Dear Jeremy,
I might have guessed you would just attack me and my credidentials. It is what I would expect of a right-wing, public school male.
It does not matter who I am.
What matters are the questions that I have raised.
The telephone call you taped with Steve Roach was quite clearly not for your personal use. You have written about it extensively on your blog and on Twitter. The call is now quite famous. Therefore it was illegal for you to record it without asking Mr Roach for his permission.
Why do you think that when you call your bank, for example, they sometimes ask you for permission to tape the call? To pass the time of day? No, because it the law.
Next, I was not criticising your credentials as journalist. If you have written more articles than I reffered to, then great. The issue is were you working as a journalist when you taped that call? Had you been commissioned by someone to write about Mr Roach or to investigate him? Had you reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime
Why do you think you can just tape people's phone calls whenever you want to?
Unauthorised surveillance is important. You need to answer these questions in an honest and thoughtful way - not just with abuse.
I’m sorry, but it does matter who you are.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, you’re attacking a man’s character and refusing to reveal nothing of yourself in the process.
Secondly, it was not Mr. Duns who made the initial inquiry as to your identity, but another interested party.
Thirdly, you didn’t even bother to spell his name correctly. How meticulous can you be in your forensic examination of the surveillance culture?
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ReplyDeleteSorry - kept spotting typos.
ReplyDelete'Dear Jeremy,'
But you've avoided one. Thank you!
'I might have guessed you would just attack me and my credidentials.'
Your ‘credidentials’? Look, you’ve set up a blog insinuating I’ve broken the law, and I'm worried that if someone glances at it you might plant some seeds of doubt. So I'm answering you. And it's clear you know nothing about the law. Impersonating a lawyer is also illegal.
'It is what I would expect of a right-wing, public school male.'
What? You don't want me to attack your 'credidentials' or engage in abuse and this is your next line?
'It does not matter who I am.'
Yes, it does. You said you wanted to air all this in public, and have set up a blog featuring my name (admittedly spelled wrong). So why can't you tell me which law firm you work for, who you represent, or point me to any of your credentials? You claim to be a lawyer, and to know a lot about how I might have broken the law. If you're not one, your assertions will carry even less weight. And you'd be committing a crime.
'The telephone call you taped with Steve Roach was quite clearly not for your personal use. You have written about it extensively on your blog and on Twitter. The call is now quite famous. Therefore it was illegal for you to record it without asking Mr Roach for his permission.'
Oh dear. You don’t know the first thing about journalism. I could also have written everything on my blog and on Twitter without having recorded the conversation. I could have simply remembered it. That would have been silly of me to try: my memory isn't that good at remembering 45-minute conversations.
One way to ensure the accuracy of what I wrote on Twitter and elsewhere would have been to write down what Steve Roach was saying while we spoke. That's very common practice for many journalists, and such contemporaneous notes are legally binding. They're done for the personal use of the journalist: they help him or her write the story. Notes are better than memory. I prefer to record conversations, as then I don’t need to scribble frantically, and as long as the recording works I have a perfect source for anything I write later. So when I've written about this, I've referred at times to the recording I made for that express personal use.
'Next, I was not criticising your credentials as journalist.'
Odd. Do you think others can't read your previous post or something? It's still there.
'If you have written more articles than I reffered to, then great.'
I have. Thanks.
'The issue is were you working as a journalist when you taped that call?'
I was, but that's not the issue at all.
'Had you been commissioned by someone to write about Mr Roach or to investigate him?'
No. I didn’t need to be.
'Had you reasonable suspicion that he had committed a crime'
No.
Listen, you're totally missing the point. This is all irrelevant. *Anyone* - a journalist, a doctor, a toothpick-maker - can record any conversation they have with anyone, without asking, legally. They just can't make the recording available to others without the permission of whoever they recorded.
'Why do you think you can just tape people's phone calls whenever you want to?'
Because you can under the law! I linked to it before, but here it is again:
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice/faqs/prvfaq3.htm
Please read it this time. It's not about journalists. It is about everyone.
'Unauthorised surveillance is important. You need to answer these questions in an honest and thoughtful way - not just with abuse.'
I haven’t abused you. Really. You should have heard me in the kitchen earlier. Thing is, you're spouting potentially damaging crap about me on a blog you've set up called ‘Jerermy Duns Watch’. I’m simply calling you on it.
You're also impersonating a lawyer. I suggest you provide evidence you are one, or stop doing it.
Sigh.
ReplyDeleteLet's start again.
Look, I'm guessing you're Steve Roach, and you're very pissed off that your name came up in the press as having been bullied by Stephen Leather. So you've set up this blog fixating on my recording our conversation and pretending to be a female lawyer to try to intimidate me and turn others against me.
I'm sorry, but I really do think it was important to make this public, as I tried to explain to you on the phone, and have tried since. Stephen Leather is a bestselling author. You told me he pursued an online vendetta against you for over a year. You fought back as best you could when he attacked you in forums, left terrible reviews for you, and based a villainous character on you.
I sympathise!It should be obvious why.
It is, if you check, legal to record calls without asking permission, and I find it useful (though usually I do ask permission) simply because it's much more accurate than memory or working from notes. And I want to be accurate. Despite your complaint that it wasn't sufficiently reported that you have made friends with Leather since he bullied you, I've accurately reported our conversation. There are also a few Amazon threads in which you go into detail about what Leather did to you. Here's one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/forum/kindle?cdForum=Fx3IRFCNF3E5K2W&cdPage=14&cdSort=oldest&cdThread=Tx15NA13AORAOSN&cdMessage=Mx20WWJDRYRPMYQ
No doubt you will delete your contributions there, but I've saved it as a screengrab anyway.
Believe it or not, I've tried to keep you out of this as much as possible. You're no saint, Mr Roach, as you well know. But as far as I'm concerned, the main issue here is the abuse of power by a bestselling author who should know a hell of a lot better. So I didn't go into great detail about your actions against him, such as publishing an ebook about him titled 'Levverzat Wat'. Would you really rather I had done? If you want to be kept out of the story, this is hardly helping you.
A tip Steve about writing in a female voice. Women never say things like, 'It is what I would expect of a right-wing, public school male.' They'd say 'man'.
ReplyDeleteSmall thing given your spelling but there they are.
I see Lezzerzat Wat is still generally available in some quarters. Doesn't get such a great review here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/RP99ZC6E0PWAY
But then... who believes reviews any more?
I am Steve Roach and I am most definitely NOT Maria.
ReplyDeleteMaria - I appreciate that you set up this blog to try and address something you thought was worth addressing, but all it's doing is attracting a legion of idiots who are now accusing me of being all sorts of things I am not.
I only found out about this blog because of a comment Jeremy Duns made about me being you.
Please take down this blog.
Please keep my name out of this argument. I said everything I wanted to say on the whole subject weeks ago.
Cheers.
As any solicitor knows, recording a telephone conversation without telling the other party and then passing the details of that conversation on to someone else is a crime. Mr Duns should know that. If he doesn't know that he has no business working as a journalist as it is a staple of newspaper law and such behaviour is not allowed under the newspaper editors' code of practise.
ReplyDeleteI find it distasteful the way that Mr Duns attacks Steve Roach and accuses him of being behind this blog, then later backtracks and says he realises that he was wrong. It is unprofessional in the extreme to slander someone on line in this way.
Is is the following comment of Mr Duns that I find most enlightening. He says "Believe it or not, I've tried to keep you out of this as much as possible. You're no saint, Mr Roach, as you well know. But as far as I'm concerned, the main issue here is the abuse of power by a bestselling author who should know a hell of a lot better. So I didn't go into great detail about your actions against him, such as publishing an ebook about him titled 'Levverzat Wat'. Would you really rather I had done? If you want to be kept out of the story, this is hardly helping you."
What he is saying that if Mr Roach continues to annoy Mr Duns, Mr Duns is prepared to release information that would be detrimental to Mr Roach. That is blackmail, pure and simple. I would advise Mr Roach to approch the police to pursue this matter. Bullying is one thing, blackmailing is something quite different.
It has become clear over the past few weeks that Jeremy Duns is a liar. Jerermy Duns is a cheat. Jeremy Duns is a bully. Jeremy Duns is a mysoginist. Jeremy Duns is an unthical journalist. Now we have Jerermy Duns the blackmailer. I hope that the newspapers that employ Jeremy Duns will read this and realise what a mistake it would be to employ him. I applaud whoever is behind this blog and urge them to continue with it. We must no longer have the secrecy that allowed the likes of Jimmy Savile to hide their crimes. We need to shine the light of truth on men like Jeremy Duns.