Hoaxtead e-book libels, violates court order

Lately we’d been hearing rumblings about an e-book called What the Hell Happened in Hampstead?, published by someone named ‘Lucy Wood’.

Curious, we had a look at the publishers’ site. Lo and behold, Ms Wood had already received two glowing reviews!

(As many of you know, we’ve taken a vow of silence on certain matters involving Sabine and bail conditions and such… but apparently she hasn’t.)

We wondered, though: who is Lucy Wood? The name wasn’t familiar to any of our team, so we went forth in search of her.

The search lasted approximately 3 minutes:

Worst. Cover art. Ever.

The truncated name ‘Kim Lawr38261339’ led us in short order to this Facebook page:

…where sure enough, we discovered that Kim Lawrence is friends with a nice little roster of Hampstead thugs: Araya Soma, Jake Clarke, Sabine McNeill, Lee Cant.

Well, fancy meeting them all here!

And apparently she shares their demented view of Hoaxtead: the book consists mostly of a bunch of links from Hoaxtead pushers, with absolutely no critical analysis or consideration of the possibility that anything they say could be less than 100% truthful.

Naming names

Kim doesn’t shy away from naming names in her little book. In the first few pages, she not only uses the first names of RD’s two children, but she repeats the tired old allegation that RD was the ‘boss of the cult’. And she uses his full name.

(Sorry, this screenshot contains material that could be distressing to some people. But so does most of the book, to be honest.)

In fact, the book is riddled with full names: names of the alleged abusers, names of alleged victims, names of alleged ‘helpers’ or accomplices. On the surface of it, this seems like a very bad thing, but in fact, it may prove to be the book’s undoing.

You see, we had a look at the e-book publisher’s terms of service:

Smashwords, like most publishers, has a very strong aversion to being sued for defamation or ‘infringement’:

Generally, upon receipt of a written notice from a party infringed or defamed by Author’s material (or someone purporting to be his agent, publisher, attorney in fact or assign), Smashwords will remove the Author’s Work and reserves the right to remove any and all information about the Author, the Author’s Work or the publisher from the site.

Based on this information, we would strongly suggest that anyone who might be mentioned by name, or whose children are mentioned by name, in this book should immediately notify Smashwords that they have been defamed and would like this book removed from Smashwords’ inventory.

According to the Smashbooks FAQ page, here’s how to do that:

Terms of Service Violations:  If you find a book at Smashwords that violates our Terms of Service, please click the “report book” link on that book’s book page and we’ll investigate. We appreciate your reports!

We’ll also be sending this information to the relevant police authorities for action. Kim Lawrence has violated the court order that prohibits publication of names or images of RD or his two children. And she’s once again violated the privacy, and defamed the children, parents, teachers, clergy, and other people of Hampstead.

Let’s not let this one stand.