Charles Seven’s court case: Not quite as advertised

Like many of those determined to spread their particular brand of personal fiction across the internet, Wendy John-Charles, aka “Charles Seven” repeats the same untruths loudly and frequently. She lives, it seems, by the maxim that a lie, repeated often enough, will become the truth.

It was no surprise to discover, in her latest video featuring her interview with Alfred Lambremont-Webre, that she’d appended the following backgrounder, which contains the same completely untrue stories she’s been spouting for 15 years:

Background: In June 2003, Seven took her creative writing to Russells Media Lawyers, London W1, to protect her rights and licensing the concept of bringing mind/body/spirit matters to the entertainment industry. However, upon seeing the lucrative value of her documents, they conspired with various TV networks and production houses to secure the free trade and ownership of the rights and royalties of her works.

In her attempts to stop such illegal deals and be paid as the owner of her creative works, Ms Seven was sent death threats and put under “gang stalking” surveillance to prevent her taking legal action.

Her communications were intercepted and in some cases blocked altogether. The Court Case: Despite massive intimidation, she did gather evidence and filed “Seven Vs Gossage and 9 others” with the reference: HC04C02565 Chancery Division as well as A3/2005/2301 and A3/2006/1967. The case was originally due to be heard between July/August 2005.

Gang Stalking instead of Payment of Damages: Her case eventually got to court in 2006 and won a landmark victory before Lord Justice Chadwick and Sir Peter Gibson. Later the judgement hearing was heard before Justice Pumfrey who ruled entirely in her favour, as the Defendants provided no defence to her 9 bundles of evidence. Consequently, she was due to be paid out damages and royalties. But barrister Brian Nicholson rewrote and replaced the official court judgement with a faked fabricated version and Judge Pumfrey was later found dead.

She fought for a further two years to get the 18 courtroom audios from Pumfrey’s hearing 14th June 2006 released. Justice Warren made an order to release them in 2008, but the already proven guilty criminals got a corrupt Judge Justice Lawrence Collins to make an order preventing the audios from ever being used or referred to in court. Judge Pumfrey had stated on record that it was the best case he had ever seen in his entire 30 year career as a Judge and that there was no doubt she was telling the truth. Despite the Barrister begging him in court to drop the case to protect his clients’ reputations, he had to rule in her favour and that it would be breach of law to do anything else. This is available on court audios. Instead of companies paying royalties, Seven remained targeted on the gang stalking program.

Her home is under 24 hour surveillance. It was broken into to install covert surveillance as well as into her neighbours’ homes.

Since her speaking up via emails, her life is permanently in danger. Her work has become some of the most successful selling popular TV shows now worldwide, but her enemies are trying to stop people finding out how these shows and movies came into existence. Some of the titles are: “Dancing with Stars”, “Dancing on Ice”, “You Are What You Eat”, “Ten Years Younger”, “Strictly Come Dancing”. An affidavit catalogues many of the health, fitness and dance shows and campaigns that address obesity via entertainment from 2003 onwards that were lifted and converted from her stolen documents.

Almost every statement here is provably false.

We’re fortunate that Naqsej, one of our commenters, was able to track down and send us the judgment from Seven v Gossage and others. In addition, some of Naqsej’s commentary from our previous posts bears repeating here, to clarify Seven’s claims.

1. The claim that her lawyers conspired to steal her ‘works’

The judgment states,

The claimant alleged that she had visited the first defendant, a solicitor, for advice on how to protect and market an original concept for a reality television show (the concept). It was alleged that the first defendant stole the concept and sold it on to television producers for his own benefit. The allegations against the other defendants were in a similar vein, in that they had all profited from the theft of either the concept or other original ideas that had been communicated to them by the claimant. …

…The claimant had made several serious allegations against the defendants. In addition to the claims for the breach of her intellectual property rights there had been allegations of elaborate conspiracies and covering of tracks by the defendants. Those allegations had been scurrilous and scandalous and were unsupported by any material within the supporting documents provided by the claimant. The material put forward by the claimant was based upon ill-founded suspicion, required unreasonable inferences to be made, and in short could be rightly categorised as absurd. In those circumstances the claimant had failed to provide adequate justification for the gravity of her allegations and the action would not be permitted to proceed.

When judges use words and phrases like “absurd”, “elaborate conspiracies”, “scurrilous and scandalous”, “ill-founded suspicion” and the like, you know that things are going pear-shaped fast.

2. The claim that she’d won her court case

Seven claims:

Her case eventually got to court in 2006 and won a landmark victory before Lord Justice Chadwick and Sir Peter Gibson. Later the judgement hearing was heard before Justice Pumfrey who ruled entirely in her favour, as the Defendants provided no defence to her 9 bundles of evidence.

This makes no sense. If the case “won a landmark victory”, then why did it need to be heard again before Pumfrey J?

As Naqsej says,

The final hearing [in front of Pumfrey J] arose as she’d failed to comply with procedural requirements in her action against 9 defendants (people and companies), and the defendants applied for the case to be struck out – for her to successfully oppose that, the court had to be satisfied that her case had a real prospect of success.

As for the contention that Pumfrey J “ruled entirely in her favour”, we beg to differ.

In paragraph 5 of his judgment, he states:

5. At the hearing before me, Ms Seven represented herself. She explained the whole of the proceedings to me. She was always courteous and her submissions were clear and well-expressed. Her papers, given their bulk, were logically organised. She was, on the other hand, willing to accuse well-known authors not before the court of plagiarism, and counsel and solicitors of dishonesty. The former allegations I consider in their place, and the latter I disregard. As will become clear, I find that despite the attractive presentation of her contentions made by Ms Seven, they are completely insubstantial.

This is rather like a schoolteacher noting, “While little Seven’s penmanship has improved since half-term and her work is now quite neat and attractive, she has not managed to answer a single one of my questions correctly”

Seven also claims,

Judge Pumfrey had stated on record that it was the best case he had ever seen in his entire 30 year career as a Judge and that there was no doubt she was telling the truth. Despite the Barrister begging him in court to drop the case to protect his clients’ reputations, he had to rule in her favour and that it would be breach of law to do anything else.

What Pumfrey J actually said was not quite so glowing:

19. I have carefully considered the material advanced by Ms Seven in her witness statement and in the voluminous exhibited documents. There is nothing in this material that suggests to me anything more than a chain of unreasonable inferences and ill-found suspicions, and no objective support for an allegation for a breach of confidence or infringement of copyright. …

22. Here, therefore, Ms Seven complains that the launch of the band “Charlie 7” was deliberately targeted at her by the defendants. As this extract from the witness statement makes quite clear, there is no evidence at all to support this allegation. …

28. Again, there is no rational basis for Ms Seven’s complaint. It is not possible to draw any inference from this material that any part of Ms Seven’s documents or ideas have been used.

29. The reason I find these complaints to be confirmation of my views expressed about the core allegations should be apparent. I do not speculate as to their origin: but they are completely devoid of any sort of coherence, substance or probability.

Later in the judgment, Pumfrey J states,

I do not propose to spend any time on this allegation: it is hopeless and wholly unsupported by any evidence.

And still later,

31. Then Ms Seven complains of ITV’s initiative called “Britain on the move”. This initiative is explained by ITV as follows:

“We want to inspire you to make a change to your daily routine by walking a little further each day. . . . Currently we are the couch potatoes of Europe, but by building in small changes to our busy lives we can reverse this trend by walking our way back to health.”

This is said to be derived from Ms Seven’s story about a walk. So too are the various events (including the London Marathon) listed on a website called “Walk the Walk”, which is said to be “proof of the numerous international campaigns sold illegally worldwide from this theft and fraud of our manuscript”. These complaints must be described as ridiculous.

As for Seven’s contention that Judge Pumfrey was “later found dead”, this is quite true. He died of a stroke in December 2007, a full year and a half after delivering this 26 July 2006 judgment. Hardly a “suspicious death”.

3. Missing courtroom audios?

Seven states,

She fought for a further two years to get the 18 courtroom audios from Pumfrey’s hearing 14th June 2006 released. Justice Warren made an order to release them in 2008, but the already proven guilty criminals got a corrupt Judge Justice Lawrence Collins to make an order preventing the audios from ever being used or referred to in court.

The defendants in Seven’s case were most certainly not “already proven guilty”, and we suspect that Seven might be in contempt of court for her claim that they were able to convince a “corrupt judge” to make an order preventing the audios from being used in court.

4. What about the gang-stalking allegations?

One of Seven’s continual complaints is that she is a victim of “gang-stalking”, a phenomenon which we’ve discussed here in the past.

Pumfrey J addresses this, at least in part:

36. Ms Seven complains that her e-mails have been interfered with, that her post has been diverted, and that she has been spied upon and followed by a succession of individuals in vans. It is also said that her accommodation has been broken into. All these events are said to be the responsibility of the Defendants in the present case, and Ms Seven seeks injunctive relief in relation to these activities.

37. Briefly, the matter is as follows. It is plain that Ms Seven has been the victim of malicious software in the form of one or more computer viruses that have been delivered to her computer. It looks as though her computer has been turned into a “zombie” and has been used to transmit malicious messages to others. None of this justifies any allegation of interference with her computer by the defendants. The story about the diverted mail is not capable of being investigated. So far as the vans are concerned, one of those photographed is plainly a van of a company called Champion Sport Surfacing Limited, and it is not possible, I am afraid, to take this complaint seriously. Finally, it is plain that Ms Seven has had problems with the payment of council tax and has on a number of occasions received notices from bailiffs prior to distraint. She blames this, too, on a conspiracy directed by the defendants. Finally, she complains that her telephones are tapped: but the evidence is non-existent to anyone who does not fervently believe in its truth whether or not evidence to support the allegation can be obtained.

5. And by the way, her witnesses weren’t great either

Referring to the witnesses which Seven produced to corroborate her stories, Pumfrey J said,

41. I have also had regard to the fact that in relation to certain of the events which form part of her story, Ms Seven has provided witness statements from others tending to corroborate what she has said. So Ms P___ again talks manifest nonsense about the front covers of Time Out magazine in January 2004. Ms Letang seems to give most of her evidence on hearsay from Ms Seven. Mr Nicholas is extravagant to the extent that he identifies one of Messrs Russell’s references (/DE/AD) as a personal threat by solicitors acting for NTL against Ms Seven. Mr Terence Willows says that “by April to May 2004, Charles’s work was everywhere, on all mainstream television channels, taxicabs, radio, billboards and all the newspapers”. I do not, I think, do an injustice to this material if I describe it as largely absurd.

6. Why did Seven claim she’d won when she clearly had not?

We’ll give the last word to Naqsej, who summed it up very well:

I’ve mused on this in relation to others, Neelu Berry, and Elizabeth Watson for example. They appear to have querulant paranoia (as it used to be called), try to engage in get-rich-quick schemes, but often get scammed or cheated themselves. They tend to be quite credulous, and I think it derives from, for whatever reason, an inability to judge others’ reaction, so they believe people who tell them they will get rich with SwissIndos, or if they hand over all their money to invest, and it’s a part of that that they believe that others including banks and High Court Judges (in 7’s case) will believe their stories.

The judge, who was no sort of a fool, seems to have thought there was something wrong with her, but it wasn’t part of his mission to probe what, simply to decide whether she had a case, and clearly she didn’t.

It’s not surprising that 7 puts everything that happens, either to her, or in the world as a whole, into her story, as that’s a feature of querulants. It is more grandiose than usual – Maurice Kellett had a heart attack and believed the freemasons had caused it, but even he didn’t believe that they’d demolished the Twin Towers as a warning to him. It does seem very extreme in her case.

As ever, I’m not surprised that people with mental illnesses do odd things; what’s odd is the number of people who believe it, or reinvent it as a story they can believe in. For example when one of the US birther cases was thrown out with excoriating contempt by the judge, this was reported by birther websites as a spectacular success, Obama’s days numbered etc.

However I know SHE knows (or knew once) she lost, as prior to the judgement being handed down (but after she received a copy) she asked the judge to change his mind, and when he refused, applied to appeal, and clearly she wouldn’t have done that if she’d thought it had all been a conspicuous success.

Indeed.