Katie Hopkins Appeal FAILS

One hates to post on the same subject twice in the same day, but sometimes the good news is just too good not to make sure it reaches the widest possible audience, and I don’t just mean Piers Morgan and Eamonn Holmes standing alongside one another (allegedly). So what is too good to keep quiet? Ah well. This afternoon, another Zelo Street prediction was proved correct in the most delicious manner.

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Regular visitors will recall that, after pro-am motormouth Katie Hopkins was taken to court by writer and campaigner Jack Monroe for acts of defamation on Twitter, and Ms Hopkins lost, there was much talk of an appeal. I was even advised by a prominent QC that she would appeal. But nonetheless I stuck to the prediction, made less than a fortnight ago, that Hatey Katie would not be appealing. And so it has come to pass.

Jack Monroe

What has made the news yet more delicious is that Ms Hopkins was clearly minded to appeal, but for reasons best known to Herself Personally Now, somehow managed not to understand that this meant she had to take certain actions within a specified period of time. It was not quite the same as all those media offers coming in to her - on this occasion, she had to be proactive with no-one to prompt her.

This, it seems, was too much for Ms Hopkins, and as David Allen Green at Law And Policy has told, “Breaking: Katie Hopkins fails in (first) attempt to obtain permission to appeal decision in @MxJackMonroe case. No stay for costs ordered”. That there is no stay for costs ordered means Hatey Katie has to stump up the first instalment of £107,000 as previously ordered at the time the judgment was handed down.

It gets worse: the judge handing down this decision would not have been impressed, even had Ms Hopkins bothered to get her, er, stuff together within the necessary timescale: “Reason for refusal: Hopkins' application for permission to appeal left too late. Judge says permission would have been refused anyway”. Looks like there was no point in her bothering, then. Bear that in mind for later on.

Her appeal was made literally two days too late, as the judge confirmed: “Hopkins’ application for permission to appeal two days too late: ‘the order in this case was sealed two days before her application to me’”. So even if the judge had been minded to allow the appeal, the train had left the station. Where does she go now?

Green gives a hint of that with his final Twitter intervention: “‘There comes a point when the lower court no longer has jurisdiction over the case.’ Judge refusing Hopkins' appeal permission application”. The lower court. That means if Ms Hopkins wants to keep on appealing, she must do so to a higher court. And however rapidly she gets her act together, the reality is that this means it will be yet more expensive.

As the judge on that lower court has already put on record that he would not have given her permission to appeal, it is looking a yet more hopeless exercise. Time for Hatey Katie to admit defeat, pay a rather larger amount than two Dollars, and quit time wasting.