Kamm's Law

As long as you are a paid "journalist", then it turns out that you cannot be charged with criminal harassment. That really is the law. Wangle a Fleet Street gig at a dinner party, and you can say anything you like about anyone, even in print and online.

State that they had faked a distinguished signature on a round-robin letter about a major political issue. Accuse them of having called for someone to be murdered. Claim that they had been found to have made a false accusation of child abuse. Damage their employment prospects by falsely claiming that, in their mid-forties, they had never worked. Bang on endlessly about their elderly, widowed mother. Propagate the fantasy that the conveniently dead had banned them from somewhere or other for sexual harassment. And much more besides.

"The Police are powerless to act," in the exact words of the Police. The best for which your target can hope is a civil injunction, at God alone knows what impossible expense. Yet there is no defence to a charge of criminal harassment. The crime consists in having made the other person feel harassed. If you say that you were, then you were. That, too, really is the law. If you are well enough connected that your case will be taken up by Keir Starmer's Crown Prosecution Service, then you are guaranteed a conviction. No lawyer would even so much represent anyone who attempted to plead not guilty to such a charge.

But you are beyond even that if you happen to move in the social circles of Oliver Kamm. It is not just that the CPS would never charge you, although there is that. The Police cannot even so much as arrest you. You see, because an official media operation is paying you, then you are a "journalist", meaning that you can say anything you like about anyone, even in print and online. "The Police are powerless to act." That really is the law.