Coach driver wanted to sue for libel

error1001

Hi
Hope I am posting in the correct forum
To cut a long story short basically

A While back myself and a friend was refused entrance on a coach for no apparent reason whatsoever ( Our coach ticket was valid for any bus 1 hour after or one hour before our scheduled ticket) so we got early thought we would ask if we can go on the bus driver refused his bus was empty was rude to us and fobbed us off and was agressive. So we took a picture of his number plate because we planned to complain about his behaviour

anyway no big deal because our actual bus was 45 mins later didnt really bother us.
Our coach arrived we got on all happy and well
10 mins after the driver who previously refused us..parked his coach behind ours..came on to the bus took out his cellphone and took a picture of myself and my colleague i with..absolutely no idea why...so in turn i took my camera out and snapped a pic of him taking a picture of us to keep for proof

anyway few days later i contacted customer service..got no reply...sent them twitter messages again got no reply nothing

waited a week tried again nothing.

So i decided to Tweeet the picture of the bus driver on my twitter account and also tagged it on the Coach company twitter account and posted somewhere else about my experiences...
at the point the company jumped and all they replied was "We have spoken to the driver and this wont happen again"

Thats it..no apology nothing..

anyway i thought forget it not wasting my time with these jokers

no fast fwd few months get a letter from the Drivers Lawyers instructing us that they plan to sue for libel - simply because his picture was posted up on twitter and on another website (I posted my experiences to make my voice heard simply because the company ignored all correspondance with them)

So now his planning to Sue us (The driver only not the company) for libel

Any advice or suggestions about this please?
Yes i plan to consult a solictor too but just wanted general public feedback too
Thanks

marcarm

Hope he has deep pockets.

What losses is he claiming?

wealdroam

error1001 wrote: »

Hi
Hope I am posting in the correct forum
To cut a long story short basically

A While back myself and a friend was refused entrance on a coach for no apparent reason whatsoever ( Our coach ticket was valid for any bus 1 hour after or one hour before our scheduled ticket) so we got early thought we would ask if we can go on the bus driver refused his bus was empty was rude to us and fobbed us off and was agressive. So we took a picture of his number plate because we planned to complain about his behaviour

anyway no big deal because our actual bus was 45 mins later didnt really bother us.
Our coach arrived we got on all happy and well
10 mins after the driver who previously refused us..parked his coach behind ours..came on to the bus took out his cellphone and took a picture of myself and my colleague i with..absolutely no idea why...so in turn i took my camera out and snapped a pic of him taking a picture of us to keep for proof

anyway few days later i contacted customer service..got no reply...sent them twitter messages again got no reply nothing

waited a week tried again nothing.

So i decided to Tweeet the picture of the bus driver on my twitter account and also tagged it on the Coach company twitter account and posted somewhere else about my experiences...
at the point the company jumped and all they replied was "We have spoken to the driver and this wont happen again"

Thats it..no apology nothing..

anyway i thought forget it not wasting my time with these jokers

no fast fwd few months get a letter from the Drivers Lawyers instructing us that they plan to sue for libel - simply because his picture was posted up on twitter and on another website (I posted my experiences to make my voice heard simply because the company ignored all correspondance with them)

So now his planning to Sue us (The driver only not the company) for libel

Any advice or suggestions about this please?
Yes i plan to consult a solictor too but just wanted general public feedback too
Thanks

My opinion is that you have done nothing wrong if everything you have said/written is true.

You might want to ask his employer how the driver was able to obtain your contact details.
Looks like there may be a data protection breach here.
But probably best to be guided on that by your solicitor.

Silver-Surfer_2

And what have you said about the driver?

error1001

Thanks guys

Basically what i wrote about the Driver was What he did exactly

With Twitter its limited to certain amount of characters so few of my tweets were along the lines of

"Company name - is this how your drivers behaves" and posted a pic of him taking a pic of us

and other tweets to the company was

"Lets hope we can resolve this or else i may have to make it viral" i.e. getting people to retweet it

and other tweets moaning at the company why they taking so long to

I did make a post about it on another Website but it was mainly being critical about the company - and how they handled it and also the behaviour and conduct of the driver

So basically seems driver is annoyed at the fact that "I took a picture of him and posted it on Twitter/Website"

and reason why i did this was the company refused to acknowledge any of my emails and messages to them..so i thought let me try another way

Marktheshark

They would have to deposit a large down payment at a barristers office to proceed with a Libel case, they do not come cheap.
This could get quite amusing to say the least, I simply could not resist goading them.

error1001

I got a letter of action from the company they want me to remove the postings which i did a while back anyway and also want me to make a public apology

they given me a timeline basically of two weeks
but the thing im really angry about is "They Driver wants compensation"

marcarm

error1001 wrote: »

I got a letter of action from the company they want me to remove the postings which i did a while back anyway and also want me to make a public apology

they given me a timeline basically of two weeks
but the thing im really angry about is "They Driver wants compensation"

Again, compensation for what? What losses has the driver suffered?

I could request compensation for reading this thread, does not mean I get it or am entitled to it.

bris

marcarm wrote: »

Hope he has deep pockets.

What losses is he claiming?

Libel is not about losses, that's for the small claims court.


Libel is about damage to reputation, they pick a figure and take it from there. It done in the high court and it's where the big money for solicitors comes in.

Tigsteroonie

Hmmm ... this sounds like the usual threat of a "Letter Before Action" when the individual doesn't actually intend to take the person to court (because of the costs involved).

If you want to stand by what you did, then simply bluff it out. As others have said, he'll need to put a lot of money upfront to bring a libel case.

marcarm

bris wrote: »

Libel is not about losses, that's for the small claims court.


Libel is about damage to reputation, they pick a figure and take it from there. It done in the high court and it's where the big money for solicitors comes in.

Cheers, that's cleared that up.

In that case, I'd ignore everything that is received unless it was official court papers.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer