Earlier this month we revealed that one of the bloggers who wrongly named Lord McAlpine in connection with allegations of paedophilia is Brighton-based barrister Duncan Roy.
Now it has been confirmed that McAlpine’s legal team is investigating Roy’s blog post – which not only named the Tory peer, but branded him “evil”…
When asked about Roy, RMPI solicitor Kelly Harrison, who is assisting lead lawyer Andrew Reid on the mammoth libel claim, told a local Brighton newspaper: “A lot of people have said some very silly things and now they will have to pay the price. We will be looking at this web post before making a decision whether to take any action.”
The news comes after Roy issued a grovelling apology on his ‘Scrapper Duncan’ blog on Thursday, in which he claimed he labelled McAlpine “evil” because he is a Tory, rather than in relation to the false paedophile allegations.
“I tend to write about politics from a very partisan perspective. Generally speaking, I am highly critical of right-wing politicians and right-wing political perspectives. As a rule, I almost always use pejorative language to refer to members of the Conservative Party. In the first of these two blog posts I prefixed Lord McAlpine’s name with the word, “evil“. This was intended to be a reference to his public political activity and nothing else.”
In the original blog post – which has since been deleted, but is still available elsewhere on the internet having been re-published by several websites – Roy claimed he had “a source” to back up the paedophilia allegation, before stating: “These allegations have been known about in informed circles for many years.”
Lord McAlpine has said he will take action against any Twitter user with more than 500 followers who repeated the allegations. Roy has 864 followers.
Roy was called to the Bar in 1997, completing his pupillage at Staple Inn Chambers and the Chambers of Rock Tansey QC, before going on to practise at Common Law Chambers, the Chambers of Jonathan Dingle and Harry Hodgkin, and Jew Street Chambers.