Polly’s fight for Justice

Dear All

On 22nd June last year, I watched ITV's This Morning, and a royal reporter, namely Camilla Tominey, sat on national TV and blatantly lied about Meghan Markle to the viewers. I, in turn, took it upon myself, as is my right as a viewer, to complain to ITV about the misinformation, the blatant lie and mistruth which was aimed to discredit. We all have a right to complain if we feel or see injustice on any TV platform. 

 

I addressed my complaint to Peter Bazalgette, Chairman, Carolyn McCall, CEO, and Ade Radcliffe, Diversity Head, Ms Tominey was copied to ensure openness and transparency.  However, ITV failed to respond directly to me but instead responded to Ms Tominey with an inaccurate, damning, and defaming description of me, which Ms Tominey, for whatever reason, then chose to copy and paste that comment and forward to me saying, “this is what one of them said about you”.  This then gave Ms Tominey the green light to repeat those defamatory comments and stalk my LinkedIn page. 

 

ITV described me as :

 

· A Race Baiter

· Cancel Culture Bully

· "She and her troll friends make vile threats against Camilla’s family."

· "I set and drive pure race hate."

· "I feel every ‘little’ criticism is racism."

and more.

Some of the above  fall within the realms of The Defamation Act 2013. I had asked ITV to substantiate their claims, to explain what a race-baiter is and how they attributed that description to me, how they came to the conclusion that I am a cancel culture bully. I asked that they identify who my so-called ‘troll friends’ are, and how I set out to drive pure race hate, to  explain, what in their view is criticism v racism and how they know it to be true that, ‘I feel every ‘little’ criticism is racism”.  I would like to understand  how both the CEO or Chairman of ITV and was bold enough to put it in an email, that me raising a complaint of racism is simply deemed by them as, 'little criticism'. 
I had ask ITV to retract and apologise, they chose to ignore. 

After the horrific murder of George Floyd and the abhorrent racism that we all witnessed at FIFA World Cup, we were all encouraged to speak out about our experiences etc, I actually spoke at my place of work, and  ITV was paramount in enabling such and if you do speak out, this is really what they think of you.  

I have engaged a lawyer, who sent a ‘Letter Before Action’, to Peter Bazalgette which was ignored. I suspect they feel that I am simply going to let this drop, me being a 'little person’ challenging a prominent media outlet, who may think that they can treat me in such a way because I dare to speak out, but I refuse to let them get away with such an inaccurate and damning indictment of me; and I feel strongly about this and I have every intention of proceeding.

 

This is ITV’s Code of Practice in relation to complaints :

 

"Our viewers and customers are the reason we exist and are at the heart of everything we do. We must act appropriately and quickly in relation to any complaints. We are committed to providing viewers and customers with accurate information to make an informed decision and not mislead them. The trust of viewers, the wider public and our customers is central to everything we do. We will not hesitate to take appropriate disciplinary action against anyone who breaches that trust.”   I will leave you ponder on that for a while!

After further conversations with my lawyer, the next stage is to engage Counsel and; this is where I need your help, if possible, hence my GoFundMe page;  I know defamation cases are hugely expensive, and I would like to raise funds to engage Counsel, and your support will get me to the next stage in this process and would be, of course, very much appreciated, THANK YOU!

 

Polly