PLYMOUTH SOLICITOR Charles Knapper engaged in misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, and abusive Twitter/X rant

PLYMOUTH SOLICITOR engaged in misogynistic, transphobic, homophobic, and abusive Twitter/X rant

 

CHARLES KNAPPER (67) of Devon law firm Curtis Whiteford Crocker abused former professional opponent STEPHANIE HAYDEN on the Twitter/X platform over many months describing Hayden as a ‘pervert’, ‘Ugly Bit*h’ ‘b*m bandit’, and speculating that she had transitioned so she could imagine having her own ‘c*nt’

 

KNAPPER also described well known transgender former news reader INDIA WILLOUGHBY as ‘Himdia Willyboy’

 

Solicitor Charles Edward Swatman Knapper of the law firm Curtis Whiteford Crocker (a trading name of Curtis Law LLP) targeted lawyer and transgender woman Stephanie Hayden (50) with months of abuse on the Twitter/X platform. Knapper operated a so called ‘anonymous’ Twitter/X account in which he described himself as ‘Married, loads of kids & dogs. Solicitor and was an RN submariner, see my photo. I add my voice to the women being oppressed by men. I don’t like antisemitism.’ Judicial Cat is NOT identifying Knapper’s Twitter/X handle.

 

The biographical information stated on the Twitter/X profile page corresponds with Knapper’s LinkedIn profile in which Knapper states he had spent ‘12 years in the Royal Navy’ and had ‘served on nuclear submarines.’

 

In mid-August of 2023, Ms Hayden became aware of abusive posts by Knapper on his Twitter/X profile claiming to know Ms Hayden and referencing her by her former pre-transition birth name; however, Knapper made a major mistake when he posted information that only Knapper himself would have been aware of. This is because Knapper had crossed Hayden’s path professionally almost a decade earlier in 2014.

 

During 2014, Hayden had provided legal advice to a client who was engaged in litigation with Knapper and his then law firm Fursdon Knapper. This led to a hearing in Torquay during which Knapper had become physical with Hayden, abusing her verbally, shocking Hayden and scaring the client. Knapper’s abuse was witnessed by court staff and members of the public. Knapper then made a series of professional allegations against Hayden resulting in an investigation by a local circuit judge. No further action was taken against Hayden or Knapper. In 2022, Fursdon Knapper was incorporated into the law firm Curtis Law LLP and the combined firm now trades as Curtis Whiteford Crocker. Knapper is now a senior consultant at the firm and a non-member partner. 

 

Knapper’s abuse of Hayden was arguably misogynistic, transphobic, and to some extent homophobic. On 22 August 2023, Knapper described Hayden as ‘Stephanie Ugly Bit*ch Hayden’ and went on to describe the well known transgender former newsreader India Willoughby as ‘Himdia Willyboy’. Ms Willoughby is a transgender woman in the public eye who has posted on her Twitter/X account on many occasions about the daily online abuse that she experiences. 

 

Knapper even opined on the reasons for Hayden’s transition. Just a week later on 29 August 2023, Knapper ranted, ‘He was such a cu*t as a bloke he decided to become a woman so he could pretend to have one. He is also useless as a lawyer. Hasn’t got a lot going for him really.’ Another Twitter/X account suggests that ‘Charles’ should mind his ‘language’. Indeed, Knapper was having a busy evening on 29 August 2023, as he continued to rant, accusing Hayden of posting a ‘pervert advert’ and of being a ‘bum band*t’, whilst responding to another account posting private digital images of Hayden. 

 

 

Knapper’s abuse of Hayden continued for many months and included Knapper casting aspersions on Hayden’s legal qualifications, which included inferring that Hayden had misled the public by stating that it was ‘Strange that he hasn’t published the university he got his LLB from.’ Ms Hayden’s Bachelor of Laws degree was awarded by the University of London. Knapper’s similar degree was awarded by the University of Exeter. Knapper earned the same classification of degree as Ms Hayden.

 

Throughout the months of online abuse Knapper deliberately and maliciously misgendered Ms Hayden by using male pronouns to reference her. At all times, Knapper’s Twitter/X account publicly identified the operator as being a ‘Solicitor’. On 25 November 2019, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (“SRA”) published a warning notice about offensive communications. The SRA cited some examples of the kind of conduct that they had in mind, which included, ‘Making offensive or pejorative comments relating to another person’s race, sexual orientation or religion’ as well as ‘Referring to women in derogatory terms and making sexually explicit comments.’ Arguably, Knapper’s online abuse of Ms Hayden breaches the SRA warning notice. Ms Hayden holds a Gender Recognition Certificate and is considered by the law to be a woman for all purposes. The SRA, as an emanation of the state, would be bound to recognise Ms Hayden as being female. The SRA left solicitors in no doubt as to the potential for professional consequences if their warning notice was not adhered to. The SRA warned, ‘If an issues arises, failure to have proper regard to this warning notice is likely to lead to disciplinary action.’

 

 

Knapper’s unfortunate history with the regulator and the judiciary 

 

Knapper is no stranger to controversy and has been dogged by professional complaints and adverse judicial comment since he was admitted to the roll of solicitors in 1997. According to the Law Society Gazette Knapper first came to the attention of regulators almost 20 years ago after a 1999 High Court judgment found Knapper ‘to have been dishonest on several points in an action involving a former business partner. The judgment was set aside in its entirety in May 2005 and the SDT [Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal] recorded that Mr Knapper had shown he was not dishonest.’

 

According to Legal Futures, Knapper in 2013 was found by HHJ Cotter QC (as then was) to have ‘developed a settled intention [in respect of disclosure] to prevent what he must have considered potentially helpful documentation’ coming into the hands of opponents. Mr Justice Baker in a 2016 judgment found that Knapper’s behaviour ‘left a lot to be desired in certain respects’ but that Knapper had not committed fraud. Despite the finding, in 2017, HHJ Cotter QC refused to change his 2013 decision about Knapper. The SRA subsequently prosecuted Knapper in the SDT. Knapper was cleared but the SDT found that Knapper had a case to answer and refused Knapper his legal costs. 

 

Knapper has brought the legal profession into disrepute

 

It is reasonable to conclude that Knapper has brought the legal profession into disrepute. Charles Knapper had publicly identified himself as a solicitor on his Twitter/X account. His attempts to preserve his anonymity failed spectacularly and Knapper has now been exposed as a Twitter/X troll routinely engaging in the vile abuse of members of the LGBTQ+ community. The public are entitled to have trust and confidence in the legal profession. A person who identifies publicly as a solicitor but then uses words such as ‘bum band*t’, describes a former professional opponent as an ‘Ugly Bit*h’, and routinely misgenders transgender persons in public can hardly be held up as an example of trust and integrity. As for the law firm Curtis Whiteford Crocker, how can a member of the public (especially a member of the LGBTQ+ community) have any confidence that they will be treated with respect and without discrimination when one of their own senior consultants and non-member partners is content to throw around misogynistic, homophobic, and transphobic abuse in public.

 

Enough is enough, it is time for the SRA to act against Charles Knapper and for Curtis Whiteford Crocker to show Knapper the door. The public interest demands it. 

 

Judicial Cat invited Charles Knapper and Curtis Whiteford Crocker to comment on this article. 

 

THREAT OF INJUNCTION

 

Anthony Dyke (Senior Partner) of Curtis Whiteford Crocker emailed Stephanie Hayden at 13:19 on 19 February 2024. Mr Dyke denied that Charles Knapper’s Twitter/X posts were homophobic, transphobic, or misogynistic and that Knapper’s posts commented on Knapper’s previous dealings with Ms Hayden. Mr Dyke threatened to apply to the court to restrain publication of this article and to seek ‘damages and costs.’

 

Ms Hayden informed Mr Dyke that she would defend any application for an injunction but agreed to delay publication of this article until at least 16:30 on 20 February 2024 to give Charles Knapper and Curtis Whiteford Crocker an opportunity to clarify the causes of action to be relied upon and to suggest a timetable for the proposed injunction application. No further contact was received by Ms Hayden prior to the deadline. As such, this article has now been published and should legal proceedings be served, Ms Hayden will defend them.  

 

EDITORIAL NOTE

 

The above article was written by Stephanie Hayden on an occasion of qualified privilege. Charles Knapper has repeatedly and publicly attacked Ms Hayden over many months via the medium of his Twitter/X account. As such, Ms Hayden is exercising her right to reply to that attack. Additionally, as Charles Knapper has publicly identified as a solicitor on his Twitter/X profile, it is in the public interest that a solicitor (being an officer of the court) who employs such misogynistic, transphobic, and homophobic language, is publicly challenged about their conduct. Mr Knapper and the law firm Curtis Whiteford Crocker were offered an opportunity to respond to the allegations in this article.

 

 

Mantrav Libel Case: - self represented litigants, a sign of things to come?

Attempt by Travel Agent to silence critics ends with an order to pay a Defendant's costs

Your blogger has been involved in a case far removed from the normal everyday practice of landlord & tenant law. A 'strange' case recently made it into the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Judicial Cat shall refer to it as the 'Mantrav Libel Case'. The case was to last a little over a month; however, it offers an insight into the not so far off future where (due to legal aid restrictions) Self Represented Litigants will quickly become 'the norm'.

A little background 

The Claimant in the case was longtime travel agent Malcolm Hardy. Mr Hardy is 72 and specialised in arranging holidays for the gay community for many years. His business activities have been carried out under various legal structures; however, the common denominator is the name 'Mantrav'. Last year a dispute arose between Hardy and quite a few of his customers. In summary it is alleged that bookings (and payments) were taken for a resort by the name of Club Mancha in Gran Canaria Spain. Holidaymakers would arrive only to find the resort had no bookings and had never heard of the persons expecting to be accommodated. Disgruntled customers took to venting their concerns online. It has to be said that Hardy and Mantrav have consistently denied any wrongdoing. Opposed to that assertion are clear findings of fact in previous civil litigation involving Hardy, which describe him as being 'dishonest' and suggest a history of fabricating evidence. As a result of the online comment Hardy issued proceedings for libel in the Queen's Bench Division on 2 November 2012. He also sought a wide ranging and unprecedented injunction against the 5 Defendants (and 1 Defendant described as "John Does" an american term referring to 'persons unknown') to restrain them from publishing on any website worldwide the words "Malcolm Hardy", "Mantrav", and "Mantrav International" in any context. It was certainly an attempt to secure the most 'super' of the 'super injunctions'. Hardy also sought damages of circa £150,000.00 as part of the claim.

The Mail on Sunday covered the background to the proceedings on Sunday 2 December 2012: -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/holidays/article-2241565/Travel-agent-sues-libel-false-malicious-defamatory-internet-holiday-reviews.html

Self Represented Litigants: - pitfalls for the courts and litigants as well as lessons to be learned

What made this case unusual was the fact that, initially, every party (the Claimant and all the Defendants) were acting for themselves, or 'Self Represented Litigants' as the legal profession now likes to call them. Your blogger was approached by one of the Defendants and your blogger's services were offered pro bono (without charge).

Upon reading the initial case papers something profound stood out. Here was a very serious case. One seeking substantial damages but, more importantly, an injunction with consequences for freedom of expression in the United Kingdom. These were not the celebrities who we hear about almost daily, stalking the courts, seeking to prevent reporting of their 'private lives'. Instead we had ordinary everyday people who risked being silenced by a businessman whose main aim was to gag any person who dared to complain about his alleged business practices. No legal aid was available for any party (and it never has been available for defamation cases in any event). Despite the serious nature of this claim the court was almost reduced to a farce.

The claim filed by Hardy did not even begin to disclose any reasonable cause of action. A cursory perusal of the claim would disclose that it was simply never going to be legally sustainable. A key document called the 'Particulars of Claim' was incoherent, rambling, and failed to disclose any positive case. Despite this the claim made it to a court room on two occasions and led to at least two of the Defendants incurring substantial expenses in terms of disbursements and/or loss of income. 

A substantive hearing before Sharp J took place on the morning of 5 December 2012. Over two hours of court time were taken up considering an injunction application, which as the learned judge made clear was 'totally without merit'. The injunction application was thus dismissed and the claim as a whole was 'struck out'. Thus, for now, the case has ended subject to any decision by Mr Hardy to seek permission to Appeal.

The key point of this blog post however is not the merits (lack of) concerning the claim but the very fact that it was allowed to be brought at all. There are supposed to be mechanisms in place within the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 to identify those cases, which are obviously without any legal foundation whatsoever. Such claims should be passed to a procedural judge to consider whether they should be 'struck out' pursuant to the court's own initiative. The point being that Defendants should not be put to the time and expense of needing to even reply to hopeless claims, which are not going anywhere. In the 'Mantrav Libel Case' Judicial Cat estimates about £10,000.00 in professional legal fees would have been incurred by just one Defendant in one month had specialist libel lawyers been retained. Even without this the Defendants incurred over £1,000.00 in expenses but were only able to recover a small fraction via an order for costs.

The courts must be ready to stop such hopeless claims

In an era were Self Represented Litigants will be increasing, the administration of Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service need to be alert to the issuing of hopeless cases with no basis in law. Rules must be followed and such cases referred at an early stage to the judiciary with the aim of stopping them before one single Defendant is forced to incur the time and expense of dealing with a claim disclosing no reasonable cause of action. It is outrageous that Defendants are expected to pay court fees and incur the expenses of applying to 'strike out' such claims when provisions already exist for the courts to take the necessary action 'in house'. 

As indicated above Mr Hardy may yet appeal and, indeed, he may also simply re-issue his claim and the whole process of expense and time wasting in the court will commence again.

Saturday Rant: - Leveson, what a waste of money!

It is the best show in London but The Leveson Inquiry is a grotesque waste of taxpayers' money!

You cannot escape The Leveson Inquiry. It seems every day there are new "revelations" demanding columns of newspaper "analysis" and extensive "in depth" reporting by the "news" channels. The daily proceedings seem to send the Twitterati "wild" with glee! Indeed yesterday the Twitter reaction reached new levels of absurdity with the hashtag #popleveson trending third worldwide! For those not following every Tweet relating to the inquiry it seems yesterday's hashtag involved coming up with "pop songs" whereby words from counsel to the inquiry, Robert Jay QC, formed part of the title to a well known pop track; however, your blogger digresses!

Judicial Cat must confess to being thoroughly entertained by the proceedings; however, as James Max of LBC 97.3 stated (in a personal capacity) the whole process is a "waste of time".

Let's all go down the Strand!

Almost every day this "circus" rolls up in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice. Entrance is free, if somewhat limited, and curtains are at 10am and 2pm each sitting day! Apparently there are only 14 seats for the general public (so get there early). Of course, there is copious room for the "navel gazing" hacks. So much in fact that they have an "overflow" room whereby proceedings are relayed to a "big screen". Your blogger thinks that if there were ever an Olympics Gold Medal for useless inquiries, then Team GB would be far and above the leading contender!

What on earth is this all about?

Officially this is an inquiry into the practices and ethics of the press. It was set up in July 2011 by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, in response to the growing outrage over alleged phone hacking and other misdemeanours at the former News of the World and the parent company News International. The inquiry is looking into how the press operate and also how journalists and politicians interact. There are a number of "modules". Once any criminal inquiries into phone hacking etc have concluded then the inquiry moves on to consider those activities. Anybody who is anybody in the political and journalistic worlds have been asked to give evidence. A report is due in October 2012 on those matters not subject to criminal inquiries; however, Judicial Cat will have a "wager" at this point. As is "usual" with these inquires your blogger would be "amazed" if the inquiry reports on time!

An army of Lawyers mostly at the expense of the taxpayer! 

Your blogger declares an interest in being a member of the legal profession; however, alas, your  blogger was (somewhat surprisingly) not selected to participate in this particular "gravy train". There are the expenses of numerous junior and senior counsel, his Lordship of course, administrative support, firms of Solicitors. Last week individual members of HM Government secured core-participant status entitling each individual minister to be legally represented at the inquiry. So another eight sets of counsel and eight sets of Solicitors. And you can be sure the fees for the individual government ministers will be billed back to HM Government (in other words you the reader). In summary this is a monstrous expenditure on legal fees etc at a time when the country is supposedly having to "tighten the belt".

So what is the nation learning from the inquiry?

Judicial Cat believes nothing but the "blooming obvious". Amongst the more serious revelations is that it seems there was a possible pre-disposition by Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt in favour of News Corporation's abortive attempt to purchase the remaining shares in BSkyB. Now there is a strong argument for Jeremy Hunt to resign due to the obvious issues concerning his quasi-judicial role; however, no one who follows these matters could be surprised at Mr Hunt's apparent support of News Corporation. His own website described him as a "cheerleader". A long running and expensive inquiry was not needed to learn this!

Yesterday we were "treated" to the knowledge that our esteemed Prime Minister did not know what "LOL" stood for in the context of sending text messages! Apparently he thought it stood for "Lots of Love". Again, is an inquiry necessary to tell us what many already know; namely, that Mr Cameron is not exactly a "man of the people"?

The daily questions asked by leading counsel to the inquiry are hardly "incisive". A first year student at the Bar could, quite frankly, come up with them! A lot of the questions to witnesses are just wholly irrelevant and are based on gossip and a desire for a "quick headline". Some of the material being examined belongs firmly in an undergraduate history seminar!

Something had to be done so why not this inquiry!

Judicial Cat firmly believes that the correct way of handling matters would have been to restrict any inquiry to whether or not the Metropolitan Police colluded with News International to "play down" the hacking allegations and/or "cover them up". That is something, which is in the public interest and needs to be investigated. Even this aspect should have waited until any criminal investigation/proceedings had concluded. The correct forum for examining the allegations of phone hacking, corruption etc are the criminal courts. The government can then deal with any issues arising from those proceedings.

The Leveson Inquiry was set up to get Mr Cameron "out of a hole". It is the usual response of a government when facing political difficulty arising from "events dear boy" (as Harold Macmillan once called them!) The "circus" will grind on, my colleagues will continue to earn "easy money" and when it is all over ............................. the public will know absolutely nothing they already did not know!