Written By:
mickysavage - Date published:
7:52 am, September 24th, 2016 - 42 comments
Categories: conservative party, the praiseworthy and the pitiful -
Tags: colin craig, jordan williams
Like the rest of the population I have watched with interest the revelations that have occurred during the Williams v Craig defamation case. I sense that the media have had a wonderful time and I cannot think of another case where so much detail has been tweeted, facebooked and reported on.
No doubt the qualified privilege that applies to the reporting of court cases plays a part here. Media cannot be sued for reporting in good faith what was said in Court. And so it should be.
Without this protection I am sure the media would be much more careful. Colin Craig is not someone who has been reticent in exercising the legal protection of what he believes are his legal rights in the past.
And I have a very good understanding of the economics of the legal system based on 32 years of legal practice. I have had one occasion where I consulted a very good lawyer on the implications of defamation law and whether I should sue a national media organisation and a right wing blogger of very poor reputation with associations to one of the parties to the litigation and the advice was robust, if you have suffered economic loss then go for it but otherwise save your money.
My costs were less than four figures. I suspect the costs of the participants in the current case are well into six figures. Each.
Their lawyers are very good. Apart from Willie Akel if I was in defamation trouble I would instruct either of these guys.
And the really sad thing is that the woman in the middle is having to relive something she clearly does not want to.
She is the innocent person here. One party to the litigation is alleged to have sexually harrassed her. Maybe he did, maybe he did not. Maybe in a human way they became close. Either way it appears that Colin Craig stepped over the line, especially for the leader of a party that promotes conservative moral values.
The other party also appears to have stepped over the line. Feeding information gained from a friend to a site specializing in sewer politics is not the sort of thing that friends do.
To both of them can I suggest that they immediately discontinue their proceedings. And pay the anticipated further legal fees to a suitable charity. I suggest Salvation Army. The lawyers will understand. At least I hope so.
The world will be a better place if they do so. If they feel the need to deal with their testosterone levels then they should find a private boxing ring.
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It need’s thorough airing. The public of NZ deserve to here what these weirdo’s think is acceptable and normal behaviour.
Or just how devious and sick these …power seekers and their helpers can get.
My patience with these i’ll do anything to get my way types, is rather short of patience at the moment.
Someone should have taught these kids early in life that crying isn’t going to get them their xmas presents early.
I say that in respect to the way they just legislate/lawyer or run rough-shot over everyone else. That they always say they are in the right and never did anything wrong and lie their asses off.
Because one of them is clearly lying there ass off.
to early to be talking about Colin the knob..i’m off for 5 more coffee’s.
They should just have a swimming race across Cook Strait.
testing testing
[This was held in the mod queue, not sure why. New email address? TRP]
They should hook up ….
have a big pash in the courtroom
LOL…..then the farce would be complete.
Putative highest achieving lawyers, viz. High Court judges, must be hoha having to sit for days and weeks (of our lives) overseeing the unedifying spectacle of snooty/snotty powerseekers such as in Jordan v Colin. And in such as Sir Robert v WCC. No ? Where in the former no pants were removed and in the latter the burning issue is not the family home in the car but rather where/when the car was parked and whether the meter maid was a bint. Rubbish stuff !
Having a jury – who was the one who insisted on this ?
As for Colin Craigs costs . I wouldnt worry about that too much. Im sure his Auckland property empire will make that up soon enough , as hes an active property developer
Williams ? When the Dirty Politics book came out he disappeared quick from the staff of Franks Ogilvie law firm and his only gig is the obnoxious ‘No taxpayers Union’ which would appear to be a wing of ACT ( makes them seem wholesome)
It has nothing to do with Act.
The Plaintiff, in this case Jordan, chooses whether the trial is by jury or judge.
Williams is the disreputable character in this saga and I would like to see him go down in flames. It might actually help him to grow up and behave like an adult.
Craig is a fool but he’s not evil. I have some sympathy for him and his desire to retrieve at least some of his tattered reputation – if only for the sake of his wife and daughter who have done nothing to deserve any of it.
No Anne, they’re both disreputable, duplicitous, self involved ratbags, that both of them have had not the slightest hesitation to throw Rachelle MacGregor under the bus despite her obviously not wanting to have anything further to do with the situation reflects extremely poorly on both of them.
Yes its no pleasure to see her have these episodes relived again while the stags are rutting.
However she was clearly a source for Williams while still working for Craig, so if it was good enough to pass on very private information back then it cant be helped now. She was highly political and knew what she was doing by associating with Williams at the same time.
Whether he’s evil or not, he’s finished on the national stage. Williams seems to think he has a future. On that basis, I’d like to see Williams lose and so be bankrupted by the costs.
My (most enjoyable) reading of the case is that Williams will go down with all guns blazing-it is going to be expensive for him*. Personally I shall open a nice bottle of IPA followed by a nice red and dance the night away.
I’m not sure the woman at the centre of the case is blameless at all. Some of the evidence against her from fellow employees has been quite damning.
*His ACT and National Party mates may be funding the whole thing to get Craig off the political scene anyway-they don’t want 3.9% of the Right Wing vote wasted again.
Wrong. Williams is no friend of Act.
Williams wouldn’t even be doing this number unless he had financially powerful puppet-masters who put him up to it and agreed to indemnify him for legal and court costs. Great to see a right wing toad like Williams and a God botherer like Craig tearing at one another’s throats like incensed ferrets. That said, McGregor’s more Williams’ victim than she is Craig’s. Jordan ‘protecting’ the woman my arse ! He’s a wannabe made the stoolie by the Dirty Politics crowd. Poor lad.
Well having watched these two fools go at it hammer n tongs, it don’t matter who wins, because if they don’t settle, you know someone will appeal. And the lawyers and Journo’s will rub their hands with glee. And One or Both will shudder when handed the final bill. However I suspect tho the Lawyers asked for a chunk of Wedge up front, before embarking on this endeavor.
Maybe it will be in the novel Topaz (IIRC) by Leon Uris – the decision will be for Jordan Williams but the damage to his reputation will only be valued at $1.
I didn’t recall correctly – the novel was…
QB VII by Leon Uris
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QB_VII
I’m not going to get my knickers in a twist about it, as far as I’m concerned anyone who stands on a platform of family values and then (allegedly) betrays family values is fair game. And I admit to loving it when RWNJ’S eat each other in public. Can you overdose on schadenfreude?
In Texas they has an old saying. if the neighbours start quoting the bible its time to being the steers in for branding- meaning you cant trust them
And the really sad thing is that the woman in the middle is having to relive something she clearly does not want to.
Yes. Williams was supposedly her friend – as it turns out, exactly the kind of friend you’d expect someone like Jordan Williams to be, ie with friends like these who needs enemies. He’s ended up treating her worse than Craig did.
I expect Helen Craig isn’t particularly chuffed at the years of public humiliation her husband and Williamson have arranged for her either.
So the circus may yet continue with a very public, and messy divorce.
And ‘halvies’ of a fairly substantial pot of gold.
Williams might have said it, but it was MacGregor who fed it.
Let’s not pretend that Rachel “I will do whatever it takes to get what I want” MacGregor is the innocent victim in all of this.
The woman is obviously bat-shit crazy, and a spiteful cow to boot.
MacGregor drove the bloody bus under which everyone else is being thrown under.
And she still has two more trials to face up to.
Oh, so she’s just like the scum Craig and the trash Williams? I think it’s hilarious that dogshit like them attack one another.
That said, I expect you’re an embittered liar whose word is worth less than nothing. 😆
She knew that the information she was giving Williams was to be used against Craig who she was working for in a political role. It was appearing in Whaleoil at the time.
And remember its Williams who is suing Craig and bringing her to court under subpoena. She stoked the fire back then and now has to run through the ashes.
That isn’t what Jordan ‘dogshit’ Williams said under oath. He said he was trying to help her and only behaved like a sewer pipe later on. I expect he lied to her.
Nothing I like better than the Political Right fighting in public ,However let them stew because we have more important things to debate and be concerned about like housing and poverty . We have always known that they are a sleazy lot so we need to stop trivia and concentrate on winning the election for a Labour led government .
I have noticed that this crap has shifted the homeless problem off of the Front pages. and for this I suspect the Nats are thankful, for a distraction this big and not of their making.
RNZ has some very whiny audio of Jordan Williams.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/news-bulletin/story/201817361/radio-new-zealand-news
Whole thing is only 3 minutes long. Intro to his whining starts at 1:06.
Broken link Lanth:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/checkpoint/audio/201817373/jordan-williams-gives-evidence-against-colin-craig-in-trial
It’s well worth listening to the whining, and also Williams’ self-serving justifications for his actions. I especially liked the part where he started to lie, then realised he was under oath and began to whine.
No personal responsibility at all, just like every right winger ever.
Thank you, MS, for a thoughtful and balanced post. I have a distant connection to Rachel, and I know this whole sorry saga is really hurting her family, particularly her elderly, but thoroughly honourable, parents.
Shame that about the elderly parents. Genuinely, I empathise. As I still do with the grieving (twice lost a son) parents of the boy on the West Coast whom SlaterPorn branded a “feral” within days of his tragic death. You keep and you’re cynically manipulated by despicable company Punk Lawyer Boy. Call Hager. Time to tell all you know. Let it, deservedly, go to the very top son……
Seeing as you raised them….Slater and Hager are just two sides of the same coin in my opinion.
It looks to me like a Shakespearean tragedy. It would get better if strings existed attaching Williams or Macgregor back to the parties that benefited most last election from the fallout.
Macgregor in no way is an innocent party in this.
They seem to be victims of their own passions at first and then their own machiavellian machinations.
Mickey there is nothing good about this whole bloody sideshow.
I guess the only positive is its exposed the whole ugly Slater involvement via Wonky Williams and put it back in the public domain.
I dont care if Craig kept his pants on or off its just another reality show posing as entertainment that seems to have replaced real news.
In the scheme of things this whole drama is another distraction to the serious issues we need to confront in this country.
Punishment for them both should be;
Craig shouldn’t spend anymore time with Graham Capil
Williams needs more counseling about his fanaticism/fixation for his “sister” McGregor as he’s says he thinks of her as when reading her text’s … what a pair of wankas!
maybe they should both state they are dickheads, close the court case and move on. Stop wasting any more money proving something the rest of us already realises.
After seeing the video from the courtroom the other day, it’s clear that Williams deserves the “Biggest Douche in the Universe” title. Pathetic display of whinging, whining, and limp carry on. And it’s HIS lawsuit!
Spent forces should be that, move on, dont give either of them the time of the political day.