After nearly five years, and with donations of more than a quarter of a million pounds, it is time to end this campaign.

My legal team has contacted me to say they are happy to close my account now, meaning there is nothing more for me to pay them and no reason to continue asking for donations.

So it is time for me to thank everybody who supported me during my long and arduous legal battle - more than 11,000 of you.

Although I didn't win the case, the fact that it took place made many thousands more people aware of the issues I had raised and allowed them to form their own opinions about my opponent.

So it seems that, in this case, it wasn't necessary to win. The important thing was that I stood up for what I believed was right - and, in so doing, gave others the chance to decide what they believed as well.

This has been a long and exceptionally difficult campaign, and it would not have achieved anything at all without you. Everything I did achieve, I achieved with your help.

Thank you.

The father of a girl who took her own life after viewing content that may be described as harmful has said a new law to police the internet will fail if it does not stop this material being seen.

In that case, it seems doomed to be a dead letter.

Molly Russell took her own life after viewing suicide and self-harm content that induced her to harm herself. A coroner concluded that she died while suffering from the "negative effects" of online content.

So Molly died under the influence of what other - irresponsible - people published on the social media.

The Online Harms Bill is intended to prevent people like them from publishing material that could cause such harm to other impressionable viewers.

But how can it do that when some harms are not acknowledged by UK law?

I was involved in a court case in which an argument between a TV celebrity and a young girl with anxiety-based mental illness led to the girl receiving a high volume of abuse that caused her extreme distress.

She was pushed into an extreme emotional state under the influence of what other - irresponsible - people published on the social media. You comprehend the similarity, I hope.

She was not induced into self-harm, but she was put in fear of being harmed by others.

But the court case showed that the law does not recognise the potential for harm in what happened to this girl.

Her dialogue with the TV celebrity was labelled as nothing more than a misunderstanding, and the threatening messages she received were said to have had nothing to do with that contact.

So it seems to me that, even after this Bill becomes law, vulnerable people will still be in danger of distress, torment and ultimately harm - because my case has created a precedent for judges to ignore the connections between what is posted online and the effect it has on real people.

I dread the day my fear is proved accurate.

I am still raising funds to pay my legal team for their valuable work in my court case. If you have been moved by the story above, then please help in any of the following ways:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

It seems Rachel Riley is playing one of her old games again - and this one appears to be in very poor taste.

She has responded to a piece of - journalism? - by someone called David Hirsh, raking over the behaviour of a person who is no longer alive and therefore unable to speak for himself. It is not clear to This Writer whether the deceased's family were involved.

The piece about Peter Newbon, who was a leading figure in an organisation known as Labour Against Antisemitism (LAAS), appears to have made certain claims about the beloved children's author and poet, Michael Rosen - on which Ms Riley commented as follows:

https://twitter.com/MichaelRosenYes/status/1687160833032273932

Note that she did not provide any information explaining the reason her "stomach turns" at the mention of Mr Rosen. This is familiar behaviour; by allowing others to draw their own conclusions, it may be possible to deny those conclusions later.

But is it possible to work out what one may reasonably deduce is the reason Mr Rosen has such an effect on Ms Riley's digestive system? I have not read the Hirsh article - but I believe I have enough information from the following exchange between him and Mr Rosen:

https://twitter.com/MichaelRosenYes/status/1687280760699383808

(I'm not going to refer here to the Jamie Wilson court case, in which Newbon was also involved. If you want more information on that, details are available here.)

So the claim is that the late Mr Newbon was bullied by people including Mr Rosen, and that this led to his suicide.

In that case, we need to examine how Michael Rosen knew Peter Newbon. And we find this:

The image, tweeted by Newbon, shows former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn apparently reading the anti-Semitic book The Protocols of the Elders of Zion to children.

In fact, he had been reading Mr Rosen's book We're Going on a Bear Hunt, and the words with which Newbon accompanied the image paraphrase that work: "Oh no! A J-...er, I mean a ZIONIST! A nasty, horrible Zionist! We can't go over him, we can't go under him, we'll have to make an effigy..." instead of: "We can't go over it, we can't under it. Oh no! We have to go through it”.

Hirsh has said Newbon did not create the image; he merely shared it. But every share is a new publication of the image and any message it conveys. Furthermore, the words above the image appear to have been typed in by Newbon. Were they his words, or those of whoever created the meme? Either way, if he typed them into his tweet, we may infer that he agreed with the message that they convey.

Mr Rosen had contacted Newbon's employer, Northumbria University, to complain about its lecturer sharing the image, which he described as "loathesome and antisemitic" - and he was not alone; the university received around 4,000 complaints in total.

I think we may reasonably infer that this is the "bullying" to which Hirsh referred. How he can describe Mr Rosen's complaint in that manner, or as "antisemitic", is a mystery as Mr Rosen, being Jewish, may quite clearly be seen as the victim of anti-Semitism here; the tweeted image links him - a Jew - with an anti-Semitic book which was once said to have been written by Jews and which makes claims calculated to provoke hatred against Jews.

I have no information on Newbon's own ethnicity. If he was Jewish himself, then for Mr Rosen to have been anti-Semitic towards him, Mr Rosen's complaint would have to have exhibited hatred towards him because he was a Jew - and we have no evidence of this.

And a complaint about a tweet that may clearly be taken as an attack on Mr Rosen may not be described as bullying in any way. Or so it seems to This Writer. It seems to me, based on the evidence, that he is the victim:

https://twitter.com/SocialistAnyDay/status/1687410946560372736

So I can find no clear basis for Ms Riley's apparent comment that the Hirsh article reminds her of any reason her "stomach turns" at the mention of Mr Rosen.

Her tweet certainly appears to have turned the stomachs of people who enjoy his work or have personal experience of him. A few hours after her initial tweet, Ms Riley followed it up with this:

https://twitter.com/RachelRileyRR/status/1687171095177109504

To This Writer, the comment is very strange - firstly because I can only find two responses to her previous tweet on the subject, that criticise her. Is that really enough for her to pass comment as though there was a large backlash?

Secondly, it does not make grammatical sense - and this leads me to suggest that it may be taken to mean something else: not that she isn't bothered by people she claims are antisemites being upset at her comment about Mr Rosen, but that if people do criticise her for that comment, she is not bothered because they are all antisemites.

Again, there appears to be no evidence to support a claim that every respondent is an anti-Semite.

It strikes This Writer that these tweets may create something of a difficulty for Ms Riley, in legal terms, because anyone defending Mr Rosen in response to her comments - either before or after her "Antisemites upset again" tweet - may reasonably infer that tweet to refer to them. And they may consider it to be libellous against them.

So not only is it possible that she and her employers at Channel 4 may receive a complaint about her behaviour from Mr Rosen - they already have from at least one other person...

https://twitter.com/TGFMichaelRosen/status/1687211358490873856

... but she may also receive a "letter before action", either individually or as a group, from a large number of people, some of them celebrities in their own right.

Oh, and Jeremy Corbyn might also consider getting involved, considering the fact that he was also attacked in that doctored image, that an innocent person has suffered harm because of it, because of the Hirsh article and because of the Riley tweets, and that Hirsh himself has challenged him to take such action:

https://twitter.com/jewssf/status/1687337959173808128

It seems clear that this kind of behaviour - that may harm the reputations and ruin the lives of good people - may continue until somebody with the wherewithal finally puts a stop to it.

Is it forlorn to hope that this could be the catalyst for that to happen?

While we wait to find out, please remember that I am one of those whose reputation and life has been harmed - and I'm still trying to pay my legal team after my own four-year battle with Ms Riley. If you have been moved by the story above, then please help in any of the following ways:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I tend to agree with Simon Maginn, who has tweeted the following:

"An MBE is nothing like enough for the humanitarian colossus that is Rachel Riley. Her image should be projected onto the moon for all eternity, so we can see her at night as well and offer our tearful prayers of gratitude for her selflessness and wisdom."

But my agreement is only because I know he's being sarcastic.

She's receiving this award, it seems, for work in raising awareness of the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism.

But The Independent adds the following to its report:

"She was a vocal critic of Labour’s handling of alleged antisemitism within the party and condemned Jeremy Corbyn’s conduct while leader."

Is the implication, then, that she is receiving her MBE for stating without any evidence that "Jeremy Corbyn is a racist endeavour" (as she did on a t-shirt, using an image without the consent of the photographer, who took action against her for it), along with other accusations against the former Labour leader?

In fact, there is no evidence at all that Jeremy Corbyn was or is anti-Semitic or indeed racist in any way, as a BBC presenter admitted on Radio 5 Live, on January 12, 2022.

She said: "There is absolutely no evidence that the leader of the Labour Party at that time - Jeremy Corbyn - was or is anti-Semitic. He had to deal with allegations of that within his party but there is nothing to suggest that he himself as an individual was ... I want to emphasise: there is no evidence for that at all."

Funders of my CrowdJustice campaign and readers of Vox Political will be aware that Ms Riley took me to court for defending a young girl who challenged her claim that Mr Corbyn was an anti-Semite, and the High Court found in her favour, despite the lack of any evidence to support what she had said about the former Labour leader.

I have no objection to her being recognised for raising awareness of the Holocaust, if she has significantly increased such awareness here in the UK.

But I am still trying to finish paying my legal bill for the court case she brought against me so, if you agree that there was no basis for her claims against Jeremy Corbyn, please do one or several of the following:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I'm not laying any blame on Ms Riley for the way this has been reported. I don't have any information suggesting she asked The Independent to include the material about Jeremy Corbyn in its report.

But what she said about him when he was the Labour leader was not supported by any facts and the public should be reminded of that.

When Kate Winslet won a BAFTA for I Am Ruth, she pleaded for legislation to battle the online harms to which young people are now constantly subjected.

It was a powerful speech, and the panellists on the BBC's Politics Live on May 15 (Danny Kruger, Shami Chakrabarti, Alastair Campbell and ConservativeHome's Henry Hill) discussed what could be done. You can hear their salient points here:

https://youtu.be/ectWDks3Y0Q

But is it possible to legislate against the tactics that are used to mentally and emotionally attack young people? Would the courts even recognise such methods if a case reached them?

I don't think so, based on my experience in Rachel Riley's libel case against me.

I put forward evidence about several different forms of abuse that are commonly used in the social media but the judge refused to recognise any of them.

That was her prerogative, and I'm sure she had her reasons.

But it sets a precedent that means it may now be much harder for anybody trying to win a case under forthcoming "online harms" laws to succeed.

Actions have consequences. I fear the consequences for young people in this age of anti-social media may be severe.

I will try to make our MPs aware of my concerns. It would be welcome if you would do the same.

In the meantime, I am still trying to raise money to pay my legal team, whose members were also concerned about the effect of online abuse on young people.

Please - and only if you are able to spare it - donate to my CrowdJustice fund, or contribute in any of the following ways:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

Online harm continues to be an urgent, current issue and my court case was all about that.

It is possible that my actions in defence of a vulnerable teenager may eventually be vindicated, whether a High Court judge approves of them or not.

Last time I wrote about Rachel Riley's court case against me, I said I might discuss the judge's reasons for reaching the conclusion she did.

You will recall that she based her judgment on information that was not factual but was merely supposition by Ms Riley's legal team (that I had not researched the events in question when I wrote my article. I said then - and repeat now - that I had in fact researched it very thoroughly).

She also said that the conclusions I had reached were not reasonable - this time based on nothing but her own suppositions.The Appeal Court judge said she was entirely within her rights to reach such conclusions without any evidence from either side to even suggest them.

One is led to question why a court of law would make such pronouncements without any facts to support them.

I can only put forward the suggestion that was made to me by a third party, shortly after the hearing on my appeal: that UK law as administered by its courts is set up to defend the reputation of libel claimants - to prevent damage to their good name.

This might explain why a judge, presented with any excuse - no matter how flimsy, might decide that a journalist and former newspaper editor of 25 years' experience did not carry out any research into an article her wrote, even though no evidence existed to prove the claim.

It might also explain why a judge ignored a series of fact-based arguments, supported by current understanding of certain ways of behaviour, to reach her own conclusions to justify the events that formed the basis of the case.

It certainly explains why I have continued to appeal for funds to pay my legal team - who worked for years in the belief that my evidence would be judged on its own merits.

I would ask you to judge for yourself whether that actually happened but, with only the written judgments of the High Court and the Court of Appeal available, that might be difficult.

Please continue to support me (and my legal team) according to your means, and in the way that has become well-known over the last four years:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I may discuss the law further in a future update, as efforts have been made to make it more even-handed but I fear that judges have been rejecting those efforts in practise.

A few of my friends have been - shall we say - teasing me about my court loss against Rachel Riley.

They've been playing devil's advocate, taking her (professed) view that I never had any chance to win. And it occurs to me that others might be saying the same, out behind the tiny Mid Wales town I call my home.

To those other people, and my buddies, I'd like to off these words of the late trade union leader Bob Crow:

"If you fight, you won't always win. But if you don't fight, you will always lose."

I chose to fight, and in the end I didn't win, due to a decision of a judge that was not based on any discernible facts.

That is a shame. But in fighting, I protected dozens of other people from having to go through the same process.

How many of us did Rachel Riley threaten with court? 60? 70? And in the end she only managed to attack three or four of us, to my recollection.

And she lost against one.

Let's not forget that her friend Tracy-Ann Oberman also threatened me with court but never followed through on it, and her window of opportunity has now long since closed.

I'm going to count that as a win.

So you see, this fight was worthwhile.

I'm going to repeat my appeal for funds to finish paying my legal team for their work on the application to appeal against that last, fact-free court decision. Please continue to consider supporting me (and them) according to your means, and in the way that has become well-known over the last four years:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I might expand on the reasons for the court's decision in a future update.

It seems to me that it explains much about British justice.

Remember last time, when I asked the question: if Rachel Riley didn't spend anything on her libel action against me, why did she demand more than £3,500 from me in costs to do with her strike-out application and my appeal against it?

Some of you have suggested that I should take advice on what to do about that, as it seems wrong to make such a demand if no money was actually spent.

There's a problem with that, though: I haven't finished paying my legal team for their most recent work. Until that is cleared, I can hardly ask for more!

This is the first time in four years - and more than £250,000 - of fundraising that I have found myself in this situation.

I would like to put the question to my advisors - but I would also like to pay them, and paying them comes first.

If you think they should be paid for their sterling work, please follow these time-honoured instructions:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I have still heard nothing from Ms Riley's advisors on the subject of a deal regarding the judgment in my case, so I think I may be right in assuming that they are waiting to see if I manage to make enough money to pay the money the court has ordered, whether it is deserved or not.

I don't want this hanging over me indefinitely, and would like to find a way to bring them back to the negotiating table.

This... irregularity? could be one such way.

Why is Rachel Riley demanding a huge amount of money in court costs if she didn't actually spend anything?

Take a look at the Jewish Chronicle report published after I lost my bid for permission to appeal against the judgment in my libel case. In it, her solicitor Mark Lewis stated about me:

"People have crowdfunded [a] quarter of a million pounds to pay his solicitors and barrister ... He has outspent Rachel by approximately £250,000."

This indicates that Rachel Riley paid no money at all towards her court costs.

It's entirely possible. All of her legal team could have worked for free. Obviously, payment in donations from somebody else would not count because Mr Lewis would have had to mention them, as he mentions donations to my CrowdJustice fund.

But then, why did Ms Riley claim such a large amount of money from me when I appealed against a decision to strike out my defences (and won), back in 2021?

In May that year, the Court of Appeal assessed my costs - for the appeal - at £22,180 and varied the High Court’s order on Ms Riley’s costs - for the strike-out - down to £25,808. That means I had to make a payment of £3,628 to her at that time.

Now, it seems Mr Lewis is saying she did not spend any money on that (or any) part of the case - but she still demanded thousands of pounds from me. Does that seem fair?

If not, does it seem fair that the High Court has gone on to say I should pay £100,000 to her for court costs that her solicitor appears to have said she never paid?

Whatever the facts of the matter - and I doubt we will ever hear them from either Ms Riley or her solicitor, I certainly did incur legal fees, some of which remain outstanding and my representatives deserve to be paid for the outstanding work they did in resisting Ms Riley.

If any of the above disturbs you as much as it does me, please help in the now time-honoured way:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

There remains no agreement over a possible deal; Ms Riley's legal team simply have not been in touch, to my knowledge.

While I welcome their apparent reluctance to bankrupt me, I think they are hoping I will make enough money in the future to pay the money the court has ordered - cash that they may not deserve, if the above is accurate.

It is now two weeks since my last update and I have heard nothing from Rachel Riley or her legal team.

You may recall that I have demonstrated to her that I have no assets and am therefore in no position to pay her any of the generous £150,000 the High Court awarded her in damages and costs. I offered her a deal, or suggested that she should take proceedings to bankrupt me, with all the adverse publicity that would attract.

She has not responded. It is possible that she is ignoring the point, particularly if she thinks there is nothing to be gained from bankrupting me. It is also possible that her legals are plowing through my other articles (all 16,000+ of them) to try to find a repetition of the defamatory allegations against her, on which they can threaten me with contempt of court proceedings. This would be frustrating, as I have previously asked them to identify any articles that cause them concern.

You will recall that I was led to believe Ms Riley's solicitor, Mark Lewis, had demanded half of the CrowdJustice fund, after claiming that neither he nor she would see any money from the case. I suggested that Mr Lewis might like to go on the record retracting that demand - or denying that he made it; either would suit me. I have heard nothing from him.

Meanwhile, my own hard-working representatives still have yet to be paid for their work. I'm aware that some of you may be unsympathetic to this after the court loss, but I also hear that there remains considerable support for me - so I'm repeating my appeal. Please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I had hoped that this matter would be over by now but it seems Ms Riley is determined to extract something from me, despite there being nothing to gain, and despite the fact that she has known this for a considerable number of years.

Perhaps the intention is just to leave this hanging over me, so that if I ever manage to save an appreciable amount of money, she will be able to swoop in and reduce me to poverty again.

I'll leave you to judge for yourself what kind of person would behave in such a manner.

By now, you'll probably be aware that I was not granted permission to appeal against the judgment in Rachel Riley's libel action against me and therefore lost the case.

It was a bitter disappointment, which I thought emphasised the harshness of UK libel judges against those of us who have to defend ourselves against allegations against us.

You'll be aware that I am forbidden from commenting on the case by injunction - but I'm sure those of you who are familiar with the circumstances will have formed your own opinion about what happened, and therefore about the judgment.

Now I have to come to terms with that judgment. You'll be aware that a High Court judge said I should pay £50,000 in damages to Ms Riley and £100,000 towards her court costs. I don't have that kind of money.

And you might have been led to believe that Ms Riley is not seeking it, after comments by her legal representative Mark Lewis in the Jewish Chronicle. "Neither Rachel’s barrister nor Patron Law (Mr Lewis' firm) will see a penny," he said.

But as I understand it, he then went on to demand half of the CrowdJustice fund - which is impossible to supply because it has been spent on my defence and in any case may not be used for that purpose. Perhaps Mr Lewis would like to go on the record retracting that demand - or denying that he made it; either would suit me.

My own representatives have submitted proposals for a deal. The alternative for Ms Riley is to spend more of her money on proceedings to bankrupt me - plus the adverse publicity she'll get from bankrupting a carer and defender of vulnerable people including those with long-term illnesses and disabilities.

I passed the relevant information to my representatives a week ago and have not heard a word from Ms Riley's people since then.

Perhaps there has been a communications breakdown. If so, it is for the lawyers to sort out; I've done my bit.

Sadly, my own representatives have yet to be paid for their work on the 'permission to appeal' hearing. I'm aware that some of you may be unsympathetic to this after the court loss, but I also hear that there remains considerable support for me - so I'm keeping the CrowdJustice page for the time being and repeating my appeal. Please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

One good aspect of this is that I may have protected many other people who were threatened with libel proceedings by Ms Riley at the same time I was. The deadline for her to take action against them has passed so she cannot attack these people, who I believe were as sincere in their opinions as I was.

So, even in defeat, there are upsides to this affair.

My legal team has agreed to a strategy I put forward for the special hearing on permission to appeal against the Rachel Riley libel judgment against me.

It's ambitious - by which I mean there may be a risk of time-wasting attempts by the other side - but I thought it was worthwhile and I'm glad my representatives agreed.

I can't tell you what it is. I see no reason in giving my opponents any extra time to work it out and try to find a defence (yes, they would be on the defensive) against it.

But I think it strengthens my case enormously.

We'll find out in a week's time when the hearing takes place. Be excited!

If you can also be generous, I and my team would be extremely grateful. We need funds to pay for all this work, so please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

The hearing will be on January 31, remember, and it will be broadcast from the judiciary website - https://www.judiciary.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/court-of-appeal-home/the-court-of-appeal-civil-division-live-streaming-of-court-hearings/ - and available on YouTube.

I hope you'll be able to watch it - and that we'll all like the outcome.

We had to extend the deadline for this but we got there in the end.

As part of its order for a special hearing on whether I should have permission to appeal against the judgment on Rachel Riley's libel case, the Court of Appeal called for me to supplement my written submissions with further documentary evidence.

That material was presented to the court yesterday (January 17) - and I'm very excited about it.

I reckon I'm putting forward a strong case that the judgment against me was unsafe, because it ignored so many aspects of the evidence and the judge came up with ideas of her own, rather than making decisions on what was put before her.

Ms Riley's legal team have until 4pm tomorrow to provide additional information of their own. I'm fascinated to see what they're going to produce. It will need to be better than "the judgment went against Mike so that's all" - because my entire argument is that the judgment was faulty.

Sadly, none of this will mean much if I can't pay my own lawyers. It is a strong argument but I'm still (currently) thousands of pounds short of funding this hearing. My people are doing great work and I really want to be able to pay them for it!

I know times are hard but there are vital points of justice here, involving the protection of vulnerable youngsters online - and that's quite a topical issue at the moment.

So please, if you can, do one or more of the following:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

The special hearing is on January 31 and will be broadcast via the Judiciary website: https://www.judiciary.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/court-of-appeal-home/the-court-of-appeal-civil-division-live-streaming-of-court-hearings/. It will subsequently be available there and on YouTube.

I'll update you on the response from Ms Riley after I've had a chance to look at it.

The Court of Appeal is to live-stream video of the special hearing on whether I should have permission to appeal against the judgment in Rachel Riley's libel case against me.

The hearing will take place on January 31 at the Royal Courts of Justice in London. I won't know when or in which court until the day before it happens.

The decision to live-stream the appeal is a courageous one for the court, because it means the proceedings will be available for everyone with an interest in the case to view - both live and afterwards.

That means if the court makes a decision that people think is at odds with the evidence, not only will many people kick up a fuss, but their reasons for doing so will be available for everybody to see.

Sadly that is not an advantage for either side; public opinion could run against me as easily as it could against Ms Riley.

I applaud the decision because it means everybody who has been funding my defence will be able to see what their cash has been buying.

When my appeal against the strike-out of my defences was live-streamed in 2021, the live-stream was seen by more than 3,000 people - an enormous figure when compared with the 100 or so who watched the proceedings immediately before and after.

I hope more people will watch the events of the crucial hearing on January 31.

You can do this by accessing the judiciary’s website here: https://www.judiciary.uk/you-and-the-judiciary/going-to-court/court-of-appeal-home/the-court-of-appeal-civil-division-live-streaming-of-court-hearings/. 

I still need funds to pay for the hearing. To support this vital bid for justice, please do one or more of the following:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I would certainly urge everybody reading this to watch the live-stream - or view the video as soon as you can afterwards.

The hearing will only last an hour and a half, and many of the discussion may be technical - but you should be able to understand my arguments and why I think it is important to make them.

A special hearing on whether I should have permission to appeal against the judgment in Rachel Riley's libel hearing against me will take place on January 31.

I don't yet know what time it will happen or in which court. That information will not be available until January 31.

It is possible that the Court of Appeal will screen the hearing on YouTube again - as it did with my appeal against the strike-out of my defences, back in 2021. That event attracted thousands of viewers, in comparison with only a few hundred for others.

It means there are 21 days left to raise funds to support my argument.

I wrote last week that I had been told I need to raise around £15,000 to fund the hearing. Since then, more than £1,500 has been donated - more than one-tenth of the total.

That's a fantastic start, post-Christmas in a year when the UK is going into recession and everybody is facing huge pressures on their finances.

But obviously it isn't full funding so please continue to give as much as you can - and encourage as many other people as possible to do the same. Here's how:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I am also interested in seeking alternative routes for funding. If you have any suggestions, please send them to me via the Comments section of Vox Political - https://voxpoliticalonline.com 

I moderate all comments so your suggestion won't automatically appear online; it's simply the easiest way to get ideas to me.

There is a real chance, here, to claw justice back from a bad decision. Please don't let it slip away.

Once again we discover that justice isn't cheap, in a land where it should be free.

My legal team has advised me that I need to raise around £15,000 to fund the special hearing on whether I should have permission to appeal against the judgment in Rachel Riley's libel case.

The hearing will happen at the end of January or beginning of February, so the timescale is tight - but still possible.

Several times in the last four years, the CrowdJustice fund has jumped by up to £7,000 in a single day; it made £5,000 on the day it was launched.

But that was before the government managed to mess up everybody's finances by trashing the economy. If donations come in as fast now, I will be extremely pleasantly surprised.

The reason for the high price tag seems to be associated with the fact that Rachel Riley was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours list, for services the BBC linked to winning her case against me.

A possible reason for this making our case harder to prove is provided in this video:

The gist is that the so-called Establishment will try to protect Ms Riley, now that she has received this.

But won't it be interesting to see what happens if she loses at the hearing, and if she loses at the appeal?

I would like to see that, and I hope you would too.

So please, now and whenever you have a chance:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

This has become more than just a piece of civil justice.

It is now about questioning a system that offers protection to people who may not deserve it.

The Court of Appeal has suggested that the special hearing on whether to grant permission for my appeal against Rachel Riley's libel win will be held on either January 25, January 31 or February 1.

This is actually a little later than I had been led to believe, and I hope it means that I and my team will be better-prepared than we might otherwise have been, when we finally get to face the judge.

It also provides more time to raise funds to pay for the hearing. The announcement that Ms Riley has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours list has attracted a flurry of donations but more is needed.

Please, even if you have already donated, continue to provide as much as you can spare, or help in the other ways listed below:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

The Court of Appeal has ordered a special hearing of my application for permission to appeal against the judgment in Rachel Riley's libel case against me.

This is highly unusual. Practically unheard-of, in fact.

The decision was made by Lord Justice Warby, who has some knowledge of the case, having been a member of the panel that granted my appeal against Ms Riley's application to strike out all my defences last year.

He has said that the case attracted considerable publicity at the time of the trial in July, and it is desirable for the decision on PTA to be open and transparent, whichever way it goes.

If he had thought that the appeal was plainly weak, he was perfectly entitled to reject it on the papers and draw the appeal to an immediate conclusion. The fact that he has listed a hearing suggests that he thinks there is something in my appeal that is worth consideration.

That might particularly be the case where he dealt with the previous appeal so understands the background well enough to reasonably make a decision on the papers. 

If so, I appreciate that it will come as a terrible shock to the pro-Riley trolls on the social media, who have spent more than a month trying to convince my supporters that there is no point in continuing to fund me. Clearly - at least for the time being - they have been shown to have been misleading their readers.

On the other hand, the Appeal Court judge might have largely made up his mind but wants a public hearing so that neither I nor Ms Riley can later complain that the appeal was decided without either of us being heard.

I'm not inclined to believe this because it would not seem to be a good use of court resources to order a highly-unusual hearing, merely to make refusal to grant the appeal more emphatic.

The judge has provided guidance on what he wants my representative (and Ms Riley's) to discuss and I am talking with my legal team about our response. It means I have spent Christmas going through the judgment and the evidence to identify the best information to use.

But all of this will be pointless if I can't afford to fund my defence!

I think I have raised enough to pay my Counsel for the excellent appeal documents that he wrote, and that were filed with the court on December 7.That still leaves my solicitors to pay, and then funds must be raised for the work that is now being done, and for the hearing, which will be in mid-January and will last just one and a half hours.

It is vital that this hearing is funded. I know it is happening very soon after my last fundraising drive - and with the Christmas holidays taking place around us, and the timing is certainly unfortunate.

But this is about justice.

We won't see it if we don't do everything we can to get it.

So, please: 

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

My appeal has turned a High Court loss into a fighting chance to win - but I can't do it without you. Please help in any way that you can.

Remember my last update, when I stated that my appeal against Rachel Riley's libel victory had been submitted and she had until December 21 to provide a short, written response?

She has - but there is nothing remarkable in it.

Her core argument is that the original judgment is so comprehensively against me that, even if parts of the appeal could succeed, the overall outcome would be the same so allowing the appeal to proceed would not be a good use of court time.

Basically, she's saying even if the judge is found to have been wrong, we should not dare to suggest that this means her judgment may be mistaken. Can you see the problem with that?

I and my legal team did our best to head off these arguments in the papers we filed on December 7.

Basically, if we manage to succeed on parts of the appeal, it would undermine the evidence base for the rest of the judgment.

And the appeal identifies major errors, made by the judge, that undermine her judgment.

The next part of the case, according to the government's Justice website, is apparently for my solicitors to send bundles and/or documents to the court, in support of the appeal.

I have a feeling that those bundles/documents should answer the points made by Ms Riley in opposing my appeal.

But of course, solicitors need to be paid for the high-quality work they do. So, please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page, and keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

This is a risky business. The courts seem fundamentally opposed to the reasoning that encouraged me to write an article about Ms Riley in the first place.

But it was the Court of Appeal that gave me the chance to present my case - and said that, if correctly argued, I should be able to win.

Given the opportunity to consider my evidence, I'm optimistic that I may secure another decision in my favour. Please help me get that chance.

It may be some time before we hear from the Court of Appeal on whether my appeal will be allowed to proceed or not.

The relevant documents were submitted in advance of last Wednesday's deadline and have been accepted by the court.

Rachel Riley now has until December 21 to serve a three-page paper explaining why she thinks the appeal should not be permitted - if she wants to. This is an optional document but one the Court of Appeal encourages respondents to file.

I will greet the arrival of any such information with great interest.

After that, I'm told not to expect a decision in 2022. The court term is practically over and an appeal submitted in December is hardly going to be first in line for consideration. Hopefully we'll get a response after the new term begins in January.

Will the appeal be allowed?

Good question.

The Court of Appeal may permit appeals to proceed when the appeal has some real prospect of success or where there is some other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard.

“May” is the important word, because the court has discretion not to permit an appeal to proceed, even if it meets either of the two criteria - for example, if a judge decides it would not be a good use of the court's resources.

With my appeal, I have tried to emphasise concerns about the way the law was applied and to flag up the need to clarify it in the future. Did the judge really give regard to "all the circumstances of the case" where factual information that might be expected to have a bearing on the judgment seems to have been ignored?

We also question the judge's decision on the application of my editorial judgement.

If an appeal is granted on either or both of these bases, then we can have a hearing in the Court of Appeal that may change the overall outcome of this case.

So there is still a vital need for funding. I need to finish paying for the cost of my Counsel drafting the appeal, and I fear Ms Riley's legal team are likely to try to throw as many spanners into the works as they possibly can. Responding to them costs money - and we all know how much they enjoy depleting my resources.

If you've been following the case this far - and I'm fairly sure you have - then you'll know what comes next. I'll state it anyway. Please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

You may see comments from trolls on Twitter and other social media, who support Ms Riley and are attaching themselves to this case in order to discourage you from helping me. They will try to mislead you. Do not pay them any attention.

In fact, their nonsense postings have helped me out - but I'll give you more on that in another update.

While we wait for my Counsel to finish writing the grounds and skeleton argument for my appeal against the High Court judgment against me, let's talk about the strange behaviour of some characters on the social media.

Be warned that some of what follows contains language you may find shocking.

I have to admit, I haven't been paying much attention to what people have been tweeting in response to my articles about the judgment and my plans for an appeal, so the following came as quite a jolt, when I received it from a friend on November 30:

For those of you who may not be able to read the words in an image file, it contains a tweet from somebody who stated, on the day the judgment against me was published, "May I be the first to say, tough shit Siver, you snivelling little turd. And to all those mugs who donated towards the £233,830 fundraiser he siphoned from you gullible fools, tough shit to you all too. Have a really shitty day." This was followed with six "thumbs-up" emojis.

Below it was a message from Twitter stating: "VIOLATION FOUND. We looked @[this person's] account for breaking our abusive behavior rule. We found they broke ourabusive behavior rule through different reports we received about their behavior. They can't Tweet, Retweet, or Like content, and we'll ask them to remove the reported content if they want to regain full access to their account. Your safety is important to us." And so on.

I understand there was quite a flurry of tweets similar to this in response to the judgment - and there have been a few saying similar or worse things after I announced my intention to appeal and started raising funds for it.

So, after I published my most recent update, "Appeal against Rachel Riley libel judgment set to be filed next week", I decided to pay attention to the responses it received. I was ill (my fifth cold since the start of September) and had little better to do. And I didn't have to wait long.

"Rejection of appeal to be reached the day after, still good grift, well played," tweeted an anonymous Twitter user, seven minutes later. This person provided no name or identifying image, was following just 69 people and had only eight followers, and had joined Twitter that month.

Notice the use of the word "grift", echoing Rachel Riley's assertion that I am a "grifter", which is defined as "a person who engages in petty or smale-scale swindling". There is no truth in such an allegation, of course - so you can draw your own conclusions about this person's reason for being anonymous.

It's classic "troll" behaviour, of course - leaving an insulting or offensive message in order to upset someone, get attention or cause trouble.

I decided to engage this person in conversation: "Why are you trying to tell me what I do? It can only be because you are trying to fool other readers into believing your nasty little story."

The response indicates a willingness to twist words to create a false impression: "I've ... not told you what to do, simp." A "simp" is defined as a "silly or foolish person" and the use of that word is further demonstration that this person is a troll - the use of insults being intended to provoke an emotional, and possibly foolish, reaction.

The conversation continued, with me pointing out: "You have a vested interest in broadcasting untruths. Are you being paid for this? If so, by whom?"

This seemed to incense the troll who had launched an attack purely to get an emotional reaction from me: "Ooooh, are you intimating there's a CONSPIRACY, Mikey?"

"Not at all. Asking if an anonymous troll is being paid to cast shade on a fundraiser for justice seems perfectly reasonable," I replied.

Funny how these trolls hate being called out on the reasons for their deliberately-offensive behaviour. It is a reasonable question: why else would a complete stranger join Twitter anonymously to attack an attempt to secure justice? What does such a person have to hide?

You see, they can't claim they need to be anonymous for their own protection because it is they who are deliberately trying to cause provocation; to upset me and to put people off contributing to the fund supporting my appeal.

So, why hide behind a fake name? There has to be a reason. Am I right?

There's really only one way to combat behaviour like this - and that is to win the case. And the only way to do that is by having enough funding to pay for an appeal. That is, after all, the only reason these trolls are attacking me - to discourage you.

So, please help me foil them by doing any or several of the following:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

Tomorrow I expect to see details of the appeal that my Counsel is writing, based on my own observations of the judgment and his expertise in law. No doubt its arrival will spur the trolls to new depths of absurdity.

Let's give them a reason to think twice before they lower themselves further.

Here's some good news: the appeal against the High Court's surprising judgment in favour of Rachel Riley in her libel case against me is set to be filed next week.

The flipside of that is, it will cost around £7,200 and the CrowdJustice fund currently has only about half of that amount. My solicitors reckon their costs will be similar. So we're about a quarter of the way to our current goal.

This may seem a dishearteningly low amount but it isn't.

All my legal advisers are committed to the case. They believe in it, and they are keen to do their best to turn it around.

All they need are the financial means to do it.

I would love to be able to provide some more examples of the way the judgment disregards and disrespects the facts of the case - but I am restrained by an injunction the judge imposed.

Having examined the judgment very carefully, though, it does seem clear that the judge has disregarded facts that should have been considered indisputable, in contravention of the demands of the Defamation Act 2013.

I look forward to seeing this explored in an appeal hearing - and that can only happen with your help. Please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I am aware that certain people on the social media are still attacking my fundraising events. One recently had their Twitter account frozen, due to the offensive way they attacked both my and you, my funders. I expect more such penalties will be imposed soon.

The only reason they are doing this is fear. They know the judgment is a dud and they know the only way of stopping it from being exposed is to prevent an appeal from happening.

You are the only ones who can foil them.

I'm sure you won't let me down.

There seems to be a certain amount of pushback on the social media, against my plan to appeal the judgment on Rachel Riley's libel case against me.

People presenting themselves as legal experts are trying to put potential contributors to the CrowdJustice fund off helping out, relying on their own claims of expertise to cast doubt on my chances of success.

The problem with that is, these are people who have only read the judgment and have no knowledge of what my defence was. Therefore they have no understanding of how inaccurate the judgment was.

So today I thought I'd provide just one example of why this judgment was wrong and needs to be contested:

At one point, the judge claimed that my defence failed because I did not contact Ms Riley for comment before publishing my article - on three details that weren't even mentioned in it.

Obviously there was no need to do any such thing. I can't be responsible for libelling anyone on the basis of words that I did not publish. That's the law and the judge in this case has ignored the law.

And that is just one error among many in the judgment on my case.

The injustice is absolutely staggering. If you are as outraged by it as I am - and as many right-thinking people already have been - please help me fight it.

I have a few thousand pounds left in the fund after the trial and the fundraising over the last week or so, but drafting appeal documents costs a considerable amount in itself, let alone actually going to an appeal hearing.

So please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

I question the motives of the people who are criticising me on Twitter (and presumably elsewhere) for continuing to seek justice.

They seem to be supporters of Riley, and it seems clear that they fear what may happen if an appeal is submitted to the courts.

Once again, we face the possibility that an injustice will be inflicted on me, simply because I am not as rich as my opponent.

I'm seriously considering what's called a 'Letter Before Action' over this:

As I stated in my previous update, the numbers expert from Channel 4’s Countdown has got her numbers wrong. The offer was £1,000 to a children’s charity and £5,000 to cover her own legal costs (not court fees as she states here). Court fees were not mentioned in her solicitor’s letter of January 5 this year.

Secondly, that letter laid great stress on the point that the offer was confidential. As Riley has referred to the offer, I see no problem with quoting from the letter: “We wish to make it clear that this offer is made on a confidential basis. If your client chooses to  breach  that  confidence  then  the  offer  is  automatically  withdrawn.  That  should  not  be  construed as permission to breach confidence. We reserve the right to take action against any parties who choose to act in breach of confidence.”

The letter was also marked “without prejudice save as to costs” and so it would have been wrong for me to have referred to it in an open forum prior to judgment.

I don't see why she should get away with this. Her tweet creates a false appearance that I was fundraising for my case dishonestly. I'll try to fund the first shot in this matter myself and let you know how it goes.

The simple fact is that I believed I was right to defend myself in court against her.

I still do.

The judgment against me is a travesty. It seems clear that the judge has not correctly applied the Defamation Act 2013, which required her to have regard for all the circumstances of the case, rather than cherry-pick a few inconsequential details and ignore the rest.

If I were to be charitable, I might say it seems that she simply did not understand what happened in the events the trial discussed.

I have sent my thoughts on an appeal to my legal team and am awaiting their comments.

In the meantime, I must thank you all for your fantastic response to last week's judgment and what I had to say about it. The CrowdJustice fund is nearly £2,000 richer because of it.

An appeal will cost much more than that, though.

We've been here before and know how much it will be. Not as much as the trial (thankfully), but still £20,000 or more. I'm awaiting a comment from my legals on the actual figures.

I reckon we can make it, though.

So, please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

The judgment was a terrible shock but I always said the case was likely to go to appeal, one way or another.

Let's make sure that can happen.

If you were dismayed to read that a High Court judge has handed down a verdict in favour of Rachel Riley, in her libel case against me, don't be.

You'll recall that I was defending my article about her as publication on a matter of public interest. For that to succeed, I had to prove that it was indeed on such a matter, that I honestly believed it to be on such a matter, and that my belief was reasonable.

The judge agreed that the first two conditions were met, but said the last condition was not.

Her reasons for saying this are not, in my opinion, rational.

So I'm likely to file an appeal before the December 7 deadline, on a point of law - that she failed to meet the requirements of the Defamation Act 2013 in forming her conclusions.

I cannot do this without funding, though.

My defence has always been a group effort. I would not have been able to get as far as I did without your help and, without it, I will not be able to go any further.

I notice some of you have already donated more money into the CrowdJustice fund and I am grateful - all the more so because we all have so much less disposable cash now, thanks to the blunders of our political so-called leaders.

So, once again, I have to ask, please:

Make a donation via the CrowdJustice page. Keep donating regularly until you see the total pass the amount I need.

Email your friends, asking them to pledge to the CrowdJustice site.

Post a link to Facebook, asking readers to pledge.

On Twitter, tweet in support, quoting the address of the appeal.

Use other social media in the same way.

And don't forget that if you're having trouble, or simply don't like donating via CrowdJustice, you can always donate direct to me via the Vox Political PayPal button, where it appears on that website. But please remember to include a message telling me it's for the crowdfund!

To give you just one reason why it is vital to make it as hard as possible for people like Riley to win, I notice that she has mentioned on Twitter a settlement offer she made some time ago:

There are a few problems with this:

Firstly, the numbers expert from Channel 4's Countdown has got her numbers wrong. The offer was £1,000 to a children's charity and £5,000 to cover her own legal costs (not court fees as she states here). Court fees were not mentioned in her solicitor's letter of January 5 this year.

Secondly, that letter laid great stress on the point that the offer was confidential. As Riley has referred to the offer, I see no problem with quoting from the letter: "We wish to make it clear that this offer is made on a confidential basis. If your client chooses to  breach  that  confidence  then  the  offer  is  automatically  withdrawn.  That  should  not  be  construed as permission to breach confidence. We reserve the right to take action against any parties who choose to act in breach of confidence."

The letter was also marked "without prejudice save as to costs" and so it would have been wrong for me to have referred to it in an open forum prior to judgment.

I invite you to draw your own conclusions about the honesty of Rachel Riley, in the light of these facts.

I would certainly hope that they provide encouragement to donate to the CrowdJustice fund once again.

I may have said this before, and if I did, let me assure you I mean it just as much now as I did then: Let's make it all worthwhile.