Twitter row goes to court, beak says man must cough £17,500

A Twitter user has been ordered to delete tweets, tweet an apology and pay £7,500 to another Twitter user in a judgment handed down by the High Court of Justice, Leeds Queens Bench Division last week. Judge Gosnell ordered Toby Pedley to delete all tweets relating to racing boss Carl Harris and his partner, and to pay a hefty …

[Anonymous Coward]

Easily confused...

Okay after reading this several times it finally makes sense, but I shouldn't have to read it several times for a logical order to set in. There is so much information missing from this that would make it much clearer. Who is Pedley, how did Harris' tweets supposedly affect his racing career, why was Harris' partner involved in the case. What was the counter suit.

All of these would help this piece make so much more sense. It almost feels like this was copied from an RSS feed, like one of those instant update twitter feeds you get on MSN. I visit sites like El Reg because they have full length articles, if I wanted the summary I'd go to msn.

[Steve K]

Re: Easily confused...

Probably deliberately vague on The Register's part since repeating such information in any detail may itself constitute libel.....

[Paw Bokenfohr]

Re: Easily confused...

"deliberately vague on The Register's part since repeating such information in any detail may itself constitute libel"

Then, The Register should either grow a backbone, or not bother posting anything at all, or simply link to a complete article from a news source that will post a full account.

[El Presidente]

Re: Easily confused...

@Steve K

No. reporting what happened isn't repeating the libel.

Not reporting what happened is just lazy.

[El Presidente]

Re: Easily confused...

Agency copy, dropped into CMS, sans sub.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2013/feb/15/national-newspapers-alberteinstein

[DaLo]

Re: Easily confused...

I can't even tell what sport they were talking about. I first though motor racing, but then maybe boat racing. I thought maybe I recognised the name Carl Harris from motorbike racing or it could be horse racing?

Who knows...

**Edit** I see the same question has come up below.

[Intractable Potsherd]

Re: Easily confused...

I have to agree - this is an unusually poor article for El Reg in terms of the expected level of detail. Come on, guys, do a bit of research then rewrite this in a way that makes some sort of sense - a chronology that doesn't start with the court proceedings would be a good place to start.

If you were one of my students, this wouldn't even have got a 2:2 mark.

[yoinkster]

so who is Toby Pedley? Some schmo or some bigwig in the racing industry who got upset that Harris called him a nitwit?

Or is he some grease monkey trying to climb the ladder to make it to head engineer on a racing team who happened to call Harris something like a wife-beating, marriage cheating homo? (Guessing here on the contents based on what the judge told him he couldn't say any more)

Either way, sounds to me like it would be great if he lost his appeal and was bankrupted by the judgement. He's obviously flung his own mud and deserves whatever comes back from it.

[vagabondo]

grease monkey ?

This is probably a horse-racing story. there appears to be a Carl Harris, tipster at the Yorkshire Evening Post.

[vagabondo]

Re: grease monkey ?

and Toby Pedley claimed to have worked in a bookies up until 2011.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: grease monkey ?

"Toby Pedley claimed to have worked in a bookies up until 2011"

So he might have had a monkey each way in that then.

ooer missus!

[BoldMan]

What sort of racing? Horse, car, muse, cockroach?

[I ain't Spartacus]

Muse racing?

Hmmm... Thinks:

Well it's a close finish here at Plumpton. We've got Syliva Plath on the rails, leading by a nose, The Girl with the Pearl Earring making a spirited charge on the outside, and bringing up the rear (and most likely candidate for Findus lasagnadom) is Sarah Brightman.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Muse racing?

Was Sylvia Plath anyone's muse? To be one of the Ennead you have to inspire creative activity in somebody else, not do it yourself. As well as being something of a poet, Plath merely inspired Hughes to demonstrate what utter bastards poets can be (see also Robert Lowell) and last time I checked, that wasn't on the list.

Yes, yes, off topic thread hijacking, I know, but really the idea of muse racing is far more interesting than some Twitter spat between people in an occupation not exactly famous for its high ethical standards.

[James Hughes 1]

@boldman

I agree entirely - not one mention of what sort of racing was involved. Read to end of article, still nothing. I thought it might be F1 at first, but it didn't ring any bells, so have finally decided it must be tortoise racing. All seems a bit of a fuss over a bunch of slow hardshelled creatures.

[Silverburn]

Re: @boldman

All seems a bit of a fuss over a bunch of slow hardshelled creatures.

You might find these easier to spot in your lasagne though, given lasagne is not meant to be teeth-shatteringly crunchy. Unless it's cooked by me, of course.

[Shasta McNasty]

I still don't get the point of Twitter

Twitter still seems to be the fastest way on Earth to ruin your career/life/bank balance.

I don't get the point of it. It appears to be mostly just vacuous, z-list "celebrities" spouting complete bollocks until they overstep the mark and get pulled up about it. At which point, they're very, very sorry and it was an out-of-character remark or their account was hacked.

[Silverburn]

Re: I still don't get the point of Twitter

I always thought it was as pointless as facebook, just with less characters. I'm still not sure why I should use one over the other, even if I could be bothered.

[sabroni]

Re: I still don't get the point of Twitter

As a general blogging service I agree, pointless. As a way for people in the public eye to communicate with their "fans" it's excellent. Some independent wrestling promotions in the UK make good use of it to drum up interest for upcoming events, for example.

[JaitcH]

Re: I still don't get the point of Twitter

Facebook is an even faster way to ruin your career/life/bank balance, specially if you were stupid enough to buy shares.

Changing the Z to S in the principles name far better describes shareholders.

[Cosmo]

Toby Pedley''s Twitter

I searched through Google to try and look at some of the things Toby Pedley has posted in the past. It looks as if he has some sort of major issue with Carl Harris over a tipping service or something like that. He's going to have a lot of deleting to do

[Bad Fish]

Re: Toby Pedley''s Twitter

A tipping service? Would that be fly tipping or cow tipping?

Now I'm really confused. What has cow tipping got to do with muse racing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Toby Pedley''s Twitter

What was the specific allegation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Toby Pedley''s Twitter

What's a Twitter? Why does Toby Pedley have one? Who's Toby Pedley?

[Dazed and Confused]

Max value

There needs to be an agreement that since twitter is basically worthless, no tweet can have a value in excess of say £10. Lets face it twitter is today's equivalent of mouthing off down the pub. And in the same way no one should take much notice of the friendly neighbourhood drunk on a Friday night, no one should take any real notice of some pissed off would be holiday maker saying that they'll blow up the local air port if his plane get cancelled.

So don't use twitter to say any important and don't take too seriously anything written there.

[bag o' spanners]

Re: Max value

If #Twitter is the equivalent of talking drunky bollox in the pub, then the loser in this court case might be analagous to a bloke bleeding heavily in the carpark, with his teeth nearby.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Max value

And in this case, is it the opinion of other patrons of the analagous pub that "he was askin' forrit" or he "got what was coming to 'im" ?

[Tom 13]

Re: Max value

That's a start, but I think we need to go further.

I think whoever wins gets the tenner, only let's make it dollars instead of pounds, as there's no point in inflating it's value when we're trying to keep it in check. Then, both sides have to pay the court full attorneys fees for all involved (including the judge and court employees) to be held in a fund until the end of the current fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year for the appropriate country, a lottery should be held for all people who haven't filed libel suits in said country. Ten winners are selected at random and split the fund. Tax free winnings of course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to Soviet Britain, comrades!

[@tracksuitdave1]

It looks like Harris has many identities but Pedley only has 1. Who does a man need to have so many identities I ask myself!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just noticed that one of Carl Harris names is "The Hitman". If I was Mr pedley i would apologise and send flowers and chocolates, then leave the country

[Anonymous Coward]

Although in light of that - and his recent litigious victory in court - we should emphasize that "the hitman" undoubtedly refers to his ability to pick popular musical beat combos