Late last night the Twitter feed of Ian McLoone @IanMcloone the solicitor who is alleged to have leaked the address, or other geographically identifying data, where the counterjihad activist Tommy Robinson’s wife and children were residing, carried a statement from McLoone. The document said that McLoone had tendered his resignation as a partner in Taylor Walton Solicitors and that this resignation had been accepted with immediate effect.
McLoone is still denying that he leaked the address details, something that could have put Mr Robinson’s wife and family in grave danger from violent jihadis, who have issued constant threats to the lives of Mr Robinson and his family. With McLoone’s resignation I believe that the matter should for the rest of us, if not the immediate parties to the dispute, be considered closed and that there should be no more campaigns of letter writing or social media communications against the solicitors firm itself. I cannot at this time advise people whether to drop or continue their complaints about McLoone to the Law Society, that is a matter for each individual person who has either submitted a complaint, or is considering doing so. However, now that McLoone has gone, the law firm itself should no longer be the subject of complaints.
This has been a nasty business and one that could have had dire implications for Mr Robinson and his family but we in the wider community should see McLoone’s departure as the end of the matter and people should lay off the law firm itself now and leave the staff and remaining partners to get on with their jobs and get back to normal life.
Linked
Original Fahrenheit211 story on the Ian McLoone case
Amen and agreed! I am so happy in that the mentioned law-firm took appropriate steps, and that this person has recused himself from it. People, it is resolved, thank you to this Law Firm for their apt response to a very unfortunate situation, and they will get my business if I need their services in the future.
An “apt response” would have been to apologise to Mr Robinson and establish whether any harm had come to his family. Taylor Walton’s response – see on-line footage of Mr Robinson receiving a ‘phone call from James Carpenter of Taylor Walton – was to take legal action in the High Court against him.
McLoone’s statement regarding his (enforced?) resignation amounted to libel against Tommy Robinson – holding him responsible for Taylor Walton staff and their families being put “at risk”.
Had Tommy Robinson intended to put anyone at risk, he could simply have posted McLoone’s home address on-line. The fact that he didn’t shows who is the better man.
Good points there. I also took the view that although I had been made aware of McLoone’s home address I decided that I would not publish it for the reasons I gave in the reply that I gave to the particular commentator that included it. The fact that McLoone could not do this and instead allegedly endangered the lives of innocent people, gives us some measure of what sort of man McLoone is.
Was Tommy Robinsons address actually published or just the town he lives in?
it doesn’t matter whether it was the full address or enough detail for the address to be discerned it should not have happened and quite rightly the lawyer has resigined over this
OF COURSE it matters. The town TR lives in was already public knowledge having been published in the news before. Not really worth destroying a mans life and career over.
I disagree many people know that TR hails from the bedfordshire area that that is not enough to deduce exact location. I don’t think that just saying ‘Luton’ would hve been enough for make Mr R go down to the solicitors office, I think that he’s a bit brighter than that. The data must hve been enough to identify and therefore worth Mr r making the visit. The only person who appears to have destroyed McLoone’s career is McLoone hinself not just for the original alleged data breach but for his subsequenct wriggling and attempt to harass Mr R through the courts. I think that naming a not so rough geographical are does matter. If I lived for example in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenhem (an area I know and hve visited ) and I was the subject of Osman warnings I would be less bothered by someoen saying that I lived in London or even nameing the borough or someone sayign ‘Barking’ but if they said that ‘he lives on the Thames View Estate’ then it makes it much more easier to zero in.
Shocking that you can base an entire article on the fact ‘his home address was published’ even when you dont know if that is true.
Be ‘shocked’ it’s your perogative. However as I explained earlier it’s not always necessary to distribute the EXACT address including postcode, just naming a not so rough area can be enough to identify a person, especially if the person targeted is being pursued by those who are determined to kill or maim that person or their family. Ultimately it comes down to what source do I trust, Mr Robinson or the solicitor and I trust Mr Robinson when he says that the data that was released was enough to identify the location of his wife and children.
Let me explain this to you in pictures
The final two images represent location data that would make it really really easy for a determined person to locate their target. You should therefore be able to see that it is not necessary to give EXACT address to put someone who is vulnerable into grave danger. Here’s another example I’m not allowed to report which street a rape victim lives on as it’s identifying and that extends to other identifying data such as housing estate, village, workplace etc etc.
It would be very easy to find Tommy’s kids once if a nutter wanted to, even if it was just the village McCloone tweeted, very very dangerous. After all that’s why police have offered Tommy 5 osmans, that’s why terror police visit Tommy’s kids school, that’s why his family had to stay in a hotel
You do know that his village was already public knowledge after being reported in the media previously this year following an assault by TR on another man. Was TR in danger then? Did he move his family into hotels after that? No, it wouldnt have been very good publicity for him then would it? It all makes your London analogy look pretty redundant.
Also maybe you should change your definition of ‘home address’ as referred to in your previous article.
Your comment is irrelevant. The solicitor should not have behaved in the manner that he is alleged to have done. I’m not prepared to amend the story on your say so as the info I initially received came from sources that I trust and I don’t know you from Adam. Trust is what it all comes down to in the end. However what I will say is that you seem to have a bit of an animus against Mr Robinson adn that bothers me. Mr Robinson is no saint, who among us is , but I respect him a darned sight more than those who oppose him and I feel that he’s on the correct side when it comes to the arguments about Islam adn not the wrong side as so many people appear to have chosen to be on.
My comment is irrelevant because it’s true? I have nothing against TR. I agree with some of TRs beliefs about our country. What I dont agree with is you writing an article based on what someone has told you with zero evidence and quotes like ‘Today we have seen Mr Robinson’s family put in danger of attack by jihadi savages because of McLoone’s actions, tomorrow it could be your children or mine.’ Its serious scaremongering for no reason.
Also not sure why you brought up arguments about Islam (nothing to do with anything).
I can only go by what my contacts and sources tell me. I stand my comments that the actions of the solicitor as relayed to me by my sources, put TR’s family in danger. As regards proof I only saw the redacted retweets as the original ones with the full data on it were quite rightly not retweeted. However sources (plural) that I trust informed me and gave me to beleive that the data was of a type that allowed very easy location. I will not take out the word ‘address’ but for the sake of completeness I will add the words ‘or other geographically identifying data’ to the article. It’s not scaremongering as this sort of thing could happen to others who are involved in activities that are critical of Jihadism. It could happen to any of us. We could be exposed by means of Doxing by those who are of ill intent and in some cases it’s highly unlikely that we will recieve any effective protection from the authorities. Some of us have families that we wish to protect as best we can which is why having people distributing location data is a worrying thing.
Thank yo for clarifying the issue of your view of TR’s beliefs and I may not have needed to bring up the issue of Islam in the way I did.
To conclude: I’ve been on both sides of this divide through work and via other areas. I’ve been both the hunter, as a ‘doorstepper’ photographer and the hunted thrugh doing stuff like this and I can see both sides. I know how certain bits of info can be stitched together to make a whole and the danger that can occur if all those bits are stitched together and used for nefarious ends. BTW for the record I refuse to distribute people’s home addresses or stuff that would allow others to easily find home addresses, even for people I despise and if I can do that why can’t others?