Gill: Letter is shocking
The Solicitors Regulation Authority should investigate law firm Schillings’ work for David Walliams, according to the Good Law Project.
After three years of investigations and weeks of legal proceedings, The Guardian and ITV News reported allegations this week that the TV star and author had groomed teenage fans and harassed young female colleagues.
Walliams denies the claims.
In its article, The Guardian reported that Mr Walliams’ solicitor, Jenny Afia, wrote to an 18-year-old woman insisting that she provide a written undertaking within 24 hours not to talk about her experience with him.
The letter said: “You are at a significant risk of committing a serious civil offence should you disclose, to the press or any other third party, private information or purported private information concerning our client.”
Schillings told the newspaper that it had been instructed to write the letter as it had understood that the woman was going to “sell her story”, which Mr Walliams believed was “an untruthful account”. It said he was concerned about the impact such a story could have on his family.
Matthew Gill, Good Law Project’s defamation lawyer, said Schillings’ characterisation of a breach of privacy as an offence was “shocking”.
He said the firm “ought to have known that a teenager would likely understand the word ‘offence’ to suggest she faced consequences similar to committing a crime, including imprisonment”.
He called for the Solicitors Regulation Authority to investigate Schillings’ work for Walliams.
On Newsnight earlier this week, Dermot McNamara, a talent agent and publicist, told a similar story on behalf of a friend who had been 16 years old at the time. He said he tried to push back against Schillings but ended up facing a similar threat.
In response to this, Schillings said: “These claims refer to a letter written in 2016 on behalf of former client David Walliams. It is a matter of public record that we were not part of current injunction proceedings.
“We are prohibited from discussing even former clients’ matters, but take our professional and regulatory obligations extremely seriously. We do not recognise or accept the characterisation of our correspondence by this individual.”
Good Law Project commissioned a survey last month from Deltapoll that found 71% of UK adults would not be able to afford a lawyer if they were targeted by legal action for speaking out on sexual violence.
The same percentage also said that the law did not do enough to protect such women.
Mr Gill explained that “Someone who is only 19 years old is unlikely to have received a legal threat before, let alone be able to instruct lawyers and get advice within 24 hours. Short deadlines like this are often imposed to silence people who have important stories to tell.”
He said it was in Parliament’s hands “to ensure that women can no longer be silenced by rich and powerful men”.
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