Three months ago we wrote the letter before action to Mr de Freitas lawyer. It was in response to his repeated libels on Radio, TV and in Newspapers.
The final straw was when he contradicted the Director of Public Prosecutions statement in December. By then i had had enough, That was the 7th time he had libelled me.
In late February his legal team had written back a letter in response denying everything and saying he would make a counter claim for harassment. The supposed harassment was for letters telling him to shut up and stop lying, and for a website that I created in January, see my January 1st post.
It was war. He was going to do everything in his power to make life difficult. All he needed to do was to put he hands in the air and say "I got it wrong" and promise never to go to go to press again and that would be it.
As per the usual course of action I issued the proceedings. That is we issued a claim in the High Court. We would wait for his lawyers to file a defence and in a years time we would have a trial. A judge would decide who was right and who was wrong and that would the end of it.
The last week had also been very press intense week. Today, on March the 17th it was Eleanor de Freitas inquest, which had been adjourned after her father went to the press. It was supposed to have happened in November, but got delayed for four months. The conclusion of the inquest death by suicide.
Mr de Freitas was not satisfied with that ruling. He wanted the coroner to release the CPS file against his daughter and to have an article 2 inquest or a jury inquest.
If that happened it would be a nightmare, because he would effectively put me on trial. He would take the evidence and twist it all around, and try to make me look guilty of contributing to his daughters death.
This explained why this wasn't the end of his press campaign. He would remain proactive and would continue speaking out.
Anyway we have issued libel proceedings and de Freitas was being more careful now, so that was a positive.
We shall see what the defence lawyers say in their defence, in two months time.
Otherwise it's my birthday in a few days time and there's a solar eclipse that day, so that's a good sign.
I'm feeling positive.
