Ignoring Reason And Moral Duty To Harbour And Support Predatory Trolling

In March 2022, I personally appealed to Graham Lea, the managing partner of Hempsons LLP and superior to my half-sister, Tania Francis, to inform him of her relentless harassment and coercion of me over the previous year and that I was going to be escalating the matter for my own protection. I also informed him that I strongly suspected Mrs Francis’s extensive involvement in the anti Lighthouse smear campaign by predatory trolls online. I explained how her involvement in such an unlawful and criminal attack on the characters, lives and livelihoods of myself and all of those associated with me would only bring greater and greater consequences that seriously impact her career. It was my hope that he would privately counsel Mrs Francis and help dissuade her from the damaging and destructive path she was going down for her sake and that of his firm’s reputation. His initial reply back in March 2022 was receptive and it seemed he took this very seriously at the time.

However, since then, as Mrs Francis was clearly not advised, she carried on her behaviour and I have appealed again and again to Mr Lea with a steady escalation. Sadly he has clearly failed to take action in pursuading Mrs Francis to cease her destructive and futile behaviour, despite the potential impact to himself and his firm as a result. Where I have offered evidence in support of the fact that she is following an illegal and unlawful course of conduct he has not even acknowledged it. Nor has he cooperated with my requests to impel her to remove posts on Reddit where she has continually tried to coerce and control me, while attacking my livelihood. Even on the basis of helping to broker a peace and find a way to make wrongs right. This letter is a copy of my most recent email informing Mr Lea that I will not rest until my half-sister takes responsibility for her actions and makes amends. It is also part of my greater stand to help ensure companies who harbour predatory trolls like Tania, making themsleves complicit in such behaviour by the staff they are funding will be held publicly accountable for their failure to intervene.

My Letter To Graham Lea, Managing Partner Of Hempsons LLP:

Mr Lea, 

In response to your last email, stating that you intend to take no action in line with my email to you about the damage Tania Francis has inflicted to me, my livelihood and Lighthouse Global, I am appalled at your response, your avoidance of responsibility and a sheer lack of duty of care. Since March 2022, I have given you every opportunity to take this matter seriously and to act accordingly by being a part of the solution (Mrs Francis, your firm, and me) and indeed at the time of my first email I was assured by you that this would be the case. It is unfathomable as to why you minimise and dismiss this situation, take no responsibility and not hold Mrs Francis accountable for her bad spirited intentions, the destruction she has caused and her unrepentant attitude to her wrongdoing. 

This letter is going to be published online along with the rest of our correspondence thus far so that the general public are made aware of the companies who harbour predatory trolls and who, although they have a duty of care to the public, refuse to take action where one of their own partners has caused such harm to others. This is in the public interest. 

Mrs Francis is devastating whatever reputation she had and is now starting to drag Hempsons down with her. My barrister was astonished at how irrationally unreasonable she was being. What you now have, Mr Lea, is that Mrs Francis wishes that she had acted very differently but she is in so deep now she has felt she needs to carry on. I implore you to look at this differently from your own personal perspective as well as strongly encourage her to change her attitude and her approach because the Groundswell around David and Goliath means the everyday man and woman will no longer be harassed and bullied by those who seemingly have greater power and influence and/or reach, whether tyrannical organisations or unscrupulous individuals. 

The bottom line is that this isn’t going to go away! You were hoping something will happen in the court and it would help you decide what you need to do to act. As the leader of the firm, you need to act outside of any decision from any court. You need to look objectively into what has actually gone on here. If you had the full facts and knew what was really going on and what Mrs Francis has really done, if you were privy to every conversation, everything she has done, every message and how she has colluded and conspired with predatory trolls in this unlawful and illegal smear campaign, I have every reason to believe you would be acting very differently as a reasonable person within the law. 

Latest developments

I am writing to inform you that the latest developments in court with Mrs Francis ought to concern you as they have shown to me and to my barrister, Stephanie Heijdra. In particular how utterly unreasonable Mrs Francis has been to bring this matter to a close, which I would have thought would have been in everyone’s interest including your own. I have been given no assurance by the court due only to the technicality of the laws around non-molestation orders and the very particular nature of what Mrs Francis has done online in applying pressure to coercively control me and break down my support structures. However, it must be made absolutely clear that the lack of non-molestation order being granted in my case is a technicality based on time elapsed, but the ongoing effects of which have nevertheless been extremely damaging to me and many other people and their families. The very next time Mrs Francis does anything like she has done, it will go straight to court again and it will be granted. 

Mr Lea, given your senior position at Hempsons LLP, I know that you will need to be a good judge of the quality of character of your partners in particular, so this must be very difficult for you given who Mrs Francis is revealing herself to be. I never intended for Mrs Francis to lose her job, however what is being revealed is deeply concerning for all of us. In short, because of Mrs Francis’s hubris, her delusions and denial, Hempsons LLP are now being dragged into a global scandal with her at the centre of it as one of the ring leaders of this illegal and unlawful smear campaign. A case study is currently being put together on coercively controlling siblings which will strongly feature Mrs Francis and it will be published through David vs Goliath. Hempsons LLP is also being used in a case study for companies that harbour and protect predatory trolls. As you will see in the below post, she has been outed as one of those who lied and provide a false testimony to Action Fraud, which she based on my experience at Lighthouse that she knows nothing of. 

Read: Extra Lessons For Karen Baldock, Dean Beale, Michael Bint & Gary Seymour – UK Insolvency Service

Mrs Francis, is causing me a lot of pain, damage, hassle and not just to me but my partners, my business and our work by colluding with trolls. So whilst Mrs Francis is claiming she is worried and trying to protect me, the person whom she is supposedly trying to protect, myself, is holding her and her firm extremely accountable. Surely you must see there is something terribly wrong with the chaos that has unfolded here and that this is very out of sync with how things ought to be, so I am asking you to put things right. Whilst Mrs Francis will hide behind good intentions in trying to “protect me”, I’m writing to you saying that is not at all the case. In fact Mrs Francis is harassing me and not respecting my life choices and causing huge damage to me when I am trying to preserve my health and livelihood. Is this the sort of person you are going to stand with in the public eye? Because that’s where this is going. Are you going to stand for this in the public domain Mr Lea? Do your clients know this is who you employ? Because Mrs Francis loves the term ‘in the public interest’ and believe me this is not just in the public interest but this is of interest to the public. 

Refusing solutions

What bemused my barrister is that Mrs Francis stubbornly refused any undertaking or indeed a cross-undertaking which I tabled with broad but very reasonable terms, offering the following areas as the basis for a CROSS undertaking:

1. For both of us to make absolutely no attempt to contact the other either directly or indirectly, in any way or guise, whatsoever.

2. That neither of us do anything to intimidate, harass or pester the other, or in any way encourage or suggest that any one else should do so.

3. That neither of us, whether in our own name or under a pseudonym, is to post anything about or referring to the other in any shape or form on social media platforms or give any comment to any form of media outlet about the other whatsoever.

4. That both of us, where it is within our control, remove any and all existing posts about or referring to the other person, including reference to their work and projects, on and across all social media platforms and online spaces, whether the other person is explicitly named or not.

5. That both parties request that any and all posts or interviews they have been involved with in regards to or relating to the other be removed as soon as possible by third parties, whether or not that request is granted.

6. That neither of us makes any attempt to contact or post about the other’s workplaces and/or projects that they are personally involved with for professional purposes.

In my opinion these terms are extremely reasonable and fair and I would have taken suggestions on how to make them more specific if need be. However, even when my barrister offered the most basic template undertaking, which actually would have not offered me the full protection and assurance I need, but would have at least been a deposit of trust from Mrs Francis to move in the right direction and to seek a resolution for this conflict and the damage done by her actions, she still refused.  

I did not ask for this or start this, she did. I’m not writing to you because I’m going off the rails or lost the plot but rather, I’m going to court and holding her accountable for my health and to make this situation right, something which you ought to want as much as I do. I am writing to you to make sure the record is put straight to make sure you at the very least advise this person correctly and let me know you have. I cannot take my foot off the gas given your attitude and the way Mrs Francis is with her denial and total unwillingness to do the right thing. It is prudent that I continue with this because history has shown every time I have taken my foot off the gas, she has put her foot on it. 

That is to say, Mr Lea, that you must be under absolutely no illusions as to who is being unreasonable and who is seeking peace here, because I can assure you that Mrs Francis has made no effort to acknowledge any wrongdoing with all the evidence in place, never mind make things right. Even my barrister could not understand why on earth someone would not agree to the most peaceful and reasonable undertaking (which apparently is what Mrs Francis’ intentions are, in line with family reunion and family peace! This shows her hidden and real agenda. This is not family, this is coercive control and one upmanship), one which Mrs Francis would not have had to report to the SRA, but would have been a step towards resolution and assuring my protection. This is very damning from someone whom I am sure has shown you many crocodile tears about how concerned she is and cares so much for me. To me, it seems very inconsistent to say that someone cares so much and then rejects a reasonable and viable path to a solution! Wouldn’t you agree that shows, at the very least, inconsistent, if not duplicitous behaviour, given that it was family peace and unity and my health that was apparently her reason to do all of this? Ironic, wouldn’t you say?

Public accountability

I have written a post, link below, about taking Mrs Francis to court as I stated I would in my previous email and that the truth would be coming out. This article is as a mitigating measure against the reputational, financial, emotional and psychological destruction Mrs Francis has been a part of facilitating against me and those I care about. I would also like to remind you that, as for the allegations made against me and Lighthouse Global (which Mrs Francis is attacking), there are and have been zero criminal charges brought against myself and/or Lighthouse itself – there have been no police investigations, no lawyers letters received, nothing! Just a very public smear campaign with unsubstantiated, unproven and unevidenced hearsay conducted by the tabloids and on the basis of false information Mrs Francis has made up about me in relation to Lighthouse (one lie in particular being that I am a shareholder and a creditor at Lighthouse, when I categorically am not!). How is this? Quite simply and self-evidently because we have done nothing criminal! So you see, Mr Lea, you have absolutely no good reason whatsoever to disregard or doubt what I have written. Especially when I am the one with evidence in this regard and ample amounts of it too. 

I implore you once more to do the right thing, and not just because I ask you to, but because it is what is objectively right and just to do so, based on the very principles on which the law you practise is based! Based on valuing truth itself. For me, as a Christian, truth is founded in my belief in Jesus Christ and the commandments which He calls all of humanity to live by. I do not know your beliefs Mr Lea, but I do know we will all have to stand before our creator one day and answer for our actions. We must therefore do our absolute best not to turn a blind eye and stand up for what is objectively right, even if it is extremely difficult and inconvenient for us. I don’t for a moment think that this has been an easy situation for any of us involved, however this is all the more reason to do what is right and to seek a resolution here, as peacemakers for the betterment of everyone. 

This is yet another opportunity to make this right, in line with the demands of my previous email, but you must also know that I will continue to escalate this, both formally and publicly, where needed, in order to protect myself and my livelihood. It is becoming increasingly and apparently clear that neither the justice system that ought to protect me, nor you who indirectly fund and support Mrs Francis’ harassment of me, have been willing to provide the level of protection that I need. I am going to make sure that I get that protection, whatever that takes.

It is tragically ironic that given you are  a law firm who ought to uphold what is right and just and yet I am having to write to you yet again. I guarantee you, Mr Lea, justice will be served here – The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is – and I strongly encourage you to place yourself on the right side of it because at the moment you are at the very least condoning harassment, but increasingly, by not taking action, you are complicit with the malicious, systematic and persistent abuse of myself and Lighthouse Global as a whole by these predatory trolls, one of which is Mrs Francis. 

Regards, 

Melissa 

Read More: Taking Tania Francis of Hempsons LLP to Court & Leaving The Cult of My Coercive & Controlling Family