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[caption id="attachment_1070" align="alignright" width="120" caption="Stand Up SPCK Up"][/caption]

Randy W Williams, the Trustee in Bankruptcy for the Application for the Bankruptcy of the Society of Saint Stephen the Great by J. Mark Brewer and Brewer and Pritchard PC, filed a motion requesting sanctions against J Mark Brewer and Brewer and Pritchard PC on September 4th 2008, following on from the dismissal with prejudice of the application.

The motion accuses Mark Brewer and the Brewer and Pritchard law firm of bad faith, non disclosure of information, conflicts of interest, perpetrating a “fraud on the court”, violation of disciplinary rules and possibly US Law, suggests financial sanctions, and asks that Mr J Mark Brewer be sent back to Law School for Training in Legal Ethics.

In other words, the kitchen sink.

This may be the biggest development since it all started - the dam *may* be about to start to break. Hang on to your hat.

Fairly brief this week, but with a couple of important reports.

Press: SSG Bankruptcy Application was in Bad Faith

A report from The Bookseller states that the application for Bankruptcy in the Southern Division of the Texas Court in Houston. They have been in contact with Randy Williams, the Trustee in Bankruptcy :

“The Chapter 7 bankruptcy filed by Christian bookseller St Stephen the Great was dismissed because the case was filed “in bad faith”, according to a court official.

Courtroom minutes show that the case was dismissed “with prejudice” during a hearing at Houston Bankruptcy Court last Thursday.

The ruling has a number of restrictions on it, including a set period when Mark and Phil Brewer, who run the chain, cannot submit another bankruptcy filing in the US. Randy W Williams, trustee for the Chapter 7 case, told The Bookseller that “the motion to dismiss was granted with prejud-ice and the judge found that the filing of the case was in bad faith”.

“Bad faith means in this case that it was done for a wrong or improper purpose,” he said.
In June, Williams filed a motion to dismiss it, claiming “on its face, there is nothing to liquidate and nothing available to fund an in-vestigation in the UK”.

The brothers told suppliers in June that SSG had filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. The court later converted this to Chapter 7, leaving the retailer in liquidation.

Mark Brewer told The Bookseller last week that he did not have enough money to file for bankruptcy in the United Kingdom.

He was unavailable for comment this week.”

This is one step further than I reported last week, when it was only clear that the application had been “dismissed with prejudice” .

As I documented last week, this has a lot of implications.

There have been a few posts in a few places over the week about the Dave Walker situation. I thought it would be a good time to remember the objectives as I wrote them down on 25th July:

1 - We wish to make it very clear to Mark Brewer and everybody else that trying to shut down comment, critique and reporting in the way he has is not acceptable, and just will not work. We aim to ensure he gets more publicity than he ever had before this point.

2 - We want to make sure that the material Dave Walker published remains in the public domain, to help address the SPCK case.

3 - We want to try and make sure that the SPCK case is properly documented and investigated.

4 - We wish to strengthen the movement to reform the UK Libel Laws.

I have 2 thoughts for a Sunday morning:

• What is the difference between a Flash Mob and a Lynch Mob?
• Q: What sort of “free, democratic” country is it where political websites (including this one) are hosted abroad - not because that releases us personally from any legal actions (it doesn’t), but because it keeps non-defamatory material available to the public when webhosts in this country may well pre-emptively remove it to “play safe”, just because someone pays a lawyer to write a letter containing an allegation?

  A: One that has become a little tarnished at the edges.

What do you think?

I was planning to write this evening about Cease and Desist notices, what they are used for and my opinions about how to assess them and respond. Instead, I have something far more interesting for you; one of J Mark Brewer’s Cease and Desist notices itself.

Sam Norton runs the blog “Elizaphanian”. He is one of the Bloggers in receipt of “Cease and Desist” notices from J Mark Brewer, who runs the Saint Stephen the Great organisation.

On July 26th, Sam noted that he had been sent a “Cease and Desist” notice by Mark Brewer:

For the record, I’ve been ’served’ a cease and desist as well…

Now he has decided to publish the entire correspondence.

In my opinion Dave Walker’s posts have been a careful reporting of the developing situation at SPCK, where he has been restrained and taken care to avoid stepping over the line of objectivity.

Having followed the story for over a year, my opinion is that his reporting on Cartoon Church has been temperate and thoughtful; I have observed him repeatedly advise commentors to have cool heads, and I have regularly seen comments edited or removed when he thought they went too close to the line of controversy.

In order to help place the true facts - in my opinion - of this case where they can be sensibly debated, I am republishing some posts that were the subject of the complaint by Mark Brewer.

Perhaps you would care to reach your own opinions on the matter. You need to review the full set of 75 posts to reach an overall decision; I am sure that someone will give you that opportunity in due course.

“Thank goodness that we have this one, last bastion of free speech – the Internet. The internet, in particular, is the only truly free “press” we still have.”

(Mark Brewer Campaign Site 2000)

This article is a summary of articles, news items, and letters that have appeared in the Church Times over the last two and a half years. Apart from Cartoon Church, the Church Times is the only outlet that has really covered the story.

I’m preparing a precis of these articles, but it is taking some time.

My aim is to let you dive into the backstory of the current SPCK / Dave Walker / Mark Brewer affair as painlessly as possible. To get to grips with it you probably need to skim them once (sorry!).

This list is cross-posted from the Church Times blog. It is not an exhaustive list - some ‘in brief’ items are omitted to keep the list manageable.