Countrygirl
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http://www.virology.ws/2017/11/22/trial-by-error-hey-bristol-where-is-my-cease-and-desist-letter/
Trial By Error: Hey Bristol, Where Is My Cease and Desist Letter?
22 NOVEMBER 2017
By David Tuller, DrPH
Earlier today, I e-mailed the following letter to Sue Paterson, University of Bristol’s Director of Legal Services, to clarify whether or not I had been sent a cease and desist letter (to cease and desist what, exactly?). Professor Esther Crawley made this claim at her public talk last Friday. I have never received any such letter. I cc’d the office of the university’s vice-chancellor, Professor Hugh Brady.
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Dear Ms. Paterson—
I attended Professor Esther Crawley’s interesting talk at the University of Exeter on Friday, November 17th. During the question period, I introduced myself and politely asked her why she had accused me of libel and then failed to respond to my e-mail requests that she document this serious allegation. I was immediately asked to leave the room, which I did promptly and without fuss.
Before I left, however, Professor Crawley told me this: “You have been so unbelievably defamatory and unprofessional that I had to get my university to send you a cease and desist letter.“ As with her false charge of libel, she provided no documentation or evidence that anything I wrote was inaccurate or in error—which is of course necessary to sustain an accusation of defamation. (In contrast, calling me “unprofessional” is obviously well within Professor Crawley’s rights, even if I disagree.)
More significantly, her statement that Bristol had sent me a cease and desist letter was certainly news to me. I have received no such letter from Bristol, either by e-mail or by post. In our previous e-mail exchange involving my complaint to Bristol about Professor Crawley’s public accusation of “libellous” blogging, you made no reference to a cease and desist letter. Nor did you mention having sent such a letter in our more recent e-mail exchange involving my freedom of information request related to Professor Crawley’s ethically challenged school absence study.
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