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David Irving writes to Lipstadt's London lawyers, Monday, April 5, 2004 Monday, April 5, 2004 Dear Mr Libson Your client Lipstadt AS you are no doubt aware from my website, I have taken strong exception to the manner in which your client has taken it upon herself to post on her University website at www.++++.org ("****") many hundreds of my personal papers including my personal diaries and letters. You were yourself present at the hearings before Master Trench in, I believe, October 1999 in which I voluntarily offered to provide to the Defendants access, under the securities afforded by the Rules of Discovery, to my entire diaries rather than just the few entries which Mr [Anthony] Julius was demanding. After considerable debate, which you will surely recall, Master Trench made an Order which under normal circumstances would have guaranteed the continued confidentiality of all those parts of the papers which were not mentioned or quoted open court (see the Harriet Harman case). Among other stipulations by the Court,
In the event, twelve short passages (each of one or two sentences) from the diaries were quoted, as you can confirm by reference to the transcripts, and I provided your firm with a schedule of those passages which alone had thus come into the public domain. I have already had cause, through my lawyers Amhurst,
Brown, Colombotti, to object to the fact that passages of
the diaries not quoted in Court have been published in the
United States, It now appears that your firm did not properly advise Lipstadt of her obligations, as she has posted on her website **** the entire Discovery documents made available by me, including facsimiles of letters and diaries, and included in volumes of documents that were to have been used by her expert on "extremism". That report was subsequently withdrawn, and the expert was not called. Such publication is a serious contempt by your client, and I will not hesitate to apply to the Courts for relief in that respect, and for damages for the these violations of privacy and copyright. I have no doubt what the response of the Courts will be, as they take any violations of the rules of Discovery extremely seriously -- you will recall another hearing we had, before Moses J, in this very regard. I believe I am right in saying that Mr [Richard] Rampton [QC] is himself an authority on the laws of contempt, which makes it all the more astonishing that Lipstadt believed she could proceed in the manner that she has. From my recent exchanges with the lawyers representing her University, it appears that they believe that, being without the jurisdiction, they and their clients can do as they please. May I take it that you will at once instruct Lipstadt as to her obligations, and to the risks she faces if she continues in contempt? And that you will urge her to remove instantly from her **** website all the items which are not in the public domain? Partners in your own firm, having provided these documents to her, will face similar risks for having failed originally to educate her and her experts, and for allowing the contempt to continue for one day longer than necessary. Kindly acknowledge receipt of this letter to the address above. Yours sincerely,
David Irving e-mail: [email protected]
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among
others by Mr Kenneth Stern of the American Jewish
Congress (right). The correspondence is on file. You
eventually returned to me through my lawyers one set of
pages copied from the diaries, retrieved, you said, from the
United States. There are, no doubt, other sets which you
have not returned.
not yet linked to
continuation
write to David Irving