Mea Culpa - Thanks to My UK Readers
Last week, I wrote about a blogger Felicity Lowde which claimed that a woman named Rachel North was lying to the public.
However, a reader alerted me to the fact that:
"Felicity Lowde, a 4 times convicted stalker who has spent 3 years harassing a lady called Rachel North, a survivor of an al-Qaida attack in London who runs a popular blog. Felicity is currently wanted for arrest for breach of a restraining order.
Felicity was jailed for harassing Rachel last year. Rachel is one in a long line of targets, ( Lowde has convictions for harassment dating back from 1995) but has come in for some of the worse abuse from Felicity Lowde simply because the police built the latest prosecution case around her and she testified against her harasser at police request in a criminal trial, last year and testified again this year when Lowde demanded an appeal against conviction and sentencing. The appeal was unsuccesful.
Lowde had been jailed for 6 months (the maximum sentence for non-violent stalking under the UK's anti-stalking laws, the 1997 Protection From Harassment Act). The Judge described her as 'vicious, vitriolic and vindictive'."
Several commentators on the original post made similar observations.
My reader went on to point out:
"Felicity is severely mentally ill but unfortunately with a personality disorder rather than an illness like schizophrenia. If she was a male sociopath, she would likely be acting out using violence; as a female socoipath, she gratifies her need to cause harm by going in for emotional violence and stalking. She is also an extremely vicious and practised liar.
Don't just take my word for it Look at the links. And remember - newspapers check sources and have checked out Rachel North.
Newspapers have standards of accuracy. Bloggers leaving comments on your site can't always be taken at face value.
BBC <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6744053.stm> ( national broadcasting company)
BBC <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6249594.stm>
Oxford Mail <http://www.oxfordmail.net/news/headlines/display.var.1456078.0.cyberstalker_caught.php>
The Times <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2002387.ece>
The Times <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2326692.ece>
There are many more links but I hope this answers your questions - Felicity is mad, bad and dangerous to host links to. As a law professional you will be aware of defamation and libel and your comment.
Not sure that engaging with a wingnut's blog is libel, but I hope this serves as the appropriate apology.
Let this also be an appropriate warning, if a professionally trained skeptic like myself can for an instant for go even a simply background check because a story looks really good, then think how easy it is for professional hucksters to fool you.
As, Les Stewart reports at his Franchise Fool Blog, "scammers are not without skill or charm that can hoodwink even an especially knowledgable professionals, including a wary trial attorney."
Thanks again to all my readers from the UK for pointing how gullible I was. (On a week, in which I had already confessed to John Tozzi at Business Week that "Anybody can be a mark on any given different day. Even I could be.")
