A demonstration against coronavirus mask wearing in Whitehall
Crowdfunding websites are being used to fund battles against lockdown rules, in some cases for campaigns spreading disinformation while raising tens of thousands of pounds, and taking a cut of the fees.
Websites set up to cover legal fees or raise money for charity have increasingly been used by lockdown rule breakers to pay their fines or to launch legal challenges against the penalties.
Top barristers have warned some crowdfunding campaigns can be used to fund vexatious litigation that is doomed to fail, wasting court time and costing taxpayer funds.
On the British site CrowdJustice, users can sign up to raise money to cover legal costs for court cases.
The site gained prominence after anti-Brexit protests led by Gina Miller raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for their successful legal challenge against the Government over Article 50.
But since lockdown, it has also been used to fund challenges against coronavirus lockdowns, in some cases featuring disinformation about the pandemic.
A crowdfunding campaign led by the group SaveUsNow, led by Mark Steele who claims 5G technology is part of a government “kill grid”, has raised £9,000 to fund legal proceedings for “speaking out about the false positive testing regime and threat of mass vaccination and the interlinked 5G assault and genocide agenda”.
Another campaign that has raised £80,000 to litigate against the lockdown leads with the assertion that Covid-19 “is not legally, medically or scientifically recognised as a disease or virus”. The campaign also calls for a ban on coronavirus testing.
The case has so far been refused permission for judicial review and ordered to repay costs. A decision to refuse to hear the case said the claim was “frankly out of control”.
CrowdJustice takes a 3pc cut of fees raised on its website.
Separately, the site has been used to raise funds for legal battles against fines due to coronavirus restrictions.
Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour leader, has raised £31,000 for legal fees after he was fined for protesting lockdowns. Mr Corbyn’s page says: “I strongly believe that the global policy of ‘lockdown’ will lead to terrible consequences for ordinary people across the globe — far worse than the coronavirus ever could.
“Above all will be the loss of individual liberty on a scale never before envisaged — mobile phone apps tracking your every move, compulsion to have a dangerous, untested vaccine, and a denial of the most basic human rights.”
Mr Corbyn’s crowdfunding page says he has had success in four out of his five legal challenges and faces several more court dates over his protests.
As well as CrowdJustice, GoFundMe, the US crowdfunding website, has been used by several people and businesses fined by police for breaching coronavirus guidance to pay for their fines.
A spokesperson for CrowdJustice said that its website had also been used to raise tens of thousands of pounds for a case that pushed the government to change its guidance on PPE to better protect doctors.
The spokesperson said: “We have a number of important safeguards built in to ensure that backers can give responsibly to support legal issues they care about, and to give more people more access to legal representation.
“Unlike other crowdfunding sites, CrowdJustice is unique in that we require a lawyer to be instructed before any case goes live and raises funds. We conduct KYC (know your client) checks on all case owners and all lawyers who use our platform, and indeed verify the regulatory status of the lawyer. All funds go directly to the lawyer’s client account.
“CrowdJustice doesn’t judge the merits of any case on the platform — that’s the role of the courts. We have seen over the course of five years, and 1,000 legal cases, that instructing a lawyer is a high objective threshold — not least as lawyers themselves are subject to high regulatory standards.”
‘Donor beware’
Neil O’Brien, the Conservative MP who has campaigned against coronavirus disinformation, said: “Where crowdfunding sites are profiting from hosting crank campaigns they should take a careful look at their misinformation policies. They should think carefully if they want to be profiting from this.”
Legal experts have called for such crowdfunding to be more carefully regulated so that the public are not lulled into backing campaigns with little legal merit.
Matthew Scott, a barrister at Pump Court Chambers and author of the blog Barrister Blogger, said: “[Legal crowdfunding] ought to be more regulated. Some of it is reputable and some of it is not. There needs to be more regulation detailing what happens to the money.”
Jolyon Maugham QC, a barrister and founder of the Good Law Project, which has previously used crowdfunding, said: “The easiest fix would be for it to require a level of professional regulation — where they are satisfied the money has been raised on a proper premise.”
Maugham said it was “easy with the benefit of hindsight” to know if a claim would succeed or not, but said such crowdfunding cases were “donor beware”.
He added: “I do think there are professional ethics questions for lawyers who take money for cases that are demonstrably duds.”
A GoFundMe spokesperson said: "GoFundMe has very strict rules relating to misinformation. Fundraisers raising money to promote misinformation about Covid-19 violate our terms of service. In fact, we’ve removed hundreds of campaigns for promotion of misinformation.”
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