I wonder when or if the gravity of the situation Parker and Purkiss are in will ever sink in. They've now had two defences struck out, essentially after more than a year they have no credible defence (not that they could ever had one) against the complaints of defamation made by Joe Karam. With those 2 defences struck out a claim for increased costs was due before the Court by the 14th August 2011, something which Parker didn't publish on his site. However, over a period of time he first admitted that he had a loss and which he later claimed was 'just quietly' a victory of some sort, but silence on the costs. Karam's lawyers have twice had to respond to statements of defence which have been found to have no merit and which have been criticised by a Judge as being 'discursive and, and at times, argumentative.' Those costs are likely to be in the region of 20 to $30,000 or more and the situation is created that Parker and Purkiss may be bankrupted before the case, if it ever does, goes to trial.
The amended Statement of Claim by the plaintiff was 52 pages long, in 3 causes of action, it alleges that from July 29th 2009 to April 2010 the first defendant (Parker) published 45 defamatory statements of his own and 'others' on a Facebook website, and on his own website (Counterspin) 111 defamatory statements. I placed the foregoing 'others' in brackets to remind those 'others' of the situation they are in, although it is only to this point Parker and Purkiss called to task. It may well be that each of those pages, and the work involved in correlating them to the original statements and the 2 failed defences might be worth in terms of money even up to an equivalent of $1,000 per page.
The struck out statement of defence was similarly lengthy and was described by the Judge, as I have written above, as discursive and argumentative with all the hallmarks of a 'pleading prepared without the benefit of legal assistance.' It's paragraphs are described as in whole or part to be 'prolix, (and) contain evidential, unintelligible or argumentative material' that is not consistent with the High Court rules. Later in the judgement the Judge points out that 'The breaches are too numerous to describe individually,' so much so that he only uses a few examples in his judgement. Later, in describing the defendants practice of repeating or invoking particular paras of the defence repeatedly he says the practice 'makes the defence convoluted and virtually impossible to follow.' So much for Kent's 'victory.'
In paragraph [40] the Judge says 'I consider the deficiencies and defendant's conduct constitute an abuse of process under r 15.1. Redress is warranted.' Which is as clear as day that Kent and Purkiss have established themselves a hefty obligation for costs, lifted in value because their conduct is 'an abuse of process.'
So much for costs, and now we wait to see if Parker and Purkiss can overcome the hurdle they created for themselves not only by defaming Karam but by conduct in the High Court in a manner which has been determined was an 'abuse of process.' Interestingly in the pleadings Parker, who on other occasions, has bragged about the traffic number to his sites, has tried to down grade that despite there being evidence of 'veiws' of around 20,000. He claims, with out any factual support, that those viewers probably only looked at the first page - that's all it took Kenty baby. Of course the Judge gave that argument no merit, as it was part of what was struck out, but it shows that Parker thinks the world is populated by idiots who will believe anything he says (on that respect, he is partly right - though it's clear his former buddies are avoiding him like the plague now.)
Kent has made harmful admissions in his pleadings that in my belief virtually destroy any chance of success, not that I ever believed he had any chance of success. It has always been evident that his statements, like those of Kalnovitch, nina_s, obook and others were always visible as plainly defamatory. He has acknowledged he could have deleted the offending material but provides no sustainable reason why he didn't. On that point, he has major problems, and my experience with him is a good example. He deleted my posts on his board within hours - because he obviously felt uncomfortable being told of the lesson he is now receiving in the High Court. He, as others will know, deleted any body's views that didn't match his own, that along with the continuing defamation is why Kent Parker and Vic Purkiss have destroyed themselves by their efforts of attacking a man of whom they are insanely jealous.
Parker uses the words 'not necessarily' when describing the power of publication in his pleading which to my mind is a total admission of guilt, a/ that he is the publisher and b/ that the publications were defamatory. His pleadings of honest belief, freedom of speech also have fallen short of being credible for the reasons I have pointed out to him and other members of his idiot tribe. 'just because an idiot believes something to be true, doesn't mean that it is true - it simply shows that an idiot believes it to be true.' I digress there a little and should say that the test is what a reasonable person, cognisant with the facts, would reasonably believe.
Finally Parker, Purkiss and their band of merry halfwits might begin to understand that 'free speech' isn't the right for an idiot to speak in a defamatory way in public about something or someone, when they don't have the mental aptitude to comprehend, ( merely because of lack of wit, mental competence or in the case of the hate-siters, hate) what they're saying or publishing on the net.
I may write more about this later, however in may ways it is all to predictable, however surprising, that in reality the idiots could not contain themselves from continuing to act like idiots.
