Longest running online harassment case in the UK concludes at the High Court, London.
A women's career was ruined by a man she met online in 2004, in what is believed to be the longest running online harassment case in the UK. He continually harassed her online and offline and it was concluded at the High Court of Justice, London where she finally won an injunction and damages.
Paul Curran launched a campaign of harassment after the woman told him she didn't want to see again. The technical writing consultant created dozens of websites which contained true and untrue private information about his victim and tried to engage other trolls to join him in his crusade of revenge. Under UK law, breach of one’s privacy can occur even if the information posted about them publicly is untrue. As part of his online harassment campaign, Paul Curran also created fake Twitter accounts under her name and used Google AdWords to create adverts on Google searches to ensure anyone searching for her would visit the harassing websites he had created.
The online harassment campaign started after Lindsey Goldrick Dean ended a short relationship with Paul Curran. She thought he would soon get bored with it. “I was thinking, could I stand a month of this?” she told The Guardian. It took 13 years, as due to the complexities of the case, the lack of internet law solicitors in the early days and the police not having the resources to help; everyone she turned to, turned her away. Until internet law and social media lawyer Yair Cohen took on her online harassment case, who was undeterred by the complexities, and worked on a no win no fee basis. The online harassment case was concluded in the high court where she won damages and an injunction for harassment.
In 2016, when harassment lawyer Yair Cohen took on her case, she hoped the online harassment campaign would immediately stop. However, despite the legal proceedings, Curran went on and updated and extended the websites he owned for 2 more years. Eventually he offered her a settlement, but one of the conditions was she could never speak about the harassment publicly. She refused and it went to the High Court.
The only way she could afford seeing though the online harassment case was because her solicitor, the social media lawyer Yair Cohen, worked on a no win, no fee basis, and her barristers, Gabor Bognar and Gervase de Wilde, worked pro bono. Read full story: Lindsey Goldrick Dean Wins Freedom After 13 Years of Harassment.