I am sorry it's been so long since the last update. I wanted to have something substantive to say, and this has proved a frustratingly long process to get underway. But my solicitors have finally issued the claim form and Maugham has confirmed he will accept service via the Good Law Project. 

Other interesting developments

On 27 March 2026 the BSB rejected the Good Law Project complaint against me, on the basis that my publications either cumulatively or singly did not cross the threshold into harassment and I was protected by Article 10 ECHR.  Interestingly, the BSB set out numerous examples of Weddell's abusive and threatening behaviour to women as relevant to his credibility. Predictably when the GLP published the BSB letter on its website, they redacted all of this on the basis that it was necessary to keep Weddell 'safe'. 

The GLP announced their intention to review this decision, and finally did so on 9 May 2026, instructing their KC to produce something that in my view was pretty sparse and making it very clear that they considered the BSB should apply the much lower Equality Act test of 'harassment' rather than the test in the Protection from Harassment Act 1997. In other words, the GLP are arguing that regulated professionals should not have any freedom of speech to discuss contentious political matters. The implications of this are obviously serious and I hope the BSB reject this review request. 

However, the robust defence of my article 10 rights from the BSB and its recognition of Weddell's own poor behaviour, I hope is going to be useful support for my libel action. It also became clear in correspondence that Maugham did not have any evidence about Weddell's alleged suicide attempt until January 2026, i.e. five months AFTER he asserted this was my fault. I look forward to seeing what this 'evidence' actually entails. 

And in other good news, I am delighted and very grateful to Roddy Dunlop KC for his offer to represent me on a No Win No Fee basis which will certainly make your money go further. 

Thank you again for all your support. I am relieved things are finally moving forward. 

Sorry for the wait but my lawyers are now drafting the particulars of claim and will issue my application shortly. I remain very grateful that your generosity has allowed me to get this far. It is of course going to get a lot more expensive the further we proceed. It's a frightening prospect but if I end up losing and have to sell my house, then so be it. It's nice to be comfortable but that cannot be the only goal in life worth chasing. 

I think what we are seeing now across the Western world, is a wholesale abnegation of the truth in order to promote an ideology that is actively harmful to the rights of women and the safety of children. Jolyon Maugham is just the tip of that spear. I don't know how this ideology has gained so much power but I can see the damage it is doing, not just to the bodies of children but to the rule of law and those institutions of medicine, law and policy that we ought to be able to trust. I think its important that we fight this every way and every time we can. 

If those who believe in this ideology of 'gender identity' had confidence that they could defend it, then they would not need to tell harmful lies about those who challenge or mock it.  I do not think my position is unreasonable. Disagree with me by all means, do it robustly even harshly. But no one has the right to tell lies that hurt others, and particularly not when that person lying is in a position of considerable influence, relying on that influence to give his lies wings.  

I will certainly be emailing you again about this; it would be nice not to lose my house if I can help it. But I have no expectations and no demands. I will remain grateful for whatever support you can continue to offer. 

I will publish the particulars of claim when I have them. 

Mr Maugham asked for extra time to reply to my letter before action and did so by 30 January. He does not accept he has done anything wrong or that he has to prove any attempted suicide by Mr Weddell. He has helpfully published his letter va the GLP website https://goodlawproject.org/barrister-accused-of-transphobia-threatens-jolyon-maugham-for-defamation/

I will now be preparing to issue - I need to look at insurance policies re costs and some other matters. I will keep you posted. Costs up to a meaning hearing are likely to be at least £50k on each side. Once I issue I will need to promote the crowdfunder to raise more money. 

I note Mr Maugham’s last paragraph and assert that it cannot be defamation to refer to the fact that at least one of his children has medically transitioned. It is true. I think this is very relevant to explain his inflexible and aggressive stance regarding childhood transition as a positive good and his persistent attempts to silence those who disagree. If I am wrong, no doubt he will take the appropriate action. 

Thank you again for your continuing generosity and support. 

Maugham replied to the LBA on 23 December effectively saying that we didn't provide him with enough detail to respond. We have now sent him some further details as set out below.

• This letter responds to your letter of 23 December 2025 in which you ask for the alleged factual inaccuracies within any statement complained of, giving sufficient explanation to enable the defendant to appreciate why the statement is inaccurate.

Ordinary meanings / factual inaccuracies and sufficient explanation 

• Led a campaign”: This is a statement of fact. The natural and ordinary meaning of this phrase is that our client carried out conduct on a sustained basis intending thereby to lead others in similar conduct. Third parties are of course entitled to react in any way they choose to our client’s X posts and our client has no way of “leading” any such activity.  Your client’s statement is false. Our client denies that her posts in any way had the intention to lead any third parties to carry out any action or as a matter of fact encouraged anyone else to carry out a ‘campaign of harassment’ and will require you prove that a ‘campaign of harassment’ occurred that was led by our client and/or that she had that intention.
• “Of harassment”. This is a statement of fact. We appreciate that in defamation cases, generally, words will mean what they convey to the minds of the “ordinary, reasonable, fair-minded reader” Gatley on Libel and Slander (2018) at 3-017 and (Clarke v Guardian News & Media (2025) EWHC 2193 (KB) at [11]-[21]. However, it is possible for words to convey a meaning that the claimant has committed a particular legally defined wrong or offence Bukovsky v Crown Prosecution Services (2017 EWCA Civ 1529, (2018) 4 WLR 13 . In deciding the meaning of your client’s words, our client will contend that given the statement would be read in conjunction with a person “sought to take her own life” and given those statements were made by King’s Counsel and leader and founder of an activist campaigning legal organization speaking with the gravitas and knowledge that title implies, the meaning “of harassment” will be found to be that our client engaged in unlawful conduct. The statement that our client committed unlawful conduct is false. Our client denies any such unlawful conduct. Our client will require you to prove such unlawful conduct. 
• “Trans woman ……Sought to take her own life / tried to kill herself”: This is a statement of fact. The natural and ordinary meaning of this phrase is that due to our client’s unlawful conduct Mr Weddell attempted suicide. Our client denies this happened and will require you to prove this factual statement that he attempted to take his own life.  Our client will also require you to prove a causal connection between the alleged suicide and our client’s publications. We require sufficient evidence of the date and time of Mr Weddell’s alleged suicide and all medical records (if any) related to this alleged event.
• “Phillimore could be punished for that conduct”: This is a statement of fact. The natural and ordinary meaning of this phrase is that our client had committed either a regulatory or criminal offence (for the unlawful conduct towards Mr Weddell) for which either she would be subject to criminal conviction and / or could be punished by the Bar Standards Board (BSB). This is factually untrue. Our client will rely on the anticipated “No Further Action” from the BSB, and the lack of any civil or criminal sanction.
• “which jeopardized life”. This is a statement of fact. The natural and ordinary meaning of this phrase is that there was a direct causal connection between our client’s posts and life being put in jeopardy. Our client will require yours to prove the direct causal connection. Our client’s position is that nothing she did put anyone’s life in ‘jeopardy’ and it is untrue to assert Mr Weddell attempted suicide because of anything our client published.
• The harassment, so serious that it might have contributed to somebody’s death”: Apart from the word “serious” (which is opinion) this is a statement of fact. The natural and ordinary meaning of this phrase is that “it contributed to somebody’s death” and that our client’s alleged conduct was sufficiently serious and causally connected with that death that it “might” have contributed to that alleged death.  However, our client denies that there is any reasonable or foreseeable risk that anyone would die as a result of her online publications and it is clear no one has in fact died. We anticipate that you will admit that these are untrue statements of fact.  
• JK Rowling intervened and offered to pay our client’s legal costs: This is a statement of fact. The natural and ordinary meaning of the phrase is that J K Rowling directly offered to pay our client’s legal costs to pay for any regulatory proceedings. The statement is false as J K Rowling did not offer to pay our client’s legal costs. Our client’s position is that you will not be able to prove this statement as true.  

We look forward to hearing from you.

But sadly it doesn't say much!

The GLP claim it can't respond to my letter as I have not complied with para 3.2 of the Media Protocol which requires me to set out the alleged factual inaccuracies within any statement complained of and give a sufficient explanation to enable the defendant to appreciate why the statement is inaccurate. The GLP have asked for more details. 

I am not sure what else I can say other than 'I didn't lead a campaign of harassment, I simply exercised my lawful and protected rights to speak against the public behaviour of Mr Weddell, and I think he's lying when he says this made him try to kill himself'. 

I will keep you posted and hopefully I will get a substantive response from them in the New Year. In the meantime I will muse about the wisdom of Mr Maugham choosing to be represented by an unregulated outfit that can't possibly be giving him independent legal advice. 

I hope everyone gets through the Holiday Season intact. 

Dear all

I end the year, for the second time in only 3 years, facing investigation by my regulator for my online speech. The Good Law Project's complaint of August 2025 was not, as I hoped, rejected at first sift, but has been referred on to the Investigations and Enforcement Team at the Bar Standards Board,  who will 'review' the case file in early January 2026. 

I was given this information after emailing twice in December to request information on progress and timescales, given that the complaint was now over 3 months old. 

This potentially causes difficulties for me. The limitation period in defamation is one year. So I have until late August 2026 to issue against Jolyon Maugham. If the BSB agree with him that my conduct has brought the my profession into disrepute, then I assume this will give him a better chance to claim a defence of truth. However, the last investigation into my conduct by the BSB took about 18 months to complete so I am unlikely to know their position until after the limitation period expires. 

I guess we will just have to wait and see. I will hope to speed up the process by making it clear that it will be necessary to suspend or disbar me to stop me making public comment as a barrister in this necessary and important debate. I will continue to assert that I do not accept any of my public comment crosses the line into speech which is sufficiently seriously discreditable to allow regulatory censure. The fact that some people genuinely find what I say offensive, is not sufficient to operate as a fetter my rights under article 10 ECHR - at least not on the case law as I understand it. 

Mr Maugham had 14 days to respond to my LBA which pleasingly runs out on Christmas Eve. I have heard nothing at the time of writing (Sunday 21 December)

As ever, I will keep you posted. 

I hope you all had a good solstice. The darkest day is now behind us!

Thank you for your patience. I have published the letter here 

https://open.substack.com/pub/sarahphillimore/p/letter-before-action?r=7va0o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

I am sorry for the slow progress; it is frustrating but I appreciate the letter before action is an important document and we need to get it right. I signed off the third draft at about 5pm on 5th December. However, later that evening at 19.28 Jolyon Maugham then republished the original libel to his Bluesky account Post by @goodlawproject.org — Bluesky with the following comment 

Ms Phillimore promised she would sue me for this tweet, and raised over £37,000 for that purpose, but more than three months on, I am still yet to receive a letter before action from her. Obviously I stand by my tweet. 

Curiously Mr Maugham does not appear to have published this comment to 'X' - I can only assume as he is aware he will meet a much larger and less sympathetic audience there.

Mr Maugham and I however can agree on one thing; 3 months is a long time to wait for the letter. I have therefore instructed my solicitors to prepare a final draft to be ready to send no later than 12 December. If that date is unachievable for whatever reason I will let you know. 

Further updates

I emailed the BSB on 1 December to ask for timescales regarding the complaint made by the GLP on 28 August 2025. I have heard nothing further. 

8 December is the deadline for the GLP to reply to my request for my personal data. In the event they do not comply, I will refer them to the ICO. If they do comply I will publish what I receive. I suspect it will be interesting reading.

Thanks for your patience and of course, for your money. I consider it a serious responsibility to move this action forward effectively in light of your support and donations. 

I had a conference with specialist defamation counsel on 31st October and I am really pleased to repot that I am now proceeding with a letter before action to Jolyon Maugham. 

Unfortunately the JKR fund were not able to help, which I understand; this is not the kind of case that is in their remit and women who are at risk of losing their jobs need the money more than I do. I will be investigating all possible ways of keeping the costs down, including looking at insurance policies. The matter will inevitably have to proceed in stages and I will be taking a realistic appraisal of costs v benefits at each stage and will keep you updated. 

thank you for all your support so far; I am very grateful. At the moment I have enough money to proceed to the next stage and I will let you all know if/when I need to raise any more. 

SP 

Dear All

Just a quick email update to let you know what is happening with your money. I have asked my solicitor to fix a conference with specialist counsel after October 20th. The reason for this was I hoped by that date to have a) a response from the Good Law Project about my Data Subject Access Request b) a response from Wiltshire police about any crimes or NCHI recorded against me (this would be useful to prove significant harm from the libel) and possibly c) a response from the JKR Fund.

Unfortunately as you may have seen from posts on 'X', the GLP have emailed me to say that my DSAR is 'complex' and they will reply by 8th December because everyone is on holiday (I exaggerate for comic effect but not by much) I am pretty sure they will end up refusing to disclose anything, because I suspect what they have will be embarrassing for them, but I will definitely follow this up with the ICO. 

But the conference should still be useful and interesting. I will update you after that happens. 

Thanks again for all your donations and support. 

SP

Dear All

Thanks again for your amazing generosity and support, also for agreeing to change the target so my solicitor can access funds now to get things moving. The aim now is to meet with specialist counsel. I hope I am advised I have a good case. If the advice is negative then I will have to think very hard about proceeding. 

I am very grateful to you all for giving me the opportunity to make public objections to Maugham's behaviour - it isn't acceptable and I am increasingly worried about his activities and those of the GLP. But defamation is a very expensive tool and I am told costs for both sides will be in the region of £150K on both sides. I think there is something very wrong with a system that costs so much to access - hopefully when gender identity ideology is defeated, I will have some time left to campaign for the reform of libel law. 

I therefore haven't been pushing the crowdfunder until I get some clear advice on prospects of success. I hope you agree I have been clear with you about how uncertain this all is. But, as with all LawFare, I think the benefits don't simply flow from a win/loss in a court case. I hope that these kind of crowdfunders help to get people talking about what is going on. I am sadly sure that nothing will make Maugham reflect but hopefully others will. 

I will aim to update you all next week and thank you again for your amazing generosity. 

SP

Dear All

Thank you very much for your donations. This is your money and I have promised I will be transparent about what is happening with it. You will hopefully all get an email soon asking if you object to me changing the target to £23K. That will enable my solicitor to access the funds more quickly so we can get things moving. At the moment, the fund will only pay out If we meet the £50K target. I hope you will be ok with this, but it is of course, your decision. 

I am continuing to update my response to the Good Law Project's complaint about me and after the murder of Charlie Kirk this has been a very depressing task indeed. Mr Weddell appears to have taken every opportunity he can to mock and celebrate the public execution of a man who was talking at a University. I question both the Good Law Project's motivation and justification for championing this man and I think it makes Jolyon Maugham's assertions about his vulnerability even more concerning. 

The updated response is here (1) Response to the complaint of Mr Weddell and the Good Law Project I have decided that I will no longer continue to update it as I am finding continued exposure to Mr Weddell's online behaviour distressing. I think I have no provided ample opportunity to debunk any claim regarding his vulnerability or fragility. 

I am really grateful to all those who have donated, shared the link or made online comment. It has been more helpful than you may ever know. 

SP