Jackie - I've not been involved in this long-running NGB war/love-in, but isn't the key point that NGB seemed to be wrong on a key point of defamation law? Are you contesting that that is not the case?
(for what it's worth I always found NGB to be a decent chap in his forum dealings and will miss his contributions - not sure why you've said you have made sure he will never post again? Could he not hang around and argue his case, barrister-style?!)
What some people do not realise is that different barristers specialise in various points of law. For instance. I know a Christian barrister in Cornwall who specialises in family law. All barristers and even judges have to refer to lawbooks if there is an article of law that they are unsure of. You will find this with every barrister, solicitor and judge. He was speaking from experience. You as a laymen of course may have an advantage over barristers and even judges in that all you need to do rather than study for years to be qualified as a barrister is to look it up on the internet, therefore making you an overnight qualified barrister. But I'm afraid that all us laymen have one big disadvantage. In that whilst we may look very knowledgeable to other with our cursory looks on the law pages and cut and paste methods and may for a time rejoice in trying to make the expert look foolish. Is that in reality we are just...."laymen" and therefore are all basically "ignorant" of the real issues at stake. So may I cordially ask that you please leave ngb alone and maybe we who care about others may once again enjoy his posts?
I agree with your views on this, Grahame. This issue cannot be dismissed as 'boring', if it was boring it would n not attract continuing interest and comments. Many of us value ngb's contribution to the forum, he should not be hounded off by personal attacks which wrongly allege that ngb is lying when he - correctly - states that he is a qualified and experienced barrister who no longer practices.
Any one of us has any right to challenge the views of ngb or those of any other forum member as long as we do so respectfully. This challenge, however, was made in the form of a highly disrespectful personal attack on ngb which which should not have occurred.
When ngb requested support from moderators regarding this, he was told that his professional credentials were not being called into question and initially, along with Gerald, was effectively told to go and "play nicely".
Apologies fo the ed: messing up all my posts today by posting in mad rush from my office
