FLASHBACK: Eyewitness to Davenport Lyons aiding ACS:LAW in Court hearing

This piece is from the Legendary Beingscammed. who was threatened by ACS:LAW for trying to help the Victims of their letters.  Originally posted on the 11th May 2009.  In light of the TWO Directors of Davenport Lyons being sent by the SRA to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, I though it good that this be posted so all new recipients could see the truth.  Thanks ACS:FLAW for pointing this out to me

Topware in Court

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Well that was very interesting.I attended the court proceedings this morning between Topware and BE UN LTD, much to the angst of Andrew Crossley. Not sure if he even knew that courts are public and as such anyone may attend and observe (provided that you don't interrupt / interfere, and you ask the judge nicely).Now the link between Davenport Lyons and ACS: Law became oh so more clear. The link is about as close as possible without them being the same company. Even in the minutes preceding the hearing, a representative of DL was giving prepatory documents to Andrew Crossley for him to use at the hearing...

During the hearing the Master even had to ask if this was the same case that he saw previously with DL, and wasn't that them in the corridor?

Also in attendance was a Miss Camilla Balleny from  Arnold & Porter LLP - Camilla Balleny As far as I could tell, she was representing A&P who represent Virgin Media and BE UN Ltd.

The end result of the hearing today was that this hearing and two others (similar but with other ISPs) until Monday 8th June 11am, same place.

What was so interesting were the claims that Andrew Crossley made to Master Winergarten during the proceedings. That 1500+ letters had been sent out, and that a significant proportion of people pay the demand (35-40%). This is SO much higher than what we (collectively on the forums) had thought. Not sure if it's bull***t or bravado, but of course there wouldn't be any docs available to back that up. It was more that he was convincing Master Winergarten that they were doing the right thing, and having success, and that if they weren't guilty why would they pay etc.

That means that if some 500 people have paid up, each at around £600, that's £300k going into someone's pockets. Makes the whole thing worthwhile... almost... until you get stricken off as a lawyer for all this, and get made to pay the money back (perhaps).

I spoke to Camilla Balleny (think I freaked her out a little) after the hearing, and asked her if she knew how they got the IP addresses, and if she knew that the method that they got them was illegal or dubious at best, and had been thrown out of court in other European countries, and that a lawyer got struck off for 6 months for doing this.... Although I wasn't expecting any answers, her surprise, discomfort and silence spoke volumes. I even offered her to see the letter that ACS Law had sent me, though by this stage I think she just wanted to get the hell out of there.

Camilla - if you're reading this, the offer stays open, I'm sure plenty of us would be happy to send you format versions of our letters.

So, where from here? Well, I was going to go over to Hanover Square and visit Andrew Crossley, but after seeing him in the flesh, and having him validate in front of me all that we had previously suspected, I just didn't see the need.

He is taking this seriously, making a lot of money from it, and although seemed a little disorganised he was doing a fair job of convincing everyone else - who either didn't have the knowledge or information to know better.

The hearings were adjourned because the ISPs hadn't had time to verify all the facts (times, IPs etc) of the NEW batch of IPs to be churned through this ever growing fiasco. So thank you at least for that much, that the ISPs are checking that they're not giving out the wrong details this time.

I will continue with my stance of complete denial - although I'm not going to send any correspondence to ACS, as I would actually like for them to take me to court. I would LIKE to see all the EVIDENCE they have against me. I would LIKE to fight this, slam them down and stop all this bullying they are doing.

Stand strong people, and please use whatever means you have available to get the word out to the less informed people that they shouldn't pay (unless they really want to), to deny deny deny and let's see what happens when they try to take me to court.

Beingscammed, if you are still about, please email and say hi