My name is Karen Perrett and I used to run a highly engaged Facebook group which I set up to help people research cosmetic surgeons by seeing and questioning real past patient results .

I invested over £28000 into a project to develop a website to help support my Facebook group but I was forced into ceasing trading because of the consequences of being sued by the founder of a Cosmetic clinic, a man called Christian Gotti.

He claimed that I had set up another Facebook page where I was allegedly hiding under an alias called "Deirdre foster" and that I had set up this secondary group in order to defame his clinic and staff.

I am not this alias and I told him this.I also denied that I had defamed him or any of his clinic connections. I even told him whom I believed the true person behind the alias to be ,because this was fairly easy to trace from the screenshots of the group that he had provided as evidence to the court. He refused to believe me and pursued an injunction against me, which he won because he didn't have to prove that I was the alias in order to get an emergency injunction. He used the situation to his favour and his lawyer explicitly indicated that I ought to 'stay off Facebook' following the injunction which was the very place where my customers for my new business were found. So I effectively couldn't trade and I lost a lot of income as a result as well as wasting a lot of money on a website that I couldn't develop as I had planned (Because I didn't have full and complete access to my prospective clients).

Mr Gotti's lawyer; Mr J N Stachiw, threatened me with prison and contempt of court proceedings repeatedly and he explicitly used the words ‘Prison’ ; ‘Commital’(to prison); ‘Contempt’ and ‘Criminal’ more than 12 times over the course of a year and in various separate letters and emails to me. At one point while trying to get me to pay his clients costs ,Mr Stachiw wrote to tell me that :- 'There is no negotiation on the above. Either accept or we proceed to a full trial and will be making an application to commit you to prison' I was depressed and constantly in a state of despair over my situation.I had lost weight and had to take antidepressents and zopiclone to help me sleep at night. Mr Gotti's lawyer sent photos of my property and items I had sold and holidays I had been on in past years as well as birthday gifts from more than 5 years previous which he took from my personal social media accounts.He said that the ownership of these items and the value of my house (which he had looked up) meant that I should be paying his clients fees. He didn't believe my claim that i was impercunious and he suggested that I should be paying for a lawyer ,rather than representing myself.

The person whom I believed to be the real person behind the alias "Deirdre Foster", was blind copied into at least one of the emails from Mr Gotti's lawyer to me. The same individual assisted Mr Gotti in his claim by telling him that my assertions were not correct and she was not the alias in question.I later corroborated further that she was indeed the correct person behind the alias because a kind member of the public was able to produce a Whatsapp chat where it apears she had admitted it from her own phone and also seemingly made a voice note of the same admission

I made an application earlier year seeking for the injunction to be discharged, which included extensive witness evidence setting my position out. Not long after I produced this evidence to Mr Gotti's lawyers, they said they regarded the injunction as having been granted in error and that in their view there were no proceedings at all .

This was despite the fact that they had relied on this injunction being in force and had confirmed several times that it had given their client what it wanted and also used it on many occasions to keep me off social media under the fear of the threat of imprisonment

They specifically gloated to me in 2023 that i was not able to work in cosmetic surgery anymore. Mr Gotti said through his lawyer that he was 'pleased' I had 'stayed off Facebook' and that I had 'probably reassessed my skillset and moved into other areas of work ' and 'May this new status quo continue'

It seemed that once I had proven my innocence, it suited them to try to wriggle out of paying my court costs as a consequence of the situation that they had caused. They now say that there are no proceedings to answer because their client neglected to complete the correct accompanying claim form when the injunction application was made and thus, there is no actual legal claim to answer and therefore, no jurisdiction by any judge to award costs in my favour.

Their account of events and arguments are disputed by me and are the subject of an upcoming appeal hearing.

It took me 6 months before I finally instructed lawyers as I could no longer bear to be accused of doing things I hadn't done under an alias that wasn't me and to be constantly harassed and bullied by their lawyer and repeatedly threatened with imprisonment

I am seeking to raise £5k to allow me to make a claim for my lost earnings, other damages, and legal costs from the claimant, which involves some unavoidable court fees and other disbursements.

If I am able to raise more than I need, this will be donated back to Crowd Justice in support of future Free Speech campaigns