In and around 2023, Roy and Rianne Schestowitz were subject to a horrific campaign of online harassment. Unfortunately they blamed me for it, and in turn wrote and published an astonishing array of articles making false accusations against me. Last year, I sued them in the high court in London. In turn, they countersued me for harassment. The case was heard last month and I'm pleased to say that the counterclaim was dismissed and I prevailed in my case. The court awarded me £70,000 in damages.

The judgement is now publicly available: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/3063

Abuse was not only targeted at me - during the course of the case my solicitor was attacked on the basis of his perceived religion, and baseless accusations of antisemitism were made against the firm. I appreciate the professionalism that they displayed throughout.

Last week, Rianne Schestowitz applied for permission to appeal the judgement. This was rejected today.

The next step will likely be an order including an injunction requiring the removal of the offending articles and forbidding any repetition of the baseless claims.

The order has now been agreed on by the court and will likely be formally issued on Monday. The Schestowitzs are required to remove all posts that repeat the false claims (not merely the posts that were the subject of the litigation) by 4PM on the 16th of December, along with payment of damages and costs.

The order has now been officially issued and I've put a copy at https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/order.pdf . The Schestowitzs have indicated that they intend to appeal the order, but have not as yet indicated their grounds for doing so. My understanding is that this does not remove their obligation to follow the terms of the order.

Today Roy Schestowitz made a post including the claim (re: me) that "the Microsoft connection was affirmed under oath". This is ironic - I have never worked for Microsoft, and the strongest claim made under cross examination is that I have social relationships with some Microsoft employees who may have visited my home. On the other hand, public records show that Roy's home in Manchester is owned by a relative who is a senior engineer at Microsoft. Microsoft money apparently bought his house.

Today the court provided the order regarding costs and the publishing of a summary of the case: https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/order2.pdf . The Schestowitzs must publish a summary of the case by 4PM on the 16th (tomorrow) and keep it there for at least 6 months, and must pay my costs by the 23rd. This is in addition to the previous order (https://codon.org.uk/~mjg59/case/order.pdf) that requires all the offending claims be removed by 4PM tomorrow, along with payment of damages.

An interesting part of the first order is that it requires removal of all posts that make claims determined to be defamatory, not just the posts that were the subject of the case - over 100 additional posts were made after the case was filed that repeated aspects of the claims, and these must also be removed by 4PM London time tomorrow

(The documents I've posted are all part of the public record - anyone can obtain them from CEFile)

I should note that the case summary has already been published on Techrights and Tuxmachines, and look forward to the Schestowitzs complying with the rest of the order

I've had a couple of people ask what happens if they don't fully comply with the orders - the answer is that they can be held in contempt of court, which can result in a range of penalties up to imprisonment (https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part-81-applications-and-proceedings-in-relation-to-contempt-of-court).

Pleased to see that the Schestowitzes have removed the publications that were the subject of the case - however, they have not (as far as I can tell) followed the requirement to remove any other pages that repeated the defamation (11(c))

Rianne Schestowitz has indicated that the Schestowitzes have filed for bankruptcy. If true, their assets (including personal property and domain names) will be sold to recover as much of the debt to me as possible, and my understanding is that the remaining debt will then be discharged after 12 months.

Welp https://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/5035772

The Schestowitzes appear to have been in violation of the court order, and were required to classify over 200 separate publications into whether they were in breach or not by next Wednesday. Thankfully they have been able to obtain legal assistance once more and this date will likely now be moved back to provide their lawyers with enough time to render proper advice. In the event that they persist in claiming the publications aren't in breach, there will be a contempt trial on 2026-07-08/09.

@mjg59 Didn't they say they already had legal representation who were encouraging them to violate the court order hundreds of times because freedom?

@ryan my understanding is that references to their barrister are in reference to one who hasn't been involved since the end of 2024/very early 2025

@mjg59 Happy Birthday, then?

(some of the publications in question are literally the same text as publications they were explicitly ordered to remove but served via Gemini rather than HTTP)

@mjg59 Are contempt hearings something that has to be driven from your side, or does it become a criminal thing at some point?

@penguin42 a weird hybrid - it's driven by us but the outcome is potentially criminal in any case

@mjg59 I am sorry for the ongoing stress this must be causing to you but if it weren’t for that much of the evidence in this case would be _very_ funny, this particular detail especially

@mjg59 I can't understand why they keep doing this to themselves.

(It's good that they've obtained legal assistance! The worst case outcome of this is prison time and anyone faced with that should have solid legal advice on their side)