…but fear itself…

The roots of my issues with Ruhama go back a lot further, and stretch far wider, than this.

I have made several edits to text and additional redactions to files offered as evidence to remove references that might be in any way contentious to Rachel Moran as that is no part of my intention here, to the contrary, my intention here is to raise a very different issue, for which I do not consider her to be in any way responsible, so I am striving to adhere to a far stricter standard than the court order in place and can only apologise if there was any past oversight and offer my personal assurance that if there are any more they will be redacted immediately from the text as soon as I become aware of them.

At 21:49 on 29 February 2024 a much earlier version of this article, without this disclaimer, was somehow reloaded, I have now restored the article, and taken the precaution of changing my password.

I was brought through the courts for defamation for a year or so in 2018-19, unable to even dream about affording legal counsel, with no option but defend myself. I have a significant psychosocial disability as a result of autism, CPTSD and other factors that should have made this impossible for me, but left with no choice I did my best.

The only cause of action within the statute of limitations was a private email provided to the applicant by Ruhama a small NGO who lobbied aggressively for, and derive funding (they are usually over 95% state funded) and influence from, the “Nordic” or “Equality” model I have actively opposed since 2012. At that time the CEO was Sarah Benson, who moved to take up the position of CEO at Women’s Aid in May 2019

I reported this breach to the Data commissioners on 21 February 2019. It fell within the remit of both the Data Protection Act, 1988 that was in force until 24 May 2018 and the Data Protection Act 2018 that superceded it on the 25 May 2018. Unfortunately, because I sent the email in question on 9 April 2018 and was not aware it had been passed to a third party until 16 November 2018 I was told there was no way action could be taken without determining the date on which it was passed on.

That being so, the specific contents and context of the email that was passed on raise far wider reaching ethical and legal considerations that have been ignored by three Justice Ministers, who continue to fund Ruhama on demand, sometimes at a rate, and in contexts, that are questionable in their own right.

Let me draw your particular attention to one paragraph in my email of 9 April 2018:

“I have had 72 hours to think about this. Faced with any future judicial demand that I retract the deposition I have sworn I can see no realistic or tolerable alternative but end my life, leaving behind a further death bed statement of <redacted> other deceit that I am aware of in connection with the 2017 Sexual Offences act. It is the least I can do for the many, many sex workers I have known since, as well as for my own moral conscience.”

Another activist I had known since 1990 (who was also an eye witness in a position to support my testimony in the matters at issue) and was already mounting her own challenge to the Nordic Model through the courts, chose to take her own life on 7 February 2018, shortly before these events*. The previous email I sent to Sarah Benson on 3 November 2017 was partly triggered by, and refers to, another suicide, unrelated to sex work, but very local to me. I have redacted most of the specific reference here to respect the family, but it was originally sent intact.

I made formal complaint about all of this, including the wider implications, to then Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan on 28 February 2019, and followed up with a registered letter on 27 June 2019 that was also sent to Colm O’Dwyer SC (then Chairman of Ruhama) and Simon Harris TD (then Minister for Health and my Local TD who affects a special interest in the welfare of autistics like me). This letter included the email of 9 April 2018 I sent to Ruhama that was submitted to the court by Rachel Moran, and was the sole cause of action within statute against me, and a response from Ruhama under the signature of Sarah Benson to my query as to whether they had passed on that email. I also included an email I sent to Sarah Benson on 3 November 2017 as evidence of the prior knowledge of me and context upon which any decision or action she had taken was based.

Only Charlie Flanagan replied and that reply was brief, stock, stonewalling. At no time did Charlie Flanagan even attempt to suggest any way that I might access some kind of legal counsel, despite being aware that I was having to represent myself and holding evidence of my disability and limitations since 27 March 2019. It would have been a very small matter for him to arrange an exemption that allowed me access to the advice of a solicitor.

On 16 September 2020 I sent a far more restrained account of this matter to current Justice Minister Helen McEntee. I never received a reply but she seems willing to fund Ruhama, on demand, at a truly alarming rate that should be raising a lot of questions with no input from me.

I lived most of 2019 in absolute terror, and the closer the final hearing came the more afraid I was. I gave it all I had, but any lay litigant, up against a solicitor and a barrister, in any context, hasn’t got a prayer. A lay litigant who finds it traumatic to be among people, doesn’t even know that they are supposed to sit in the court, not the waiting room, waiting to be called, or (to this day) the appropriate way to ask to leave the court to use the bathroom takes that to a whole new level.

I believed costs would be awarded against me, and when that happened, unless I could find a way of raising the money (with no idea, how much money that might involve), the only course left open to me was to end my life. Because I am a recluse with no social, familial or community supports my options are far more limited than they might be for most people in a similar situation.

I was left watching my life count down as the summer turned to Autumn.

I had no access to advice let alone accommodation for my disability. The hostility within Civil Society to my most basic human rights had to be experienced to be believed. Every human and constitutional right and every law that could work in my favour seemed to have ceased to apply.

It was surreal.

I relive that terror every year, and the PTSD seems to be getting worse, not better. This year it has become so bad that I am reliving the fear anyway whether I confront that or not. Which is reinforced by everything the experience taught me about the reality behind politics, civil society and all the claims they make about “justice”, “equality”, “help” and “support”.

It is one thing to believe it is all one big, false, self serving, career and ambition machine, but quite another to experience being caught, helpless, between the wheels with no escape.

I could not even find access to a functioning conscience shared between them, which is what pretty much everything I had ever said or done in this issue, including the two distraught, and pointless, emails to Sarah Benson, and Ruhama had been about up to that point, accessing enough conscience to persuade them to treat the people who sell sex like equal human beings instead of milking their lives for funding, influence and career points.

I failed.

I gave up looking for a conscience or ‘better nature” to appeal to then, but I must never let that despair cross the line into learned helplessness within myself, which is why I must speak out now, before I find myself reliving it all, this time next year or the year after, to the point where I finally find myself just too afraid to face another day. (I feel fine the rest of the year, better than ever in many ways, until August approaches).

I am conditioned to accept anything that only affects me without protest so that when I am the victim of something like this that is too big to let go and get over I have no normal reflex reactions to draw upon, and any attempt to assert my subjective rights tends to be all wrong and go all over the place, but what happened here cannot possibly be right or acceptable, even if it only hurt me.

When the attitude of elected officials is such that they, not only turn a blind eye to an organisation treating at least one person in such a dangerous way, but continue to increase their funding out of all proportion to similar organisations, that attitude contains the potential to hurt a lot of vulnerable people, particularly when combined with a total absence of empathy for a disabled person stranded in an impossible position with nothing resembling equal access to justice.

Most people seem to deal with legal actions like this by telling the applicant whatever they want to hear to make it go away. But that was never an option for me. I could not have lived with that going forward. By September 2019 I felt the costs were being used to pile so much pressure on me to do just that I told the applicant’s legal team I was not open to any settlement involving costs and insisted on leaving them to the court to decide.

Much later, on 6 November 2019 I would offer a statement in settlement that went as far as I possibly could to meet them, it was rejected, but remains as a voluntary statement made on oath that will never be retracted.

I am only alive today because the Judge refused to make an award of costs against me.

This is where I should tell you what I think the truth is, because nobody has ever made any attempt to explain or resolve it. I did a lot of research and there was additional evidence provided to me throughout that case that lead to more research than I could have done before (though I had tried).

There is a lot I cannot say because of the court order and more because I would identify it as private business and not mine to share or speculate upon.

I believe there was a genuine anomally here and the only possible explanation I can identify from the facts is on the creditable side of innocent. I believe that if it had ever been properly resolved nobody would have come out of it badly, including Rachel Moran, but that is not what happened. I can even see how that resolution was impossible to orchestrate on either side without third party intervention and mediation, which nobody ever attempted, to my knowledge.

Unresolved, that standing anomally cost me the objective perspective on the whole issue that would be my natural default, and I sometimes wonder if that is why multiple third parties were in no hurry to try and resolve it?

The best way to polarise people and prevent communication or compromise is to keep them on the defensive against each other.

For balance this is the opinion of Julie Bindel (who was present for the hearing on 13 October 2019) as expressed on 11 November 2019.

You will find a more informed account of my mental health issues that has been published, online, since 30 August 2014 here. During early October 2019 I also made a substantial contribution to this research so that, whatever happened to me, at least everything I have learned and experienced would not be lost, and might help someone else with similar issues.

I had published a statement of retraction and apology on 21 October 2016 (a few potentially contentious lines are redacted but they do not substantially alter the text) and was already taking an, unrelated, hiatus from the whole issue, during which time I barely mentioned Rachel Moran. Every single thing in the case was ruled well out of statute except as follows:

This tweet, was made at 12:29am Monday 9 April 2018. Before 9:05am Ruhama had retweeted it. I saved a screenshot immediately.

Here are the specifics:

Seeing Ruhama retweet that in support I lost it completely, and, at 10:46am Monday 9 April 2018, sent this email to Ruhama, adding Amnesty and the Samaritans to cover myself as best I could and to the Justice Minister, who was funding Ruhama, for information purposes. (It is heavily redacted to protect privacy and avoid gratuitous offence as well as in compliance with the court order that was based solely upon some of the contents.)

There were serious ethical considerations in Ruhama promoting any funding appeal for private litigation, but not all of them were obvious. At that time crowdfunding litigation in Ireland was held to be against both criminal and civil law (Law Society Gazette October 2017, see page 33 “Surfing the Crowd“). I was warned about the issues with crowdfunding by two civil servants and a mental health professional before it was confirmed by a couple of solicitors I approached, so it was widely known.

It became the only crowdfunded case that had ever been heard in the Irish courts and this consultation dated 18 July 2023 suggests that remains the case. The order made was open to challenge by appeal to the High Court (and further), for that very reason. Even if I could have afforded it, mentally, emotionally or financially, under the circumstances, I would personally regard such a technical appeal as too spiteful and vexatious to consider, but relying on the ethics of your opposition is not generally considered a wise course in civil law.

Rachel Moran first referred to, but did not produce, or quote, my email of 9 April 2018 in paragraph 2. of an initiating affidavit sworn 13, and filed 16, November 2018. She specified recipients as Amnesty, the Samaritans and the Minister but did not mention Ruhama.

This seems a good time to mention that, whatever about anybody’s right to give, or even offer, that email to Rachel Moran, I am a pragmatist, and a realist, once being offered, I cannot for the life of me think of any reason, moral or legal why she should say:
“No thank you, but I really mustn’t” – remember, all four recipients had a duty of care to myself and Rachel Moran, so that she would be entitled to assume the offer to be sincere, informed, ethical and lawful.

On or about 18 February 2019 I sent a formal query to all four recipients as to how she might be in possession of this email or aware of the contents. I received fully satisfactory and timely replies from the Samaritans, Amnesty and the Minister that were sufficient to convince me that none of them could have been responsible.

On 27 February 2019 I recieved this letter under the physical signature of Sarah Benson, then CEO of Ruhama (the typo is in the original).

“We are satisfied that such an email: sent unsolicited us and other parties, from an external third party (yourself) is not subject to GDPR“

Especially considering the wider implications due to the business of Ruhama (who were actively soliciting potentially confidential emails from “external third parties” to the specific address I used, archive: 26 March 2018), this is a fairly unique take on GDPR that was at odds with both the Data Protection Act, 1988 that was in force until 24 May 2018 and the Data Protection Act 2018 that superceded it on the 25 May 2018. The Data Commissioners claimed they could not take action without knowing the date on which this email was passed to Rachel Moran. (I asked, through her solicitors, for that date, so that their advice was available to her on whether to answer or not, and she did not answer, as was her right.)

After requests that she produce the email of 9 April 2018 Rachel Moran finally included the whole email in an affidavit sworn on 4 June 2019 and specified Ruhama as one of the recipients.

Sarah Benson is no longer CEO of Ruhama but, instead, CEO of Womens Aid, seen here advising and reporting on coercive control, something that had a devastating impact on my own childhood and young life. I spent 50 years waiting for recognition and support for that particular form of abuse, now that will never exist in any form worthy of trust.

This is an article, published since 9 November 2015, that cites an email I sent to Sarah Benson in 25 January 2012 that may also be of interest in context.

Somebody please tell me how to find a real reason to stop being afraid, and feel safe in the world around me ever again?

*I have not redacted her name to be secretive, it is not hard to work out, but rather to avoid this article popping up on a search engine under her name and causing needless distress.