Allison Pearson’s Casual Libel

As realisation dawns on some of those out there on the right who had been hurling abuse at author Priyamvada Gopal that she is prepared to instruct lawyers and come after them, the attempts to delete incriminating evidence have begun. But screen shots have been taken, URLs copied: Dr Gopal has received serious death threats as a result of the torrent of abuse and passing round of fabricated Tweets. So who might be in trouble?

Well, apart from the Daily Mail’s pointless pundit Sarah “Vain” Vine, whose latest faux pas I noted earlier, there is the routinely vicious and deeply unpleasant David Vance, failed Northern Irish politician turned social media smear merchant. Vance has passed around the fake Tweet I covered in relation to Ms Vine. He has now deleted it.

But the evidence had already been captured. Also about to be contacted by Dr Gopal’s lawyers is, yes, the Daily Mail itself. Through the offices of Glenda Emeritus Amanda Platell, the fake Tweet has found its way into today’s edition of that paper. Ms Platell appears to have cobbled it together with a genuine Tweet. Oh dear!

But the best value for money so far is the increasingly wayward Allison Pearson, still inexplicably given a berth by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. She has also been circulating the fake Tweet, because she has - most inadvisedly - been striking up a Twitter friendship with Vance. That was not her finest hour.

She asked her new social media pal “David, is that an actual tweet from Gopal? If so deeply disturbing”. Tom Gann attempted to show her the error of her ways. “No, it’s extremely & libellously fake - also, Allison, this is quite an iffy person to be chatting too (& trusting) all normally”. She brushed this aside and dug herself deeper.

“Well, it’s been printed in The Mail today and their lawyers will have OK’d it. I will check with them”. TAKE IT DOWN FIRST. No, not listening. Omar Wareich did not appear to believe her. “Oh, that must mean it's true! Honestly”. What say Ms P? “Some of her colleagues tell me it’s true [this is bullshit. She hasn’t talked to any of Dr Gopal’s colleagues]. I’m getting it checked out. We will know if it’s fake because she will sue”.

Note the casual “yeah, whatever, so she’ll sue”. Wareich tried to alert her to the seriousness of the situation. "It was a crude fabrication - a semi-literate tweet, drawn in part from something attributed to Stalin. I don't think [Priyamvada Gopal] has ever flinched from owning what she has actually written”. His message did not get through.

“Fine. I must have been misinformed but I am still going to check to make sure. It is OK to still check things out is it?” It’s a fake, you know what’s coming down the track, you’ve been warned, take it down. Meanwhile, Dr Gopal has confirmed that the Police are involved, lawyers are about to be involved, and those hearing from said lawyers include the Mail and Vance. So as Ms Pearson echoed Vance, they will talk to her too.

Any competent journalist will know what happens when you stall for time instead of taking down defamatory material. Which tells you all you need to know about Allison Pearson.

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