Dylan

This "Brand" thing is getting increasingly murkier... text below if you hit paywall Russell Brand was granted gagging order against accuser in 2015 The High Court judge ruled a massage therapist could not discuss the allegation and that she must pay Brand and his then girlfriend, Jemima Goldsmith, £50,000 By Jonathan Ames A judge ordered a woman who made allegations against Russell Brand to pay tens of thousands of pounds in costs after granting the comedian a gagging order to silence her. Sitting in the High Court in 2015, Mr Justice Jay told Szilvia Berki that she must pay £50,000 on account after handing Brand and his then girlfriend, Jemima Goldsmith, an injunction that prevented the woman from contacting the police. The court order prevented Berki from discussing her allegations — which were never proved — with anyone apart from lawyers or doctors. Existence of the gagging order is the latest revelation to emerge since Brand was convicted last week of rape and three sexual assaults. In the case of the injunction awarded 11 years ago, Berki was barred from making “any allegation or insinuation” that either Brand or Goldsmith had “committed any criminal offence against her” — “or behaved towards her in a manner which may amount to a criminal offence”. A copy of the injunction was revealed at the weekend by Dan Neidle, a campaigning former City lawyer, who also claimed that he understood that Goldsmith was open to the terms of the injunction being varied. It is understood that Archerfield Partners — the law firm that successfully represented Brand and Goldsmith in obtaining the injunction — no longer acts for either of them. Mr Justice Jay, the judge who granted the wide-ranging gagging order, is well known for having been the lead counsel to the Leveson inquiry into press ethics, which reported in 2012. The judge, 67, was appointed to the High Court bench the year after the report was published. 📷Mr Justice JayChris Harris for the times On his website, Neidle noted that Berki, a massage therapist, reported allegations to Thames Valley police in 2014. The police said that they found that the comedian had no case to answer and closed their investigations. Berki then made allegations about Brand on social media and to the press, prompting the comedian and Goldsmith to take legal action, which, according to Neidle, initially included a claim for defamation. However, judges are generally reluctant to grant injunctions on the grounds of potential libel and Brand and Goldsmith were said to have changed tack and argued that they were being harassed. In the order granting the injunction, the judge went on to authorise Brand’s lawyers to begin bankruptcy proceedings against Berki if she did not pay the £50,000 within a few weeks. The Times understands that despite the injunction having been upheld on appeal Berki did not pay legal costs to Brand and Goldsmith. In his analysis of the injunction application 12 years earlier, Neidle noted that Berki was not represented by lawyers. He pointed out that in injunction applications a judge would be likely to discuss with lawyers whether the proposed restrictions were “necessary and proportionate”, and whether they were “compatible with the exclusions in the Protection from Harassment Act”. But Neidle noted that those points were not addressed in the judge’s ruling and that if Berki had been represented, “a lawyer would surely have raised these arguments”. “When a person is not represented by a lawyer, a judge is supposed to make allowances,” said Neidle, who added that “being heard on whether you harassed someone is one thing. Settling the terms of a lifelong injunction is another.” He said that there was no evidence that Berki’s interests “were protected when those terms were settled”. Neidle said that the injunction case raised wider questions for the judiciary, such as: “How could Mr Justice Jay grant an order of such breadth against an unrepresented defendant, without a trial, and without determining whether her allegations were true? Did he consider the proportionality and necessity of the order?” Neidle also queried whether other injunctions had been granted in similar circumstances, “supposedly to prevent harassment, but actually silencing people even in private conversations with friends, family and the police”. thetimes.com/uk/law/article/…