KB-2024-003652 - [2025] EWHC 1900 (KB)

At [3], the Particulars of Claim set out the Email and its publishees, and complain of all of the words published within it. The full text of the Email is as follows:

“Dear Daniel,

You requested a response to your proposed course of action regarding the Consent Order by 4pm today, Wednesday 25 October 2023, regarding whether or not I oppose your proposals.

As you are aware, usually I tend not to dignify your threats and unbearably repetitive accounts of the latest injustices to have befallen you with a response. But as the number of your perceived persecutors (judges, liquidators, lawyers) grows, so your distortions of the truth become ever more inflated.

Here are my views on the points you wish the liquidators to consent to individually below:

•

They agree with me that it would be in the interests of the Company not to incur further costs and expense;

This is disingenuous on a number of levels. Your deliberate intention is the opposite of what you claim - you aim to create more costs for the company. Look at the huge expense caused by the volumes of pointless correspondence you generate that then requires a response. For example look at the amount of correspondence caused by you pretending to pay £40,000 into Court but then attaching a last minute condition to give yourself a reason to withhold payment. The sole reason the costs continue to be incurred and the liquidation can’t be concluded is you.

•

They agree with me that the Consent Order would not in any way prejudice the Company or any of its stakeholders, including the shareholders, all of them;

You refer to “the Company” and its stakeholders as if it is a functioning entity. We all know it has been liquidated and has no property, no business, no office and no employees. Your only interest is opportunistic and selfish but you try to give the impression your motives are noble - you hope that if you make enough of a nuisance of yourself people will give you money to go away. This is your modus operandi: you have made a career as a vexatious litigant abusing the legal system. When you first appeared you were always saying you wanted to buy shares but there was always a reason not to put your lawyer in funds. This was your game all along and you never had a serious intention to buy shares.

•

They agree with me that (as they have already have stated in open correspondence) I have an economic interest in the Company; and

You are not present on the register of shareholders and we had not heard of you when the company went into administration nearly 5 years ago. I don’t believe you have a genuine economic interest in the company but rather you have deliberately tried to insert yourself in the middle of a dispute that is nothing to do with you. You have achieved something remarkable - you have united most if not all of a group of shareholders who hitherto have been able to agree on nothing, but who now agree that your motives are opportunistic and without integrity and that your actions are self-serving and contrary to the interests of all shareholders. No mean feat considering how bitterly divided the bona fide shareholders have all been.

•

They agree that I have standing in the Company by virtue of my shareholding and other documentation.

Of course you have no standing and this was the decision of Judge Jones. I note that Judge Jones is the most recent addition to those figures who are always putting you down and treating you unfairly, and that he joins the liquidators, their lawyers and the person chosen by the lawyers to serve proceedings on you. No doubt you will soon be lodging another complaint to a professional body.

In short, I believe that what I seek in the Consent Order is not controversial, does not in any way damage the interests of the Company, improves the interests of the Company, does not in any way damage the interests of any shareholder, improves the interests of all shareholders and will result in the avoidance of costs/waste of Court time.

When you refer to the interests of ‘The Company’ you really mean ‘the interests of D. McAteer’. When you say shareholder interests will be improved and costs will be avoided you are again being disingenuous - your whole ambulance chasing campaign to artificially prolong this dispute has been about wasting Court time, increasing costs and damaging shareholder interests, until people consider you a sufficient nuisance to pay you to go away. Let’s call it like it is.

I think it’s time we all acknowledge that by seeking to prolong this case for years after it should have been resolved and contrary to the interests and wishes of all the genuine shareholders you have shown yourself to be nothing more than an opportunist trying to insert himself in the middle of a dispute that is not your concern, in the hope of making an unjustified profit for yourself at the expense of the genuine shareholders - of whom you are not one.

I doubt this is the first campaign of this type you have conducted.

Sincerely,

Richard Thoburn”

At [4], the Particulars of Claim plead the following natural and ordinary meanings:

“4.1

that the Claimant has made a career as a vexatious litigant abusing the legal system;

4.2

that the Claimant’s modus operandi and deliberate intention is to make a sufficient nuisance of himself that people will give him money to go away; and

4.3

that the Claimant’s motives in the Hat & Mitre litigation have at all material times been opportunistic and without integrity and amounted to an ambulance chasing campaign to artificially prolong a dispute in which he had placed himself in the middle but that was not of his concern, to waste Court time, to deliberately increase costs and to damage shareholder interests, of which he was not one and at no time had any genuine intention to become one.”

At [5], there is the following plea:

“The publication of the said words contained within the Email has gravely injured the reputation of the Claimant, has caused her (sic) considerable embarrassment and distress, and serious harm to him and/or is likely to cause or continue to cause serious harm to him”.

At [6], it is pleaded:

“Further, or alternatively, the said words contained within the email were false and published maliciously and reflected adversely upon the Claimant’s professional reputation and calling”

At [7], under the heading “Particulars of Malice”, the following plea appears:

“The Defendant made no secret of his determined opposition to the Claimant increasing his shareholding in Hat & Mitre. In publishing the words in the Email to the remaining shareholders in that company, the Defendant did so knowing they (sic) to be false, or did so recklessly, not caring whether they were true or false, in order to induce unity amongst the remaining shareholders to oppose the Claimant’s proposed Consent Order”.

The prayer for relief seeks “Damages (including Aggravated Damages) Damages (sic), for Libel and/or for Malicious Falsehood (in the latter case pursuant to section 3(1)(b) of the Defamation Act 1952) in respect of the words complained of in the email”.