Lucy and Verity Nevitt

In 2018, sisters, Lucy and Verity Nevitt reported allegations of sexual assault and rape to the police. Following an investigation, at the end of January 2019 the police decided that they would take no further action due to insufficient evidence. After Lucy and Verity’s cases were dropped by the police, they decided to speak out online. They did this after the police encouraged them to speak out about what had happened. According to Lucy, the police told them to speak out online, but told them not to name him, to say ‘alleged’, and call it ‘serious sexual assault’ instead of rape. However, the sisters decided to state plainly “who he was and what he’d done” as they wanted to, in the words of Verity, “warn others about him”. This led to a legal action being brought against the twins based on accusations of misuse of private information, harassment and defamation by their abuser. They were sued under the misuse of private information, but the proceedings were changed after 6 months to add defamation. 

Prior to issuing this claim, on 15 March 2019, the claimant made an application without notice to the Verity and Lucy for an interim injunction to restrain what he alleged as harassment and the misuse of private information by the defendants. However, the court denied this application, with reference to section 12 of the Human Rights Act 1998.

As the legal action continued, the sisters became aware of cease and desist letters being sent to CrowdJustice, where the sisters were raising money for their defence and MPs who had supported them, including their own constituency MP. This behaviour has been documented by Jess Phillips MP in relation to the broader issue of domestic and gender-based violence. Due to costs of mounting a legal defence, the twins had to raise money in order to pay for legal representation. According to Verity, “there were times when we didn’t have enough money for our legal team, so we were litigants in person”. This led to Lucy filing documents at court during her lunch breaks. 

On 21 May 2020, the High Court made a decision on a number of applications made by Lucy and Verity Nevitt, and the claimant. Justice Steyn granted the sisters’ application to lift the anonymity order in place to allow themselves to be publicly identified. The court also allowed the claimant to remain anonymous. However, the court rejected the claimant’s application for a reporting restriction order to be made under s.11 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. PA Media (formerly the Press Association) intervened to oppose this application, arguing that “that the main thrust of the claimant’s application for anonymity is to protect his reputation rather than his privacy.” When coming to her decision, and acknowledging the balancing of rights, Justice Steyn stated that “a reporting restriction order is a peremptory order affecting the right to freedom of expression of the press and the public. It is a form of censorship.”

Following a number of hearings, all parties agreed on a settlement, which allowed Lucy and Verity to speak about what happened to them, as long as they do not name their abuser. According to Lucy, “It was a really difficult decision … It took us a long time to decide. If we had the money we would have gone the whole way. This wasn’t just about us, there are so many other victims out there. We wanted that judgement of us winning the case to be written into law. But I had university work to get back to and we had to get back to living our lives. A win for us was the proceedings ending at that point.”

In 2018 and prior to the legal action, Lucy and Verity co-founded The Gemini Project, a non-profit organisation with the aim of ending sexual violence through advocacy, campaigns and education. In 2020, after this case was settled, they directed the Gemini Project’s work towards addressing the use of SLAPPs and legal abuse aimed at survivors. Their campaign to end the use of civil lawsuits by abusers to silence survivors is a response to their personal experiences.