Hibbert’s attention to a passage Hibbert had written in his book—published in April 2024 and serialised in a national newspaper during the trial:
[Transcript – Hibbert – (written)] – A cold hard fury welled inside me. ‘He has done what?’ With trembling hands I did some Googling and discovered that Hall had more than 16 million views and 80,000 subscribers on YouTube.
What need would Martin Hibbert have of “Googling” Hall in 2021 to discover details about his YouTube channel if this channel was allegedly a source of his “alarm, fear and distress” in 2018? Furthermore, none of Hall’s Manchester Arena work was hosted on YouTube in 2021.
A key aspect of the harassment claim made against Hall was that his actions had exposed Eve Hibbert to public scrutiny against her wishes and without her consent. Specifically, Sarah Gillbard—effectively Eve Hibbert—did not want Eve to be known as “that girl from the Arena” or for “people who don’t know” Eve to discuss, speculate or study Eve’s medical condition, nor question how she sustained her injuries.
The claimants maintained that it was Hall who had caused Eve Hibbert alarm, fear and distress by exposing her to such public scrutiny against her wishes. That is not what the evidence showed.
Referring to the serialisation of Martin Hibbert’s book in the Daily Mail, Paul Oakley drew Martin Hibbert’s attention to some of the published excerpts:
[Transcript – Hibbert (written)] – [Eve Hibbert] was just a few metres ahead, just out of reach lying on her front on her left cheek. Her eyes were closed, blood trickled from her gaping mouth as she gasped for breath, a horrifying hole around her right temple exposing brain tissue. [. . .] She continued to gasp like a fish out of water. [. . .] I could see Eve’s beautiful torn face.
And Further:
[Transcript – Hibbert (written)] – Eve’s doctors explained that she was still in a coma and desperately poorly with severe head injuries. They also warned us that she would look very different. She had a tracheotomy to help her breathe. [. . .] [Eve] was still non-verbal, being fed by a tube, and would require care 24/7 for life. Walking talking and eating would need to be learned all over again.
Martin Hibbert agreed with Paul Oakley that these were “deeply private and deeply personal recollections about [. . .] Eve and her condition.” Initially, Martin Hibbert would not accept Oakley’s subsequent and obvious point that, by publishing such lurid accounts of Eve’s injuries and medical history, he had opened her and her injuries up to public scrutiny.
When Sarah Gillbard was cross examined by Paul Oakley, he asked her if Martin Hibbert sought her consent to publish Eve’s medical history and details:
[Transcript – Oakley] – Were you, before it was published, were provided with an entire, what is called a proof copy, of the book before it went to press? [Gillbard] – No [Oakley] – Did Martin discuss the content of the book with you? [Gillbard] – Elements [Oakley] – What elements? [Gillbard] – Regarding our relationship
The “elements” Martin Hibbert discussed with Sarah Gillbard related to their former intimate relationship. Martin Hibbert did not discuss other proposed elements, such as a vivid description of Eve’s brain tissue being visible through a hole in her head.
Oakley drew Gillbard’s attention to the graphic details of Eve’s medical history, openly discussed by Martin Hibbert in his book:
[Transcript – Oakley] – Did he tell you, before he was publishing the book, that he was going to go into this extent of detail [about Eve’s medical history and condition] [Gillbard] – No
It was firmly established in the trial that Martin Hibbert did not obtain Eve’s consent before openly discussing her injuries and their effect upon her. This was purportedly contrary to Sarah Gillbard’s and, therefore, Eve’s wishes.
Evidently, Martin Hibbert is perfectly willing to discuss Eve’s injuries and her medical condition and make them available for public scrutiny and speculation, irrespective of Eve’s consent. Martin Hibbert said that it was “the truth” that mattered to him.
[Transcript – Hibbert] – [My] book was not just about good news, it had to show, you know the, the bad things that we went through. [. . .] I was there with Eve that night, so why would I not write about that? Because it is fact, it is the truth. [. . .] [Oakley] – [. . .] if you put the information out there you have absolutely no control over how people discuss Eve’s condition, or her treatment, or her improvement. You cannot authorise people’s thoughts about Eve, you having put her out into the public domain, can you? [. . .] [Hibbert] [. . .] that is correct
Despite his resistance, Martin Hibbert conceded, in the High Court, that he had put personal details of Eve’s medical history in the public domain. Hibbert eventually acknowledged that, having done so, he had invited public speculation about Eve and her injuries and how she sustained them.
Richard D. Hall estimated that, since 2018, there had been more than 168 listed media appearances and reported interviews where Martin Hibbert had spoken about both his own and Eve’s personal Manchester Arena related stories. Martin Hibbert, though unable to verify the number, confirmed that he had given numerous legacy media interviews as described since 2018.
Martin Hibbert added that he had good working relationships with journalists who had “been with [him] from the start.” It was further established that Martin Hibbert pays for social media accounts that describe him as a “media personality.”
Martin Hibbert agreed with Paul Oakley that Richard D. Hall had never sought to gain any information in respect to his or his daughters stories by “nefarious means.” With the exception of his September 2019 visit to Sarah Gillbard’s address, Martin Hibbert accepted that Hall had used nothing but publicly available information that he, Martin Hibbert, had “authorised” for public scrutiny.
Making the Case for the Prosecution
From my layman’s perspective, based on the evidence presented during the trial, it seemed blatant to me that the prosecution did not provide any evidence to substantiate any aspect of their claim of harassment. In fact, the evidence presented suggested the claim was totally absurd.
Evidently, neither claimant had any concerns about Richard D. Hall until July 2021 when GMP Operation Manteline investigators informed them about his visit to Gillbard’s home. At that stage there was no basis for any further action by the police and there was no evidence of any conduct by Hall that met the test for, or even raised the possibility of “criminal liability.”
Contrary to Steyn’s ruling, it was clearly impossible that anything Hall did prior July 2021 could have caused the claimants any “alarm, fear or distress.” There was certainly no evidence they felt any distress as a result of Hall’s actions.
Sarah Gillbard—Eve Hibbert—had no knowledge of Hall at all prior to being informed by GMP. Though Martin Hibbert claimed he did, his testimony was implausible and, in any event, he had not raised any concerns about anything Hall had done or said with his own family.
The only reason Eve Hibbert experienced “alarm, fear and distress” with regard to Hall was that her parents—absent any justification—described Hall to her as a stalker. Others around her, such as Eve’s carers and her school, maintained this delusion. Understandably, Eve was frightened and distressed, but not as a result of anything Hall nor any of his “supporters” did.
Prior to the trial, Hall’s explanation of his journalism and conciliatory offer was withheld from one of the claimants by the prosecution legal team. Consequently, Eve Hibbert—Sarah Gillbard—evidently came to trial with virtually no understanding of the litigation brought against Hall in her name.
Sarah Gillbard went to great lengths to ensure that Eve Hibbert was distanced as far as possible from the alleged Manchester bombing and was not perceived as “that girl from the Arena.” She claimed that Hall was guilty of harassment by virtue of exposing Eve to public scrutiny. In truth, the evidence clearly showed Hall conducted his very brief investigation of Eve based upon information already placed in the public domain by Eve’s co-claimant Martin Hibbert.
The evidence showed that Martin Hibbert had a close working relationship with the legacy media. He had willingly engaged in countless broadcast and published interviews and written books which ensured Eve Hibbert remained “that girl from the Arena.” Not only was this entirely at odds with Sarah Gillbard’s wishes, but the evidence revealed he had not sought his own daughter’s consent—or even informed Eve—that he intended to publish and publicly discuss her intensely personal medical history and details once again.
That Martin Hibbert should then launch a civil claim of harassment against Hall for legitimately examining and scrutinising the injury details Martin Hibbert placed in the public domain is perhaps one of the most ludicrous episodes ever in British legal history. That Karen Steyn, a High Court bench judge, considered Martin Hibbert’s claim proven—on the balance of evidence—is deeply troubling.
Martin Hibbert’s sworn testimony under oath was an incoherent jumble of self-contradictions. His referenced timeline of Hall’s journalism, supposedly substantiating his claim that he was caused resultant “alarm, fear and distress,” was indisputably wrong and proven to be wrong during the trial.
Contrary to the evidence presented at the trial, Karen Steyn declared that “Mr Hibbert was undoubtedly an honest witness.” In truth, the evidence provided to the court by Martin Hibbert gave considerable reason to doubt that he was.
Remarkably, perhaps recognising that Martin Hibbert’s testimony made no sense, Karen Steyn re-imagined the prosecution’s “disordered” evidence for them:
There is only one video in evidence that Mr Hall published after the Attack and prior to the first anniversary, in which he discusses what occurred on 22 May 2017. [. . .] It is possible that that is the video that was drawn to Mr Hibbert’s attention in May 2018. [. . .] I accept Mr Hibbert’s evidence that it was in 2018 that he first heard of Mr Hall and saw one of his videos, but the content of the video he recalls seeing in December 2018 more closely matches those which were published in 2020, and it is probable that he has misremembered the content.
Martin Hibbert’s account of Richard D. Hall’s journalism was definitely, not probably, wrong. If he “misremembered” when Hall’s alleged harassment first caused him to feel “alarm, fear and distress,” and if it was then shown in court that his account was indisputably false and Hall’s journalism could not have distressed him as he claimed, how, on the balance of evidence, can that harassment claim possibly be upheld?
Putting aside all the other evidence that exposed the weakness of the harassment claim against Hall, Hibberts evidence alone was surely sufficient to reject it. Karen Steyn apparently ignored the gaping holes in the prosecution’s evidence and explained them away on behalf of the prosecution.
As I understand it, this is not within the remit of a High Court bench judge. It brings into question whether Karen Steyn considered the balance of evidence at all.
The balance of evidence I heard and saw in the court did not come close to even supporting, let alone demonstrating a plausible claim of harassment against Hall. It is as if Karen Steyn was biased. While it might be OK for me to be biased—which I am—it is not acceptable for the presiding judge in a High Court trial to be biased against the defendant and in favour of the prosecution as far as I know.
We cannot consider the balance of evidence without acknowledging the evidence that was excluded by the summary judgment that preceded the trial. Based on this complete “balance of evidence” I contend it is reasonable to describe the appalling trial of Richard D. Hall in the following terms.
Hall was not allowed to present the evidence that would have shown that the claimants accounts of where, when and how they sustained their injuries were highly dubious. Thus, he was barred from providing the evidence that would have shown he was conducting investigative journalism and not harassing anybody. The claimants were supported and protected—favoured—by the High Court at every stage of the litigation.
Hall was brought before the High Court for no apparent reason. Opportunities to engage in alternative dispute resolution and avert the need for a trial were seemingly, deliberately hobbled by the prosecution. The trial should have properly been heard in a minor administrative court. There was seemingly some undisclosed need to test the claim in the High Court.
The evidence presented in the trial did not substantiate the claim and, in nearly every regard, comprehensively negated it. The evidence showed that no part of Hall’s course of conduct caused the claimants any “alarm, fear or distress” prior to July 2021. Thereafter, any fear or distress they felt was largely a product of their own imaginations and not based upon any rational appreciation of real circumstances or real events.
The only thing that Hall did to cause the claimants distress was to report the evidence that cast doubt upon their accounts of the Manchester Arena bombing. It seems to me that Hall has been found guilty of harassment by the alleged High Court of Justice because he demonstrated, on the balance of evidence, that the Manchester Arena bombing “simply did not happen.”
In the concluding Part 3 of this series we will explore why the claim was brought against Hall and who was involved in more depth. We’ll also consider the implications of the ruling based upon statements made in court and the legacy media’s reporting of the trial.