This short series is going to explore the ruling in the bizarre trial of Richard D. Hall. In this first part, all numbered links will be to key court documents that will be referenced and examined throughout the rest of the series. Please familiarise yourself with those documents.

With regard to the civil proceedings brought against the investigative journalist Richard D. Hall, in April 2023 I wrote:

If there is no exploration of Hall’s evidence; if it is simply dismissed out of hand by labelling it a “conspiracy theory”; if it is just asserted that the official narrative is true and cannot be questioned, then, regardless of whatever position Hall may be forced to accept, why would he, or anyone else who is familiar with the evidence he has uncovered, have any genuine cause to believe either the official account or the legitimacy of the verdict?

That is the position we all now find ourselves in following the High Court ruling [1] of Karen Steyn, who describes herself as a “High Court judge.” Perhaps the the key point to note about Steyn’s judgement is that it completely ignored the evidence—highlighted in the video below—despite Richard’s repeated attempts to submit it in his own defence [2].

Steyn’s opening statement read:

On 22 May 2017, a terrorist caused a bomb to explode at the Manchester Arena, at the conclusion of a concert performed by Ariana Grande, murdering 22 people, injuring many others, and killing himself (‘the Manchester Arena attack’ or ‘the Attack’). The claimants, Martin Hibbert, and his daughter Eve, had attended the concert, and each suffered grave, life-changing injuries in the Attack.

Thus far, the state’s High Court of Justice has claimed this as fact without examining any of the observable physical evidence which thoroughly contradicts its claim. Nor has it presented any plausible evidence to support its claim.

This is not to say that the state or the claimants have not provided any evidence. On the contrary, the evidence cited by the state, at least, is detailed and voluminous.

There are many witness testimonies of a bombing, numerous reports of events including government Inquiry reports, official accounts of investigations, anecdotes about autopsy reports, assertions that inquests were conducted, subsequent court rulings and so on. The claimants have provided medical reports, witness and expert witness testimonies, photographs and paperwork to support their claim they were present in the City Room when a bomb exploded and severely injured them. There is not a scrap of observable physical evidence nor any contemporaneous medical evidence to corroborate any of these hearsay claims.

All the observable physical evidence we have in the public domain clearly indicates that there was no bomb, that Salman Abedi did not kill himself, and that no one died or was injured by a bomb purportedly detonated by Salman Abedi at 22:31:00 on 22 May 2017 in the City Room (foyer) of the Manchester Arena.

This does not mean that those of us who contend there was no bomb are right.

The state and the claimants allege they are in possession of observable physical and other primary evidence that proves the horrendous terrorist attack unfolded—as described by the state, its courts and its legacy media. The claimants say they were present when that bomb exploded and injured them and have offered some limited evidence to support their claim.

Perhaps this unseen evidence explains, for instance, why Salman Abedi’s body was not observable in or near the City Room or why the described circumstances of Michelle Kiss’ death are evidently false. Who knows? The state has never provided this evidence to the public. It has merely alleged to exist.

To support its claim, the state and its representatives, including the legacy media that promotes the interests of the state, has offered anecdotes, highly emotional narratives and dictatorial assertions that it somehow possesses the authority to establish facts by fiat. What’s more, during the course of this trial, the state, and the claimants, had the obvious opportunity to show the evidence that would prove—beyond reasonable doubt—that those of us who contend the Manchester Arena bombing was a hoaxed false flag are wrong.

Not only did the state and the claimants not seize this opportunity, and thereby prove their case in a short order, but, when the defendant Richard D. Hall made applications to the court to see this alleged primary and contemporaneous medical evidence—as was his supposed legal right when the claim was made against him—the so-called High Court of Justice issued a summary judgment [3] denying him that right.

Hall was in possession of—and had reported to the public—the observable physical and other primary evidence strongly indicating that there was no bomb. The summary judgement barred Hall from submitting this evidence to the High Court in his own defence. The pre-trial High Court summary judgement, issued by Richard H. Davison, ended any practical prospect Hall had of defending himself using Section 1(3)(a) and (c) of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 [PHA]. This is the Act Hall was prosecuted under.

Hall pursued the appeal process but was unsuccessful. The High Court point-blank refused to allow Hall to submit the evidence that would have given him the best chance of defending himself.

Had he been permitted to submit this evidence, Hall would have had a reasonable prospect of success of demonstrating to the court that he undertook a course of action in the hope of “preventing or detecting crime” – PHA s.1(3)(a) – and “that in the particular circumstances the pursuit of the course of conduct was reasonable” – PHA s.1(3)(c). This defence, under the PHA, is absolutely essential for investigative journalists.

Without it, every time a journalist investigates a story exposing wrongdoing, the subject of their investigation—corrupt politicians or judges, for example—could prosecute them for harassment. Thereby, ending any realistic possibility of investigative journalism continuing.

The denial of Hall’s defence subsequently enabled Karen Steyn to find in favour of the claimants and declare Hall guilty of harassment without addressing—or even acknowledging—the wealth of observable physical evidence Hall could otherwise have reasonably offered.

Steyn ruled:

I have referred [. . .] to the various descriptions of the “ridiculous absurdity” of, and “far-fetched”, “absurd” “preposterous” and “fantastical” nature of, the narrative maintained by the defendant in this case, which have been given by the judges who considered his Defence earlier in these proceedings. Those epithets are apt to describe Mr Hall’s maintenance in defence of this claim that the Attack was a hoax in which no one was killed or injured, and in particular that the claimants’ life-changing injuries were not sustained in the Attack.

Steyn was able to make this statement because the High Court simply refused to look at, let alone examine, any of the evidence which proves Hall’s belief—that Manchester was a hoax—is firmly based upon a reasonable appraisal of that available evidence. It also enabled the legacy media to utterly deceive the British public when they reported Steyn’s ruling.

Sky news said:

Former television producer Richard Hall has claimed without evidence that the attack at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 was an “elaborate hoax” by British government agencies and that no one was “genuinely injured.”

This is false. Richard D. Hall reported the evidence that substantiated his belief that the Manchester Arena attack was a hoax. Evidently, the UK legacy media does not want the British public to know that. It has certainly never reported any of it.

In order to demonstrate—on the balance of evidence—a claim for harassment, there are certain conditions that must be met to find against the defendant. The defendant must have carried out a sustained course of unreasonable conduct which they knew, or ought to have known, would be likely to have the effect of harassing the claimants.

Harassment is an unreasonable course of conduct that causes the victim to “feel scared, distressed or threatened.” Examples of harassment include bullying, cyber stalking or “unwanted phone calls, letters, emails or visits.”

Technically speaking, when the BBC persistently pursued Hall—ignoring his repeated expressed wish that they desist—prior to doorstepping him at his market stall, the BBC was harassing Hall. Of course, the BBC would point out that they were conducting investigative journalism, pursuing an important story of public interest in the detection of a potential crime—harassment—and were acting reasonably as investigative journalists. It is unlikely there is a court in the land that wouldn’t accept that defence if Hall sought to prosecute the BBC for harassment.

Clearly, Richard D. Hall—an independent investigative journalist—does not have the same legal protections as the BBC’s investigative journalists. We seemingly live in a two-tier society where the state approved gatekeepers of news and information are protected by the state and its courts while the rest of us aren’t.

When Hall sought to make a reasonable defence under the PHA, the alleged British justice system simply removed that supposedly legal right from him.

In her ruling, Karen Steyn said:

In my judgment, the claimants have established that the conduct identified in paragraph 11 above amounted to a course of conduct for the purposes of the PHA. Each of the six publications complained of, from the 2018 Video published on 15 June 2018 through to the 2020 Video published on 13 June 2020, addressed the same theme. The 2018 Video would have been understood to mean that there were strong grounds to suspect that the Manchester Arena Attack was fabricated, and the allegation that it was a hoax was made more firmly in each subsequent publication.

Where paragraph 11 read:

The conduct complained of comprises: (i) the continuing publication, since 15 June 2018, of a video entitled “Hiding from Terror 2018 UK Tour” (‘the 2018 Video’); (ii) the continuing publication, since 18 May 2019, of a video (in three parts) entitled “Brexit, Jo Cox, Manchester Arena ‘bombing’” (‘the 2019 video’); (iii) seeking out and attending Eve’s home address on or about 1 September 2019, knocking on the door several times and then (secretly) recording footage of Eve, her mother and Eve’s carer using a camera set up inside the defendant’s vehicle; (iv) the continuing publication, since 27 March 2020, of a film entitled “Manchester: The Night of the Bang” (‘the Film’); (v) the publication on 27 March 2020 of a book entitled “Manchester: The Night of the Bang” (‘the Book’); (vi) the continuing publication, since 15 May 2020, of a video (in three parts) entitled “Statement Analysis of Manchester Victims” (‘the Statement Analysis Video’); (vii) the continuing publication, since 13 June 2020, of a video (in four parts) entitled “Tommy Mair/Jo Cox, Manchester ‘bombing’, Rendlesham UFO” (‘the 2020 video’) and (viii) (inferentially) repetition of ‘the Defendant’s Assertions’ (see below) in the defendant’s in-person lectures.

To be abundantly clear: Richard D. Hall has been found guilty of harassment by virtue of conducting journalism. His claim that Manchester was a hoax, contentious though it may be, and the years of investigative journalism he undertook to bring the evidence of the hoax to the attention of the British public, is the “course of conduct” deemed harassment by Steyn.

While Steyn declined to call Hall’s work journalism, if we accept that it was—personally I see no legitimate reason to see it as anything else—then Steyn judged that the claimants would “likely to be directly alarmed or distressed” by Hall’s journalism.

Steyn continued:

Freedom of expression undoubtedly provides protection for journalism which focuses on important occurrences, such as the Attack, and investigates the veracity and accuracy of established narratives as to what took place. But Mr Hall has abused media freedom. Over a period of years, he has repeatedly published false allegations, based on the flimsiest of analytical techniques, and dismissing the obvious, tragic reality to which so many ordinary people have attested.

It is true that many ordinary people have attested to a tragedy. Once their stories had been published and broadcast by the state’s entire legacy media operation, that was sufficient to convince the majority of the veracity of those accounts. Consequently, the approximate 12.5 million UK adults who are less convinced were vilified if they questioned the purported victims’ stories.

None of this emotion, nor the accompanying moral outrage, changes the fact that the observable physical evidence we have at hand renders all of those accounts highly doubtful. Steyn was able to assert the “obvious, tragic reality” thanks to the summary judgement of her High Court colleague—Richard Davison—who ensured her court didn’t need to address any of the primary evidence that sharply contradicts those heart-wrenching stories.

Similarly, by virtue of completely ignoring the primary evidence, Karen Steyn could rely upon the rulings of other self-styled judges, who cast Hall’s beliefs as preposterous or absurd, etc. Therefore, there was nothing reasonable about Hall’s beliefs according to Steyn’s judgement.

Any comments made or speculation offered by Hall in respect to the alleged victims— especially the claimants—based upon his firmly-held, evidence based belief that Manchester was a hoax, was “senseless” or “sickening.” For example, Hall’s speculation that Martin Hibbert may have “lost the use of his legs due to long-term spinal problems, and that a scar on his back may be from an operation for a herniated disc years before the Attack,” was characterised by Steyn as nothing but “baseless conjecture.” Primarily, it seems, as a consequence of Hall’s entirely reasonable basis for conjecture being struck out before the trial began.

Steyn dismissed the notion that Hall’s views constituted a belief because, quite reasonably, like nearly everyone else who believes Manchester was a hoax, Richard D. Hall said “if evidence is presented that any of the 22 did indeed die at the Manchester Arena I will update this book to include that evidence.” Karen Steyn argued that this meant Hall’s belief that Manchester was a hoax fell short of the second criteria of the requisite Grainger test, which determines:

It must be a belief and not [. . .] an opinion or viewpoint based on the present state of information available.

The implications of this part of Karen Steyn’s ruling, with regard to how future UK Courts might interpret the conflict between Articles 8 – 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), is something we’ll discuss later. While it is true that Hall has consistently said he has expressed his opinion, there seems to be an unresolved internal legal—and logical—contradiction raised.

The Grainger criteria, used to judge if a belief is worthy of legalprotection under the the Equality Act 2010, does not say that a belief needs to be permanent. If so, religious faith would not meet the Grainger test. People convert from one religion to another all the time. That does not leave their former belief “unworthy of respect in a democratic society”: the fifth Grainger criteria.

With the High Court having rejected all the observable physical evidence as unworthy of consideration, in her written judgement, Steyn laid out the evidence the state has presented to back-up its story about the Manchester Attack.

1. Hashem Abedi was, as the defendant accepts, convicted of 22 counts of murder in respect of the bombing.

Hashem Abedi was in Libya when the bombing supposedly happened and didn’t offer any defence in his trial. In fact, not being permitted to offer a substantial defence, or simply not offering one at all, appears to be a common trait of trials connected to the Manchester Arena bombing.

2. Inquests were held into the deaths of each of the 22 deceased victims of the Attack. Sir John Saunders, a retired High Court Judge, was nominated to conduct the inquests. On 22 October 2019, the Home Secretary announced that the inquests would become an independent inquiry, governed by the Inquiries Act 2005, chaired by Sir John Saunders.

Full coroners inquests were not conducted in respect to any of the 22 reportedly deceased victims. The circumstances of their deaths, perhaps the most crucial fact for an inquest to establish, were not investigated because, by making the inquests part of the inquiry, the terms of reference for the inquiry—set by the government—determined the circumstances of their deaths without examining any evidence.

3. The Inquiry’s Report is a multi-volume, meticulously detailed analysis of what happened that night, as well as many other matters touching upon the Bombing.

Just like the High Court, the Inquiry completely ignored the Bickerstaff video, the Barr footage, and the police audio recordings—Abedi’s lower body was vaguely placed “near to the seat of the explosion” and his torso somewhere “close to the arena box office” or thereabouts. Contradictory witness accounts were brushed aside or left unexplored and the alleged “point of blast image” was conspicuous only for its absence. No crime scene photographs, autopsy reports or CCTV evidence showing any fatalities or injuries were entered in to evidence. “Detailed,” certainly but “meticulously detailed,” certainly not, though it was voluminous and very complex.

4. Mr Hibbert gave evidence that there are photographs contained in his “Sequence of Events” put together by Greater Manchester Police for the Inquiry that show him and Eve entering the City Room at 20:03 and re-entering the City Room at 22:30:53 after the concert, just before the explosion. [. . .] Mr Wilcox [Mr Hibberts solicitor] confirmed in his evidence that he had personally viewed the Sequence of Events for both claimants. [. . .] In addition, Mr Hibbert provided the invoice for the tickets to the concert and two medical reports that were produced for the purpose of the claimants’ claims to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. [. . .] Mr Hibbert [one of the claimants] posted on Twitter a photograph of himself and Eve [represented as a claimant by her mother Sarah Gillbard] at the San Carlo restaurant in Manchester, not far from the Arena.

The “Sequence of events” photograph have only ever allegedly been seen by the claimants, their solicitor and GMP police. They were not presented as evidence in the Inquiry nor in the High Court trial of Richard D. Hall, despite his reasonable request to see them. In fact, the claimants—or their legal team—applied for a summary judgement to stop Hall seeing them. Which is a bit odd, because if these images are as described they would have unquestioningly proven their claim.

The “invoice for tickets” didn’t provide any evidence that the claimants were in the City Room at 22:31. Nor did it provide particularly convincing evidence of buying tickets.

The medical evidence was a report issued three years after the bombing, in which the claimants doctor (Dr Soni) claimed to have seen hospital records attesting to when the injuries were sustained. Richard D. Hall asked to see these hospital records but the High Court decided that wasn’t necessary for the claimants to substantiate their claim and the defendant didn’t need to see this evidence either.

The time a photograph is posted on social media does not prove when the photograph was taken. It is not even evidence attesting to when the photo was taken. All the photograph shows, in any event, is that the claimants went to a restaurant at some point, not that they were at the City Room at the crucial moment. In short, the only “evidence” that the claimants were in the Arena that night is hearsay.

The so-called evidence of a bombing Steyn relied upon is riddled with inconsistencies, omitted the actual filmed footage of the bomb scene, provided no observable evidence of any deaths or injuries, including Abedi’s, and was based entirely on anecdotes unsupported by any physical evidence at all.

Again, this does not mean that the bombing didn’t happen, nor that the claimants weren’t injured by it. All it means is that the evidence offered by the state to this point, in support of the official account, is weak when compared to the observable physical evidence that clearly indicates there was no bomb.

Ultimately, the millions who believe the official account of the Manchester Arena bombing have based their beliefs, contrary to the primary evidence, on the logical fallacies of appeal to emotion and appeal to authority. The latter fallacy was emphasised by Karen Steyn in when she judged:

[. . .] the nature and outcome of the Attack had been extensively reported, including by an independent panel in the Kerslake Report. [. . .] Mr Hall’s approach was to treat the statements of numerous ordinary people and professionals, including Mr Hibbert’s surgeon, as well as of an independent panel, and figures in authority, as of no value. By the time he [Hall] published the Film, the Book and the 2020 Video, Hashem Abedi had been convicted, yet Mr Hall paid no heed to the facts that demonstrated the jury found proved to the criminal standard.

Hall did not treat any of these things as having “no value” and he certainly “paid heed” to all the evidence. He spent years analysing it. But, to the broader point, so what?

The fact that “figures in authority” have issued pronouncements or that the legacy media wrote “reports” or “professionals,” including doctors, made claims or that “ordinary people” think something happened is definitively meaningless. All that matters is the evidence upon which those pronouncements, reports, and claims are based. If they are supported by evidence, of course we should respect them. If they are not, then, we have absolutely no reason to accept them.

Steyn’s mention of a jury finding something “proved to a criminal standard” is worthy of at least careful consideration. But when that jury has found someones guilty of multiple counts of murder without hearing any defence, we should also carefully consider how the prosecution was made, the evidence presented and what “instructions” the jury was given by the judge .

There was no jury in the trial of Richard D. Hall. Having listened to the evidence, Karen Steyn decreed:

[. . .] the defendant’s [Hall’s] course of conduct was oppressive, unacceptable, and of sufficient gravity to sustain criminal liability.

While I am undoubtedly biased in this matter, trying to stay as objective as I can, if we contrast Steyn’s judgement with the transcript of the trial (reporting restrictions may apply) her ruling seems mystifying. It does not appear to be a reasonable reflection of the evidence presented to the High Court.

We will explore this in Part 2.