Peter Hofschröer served with civil lawsuit

The saga of convicted paedophile Peter Hofschröer, former owner of more than 36,000 child sexual abuse images and darling of alleged “children’s activists” Belinda McKenzie, Sabine McNeill, Andy Peacher, and UK Column, continues to grow ever more complex. According to yesterday’s UK Column, the Austrian government has now served him with a civil lawsuit.

Readers will recall that Mr Hofschröer was extradited back to his native Austria in July 2017, following lengthy legal proceedings, a stay at Belinda’s Highgate home, an apparent escape attempt involving unlocking his ankle monitor, and subsequent surrender to police. He is currently being held in a psychiatric facility in Austria.

According to Alex Thomson’s report on UK Column, Mr Hofschröer is claiming that notice of the lawsuit was improperly served, as “not even a valid address has been used”. The suit involves Mr Hofschröer’s alleged defamation of the Austrian judiciary, “which is what got him extradited to Austria under a European arrest warrant anyway”.

Mr Thomson claims that because the blog on which the defamatory comments took place, “Grandma B.“, is hosted by U.S.-based WordPress.com, “the Austrians are action out of jurisdiction”. Mr Hofschröer is currently “penniless apart from what we can send him in donations”, and so will require a court-appointed lawyer, Mr Thomson said.

Mr Hofschröer, meanwhile, is claiming to have no access to the Grandma B blog.

Mr Thomson said, “Peter is still waiting for his own appeal on his unlawful mental incarceration, and has been served this writ. There’s probably a bleed-over between the two—he’s probably being threatened by one to stop the other”. He did not explain why this might be the case, nor provide any evidence for it.

The upshot is that Mr Hofschröer is (surprise!) asking for further donations to a fund which will be used to engage a “proper barrister”.

Mr Thomson asked that people write Barbara Hofschröer at her care home in York, and noted that she is “being forbidden visits” by a social worker, whose name and phone number were helpfully provided onscreen.

“She’s getting into an addled state”, Mr Thomson said. “It sounds like they’re pumping her full of drugs again because of the publicity involved in this case”.

Again, no evidence was provided for this rather serious charge.

Commenting on Mr Thomson’s report, Brian Gerrish referred to “blatant use of the psychiatric system in order to silence Peter Hofschröer”.

It’s curious that all the alleged “children’s activists” who so staunchly defend a man who seems to have devoted a great deal of time and energy to collecting images of children being sexually abused, appear to believe that “the system”, and not their friend, are responsible for Mr Hofschröer’s current predicament.

We assume that if any of these noble people had even the slightest bit of evidence which might have helped exonerate their friend, surely they would have presented it during his many trials. And yet, so far as we are aware, this did not happen.

Could it be that such evidence simply didn’t exist? And if that’s the case, what makes Mr Hofschröer’s friends so certain that he is innocent in the first place?

Just asking.

Peter Hofschröer in his younger days, combining his two favourite interests