BBC editor reportedly set to continue case against Owen Jones

BBC editor Raffi Berg will reportedly continue his lawsuit against journalist Owen Jones, despite already losing a key judgment in the case. The decision has been described as a “huge” gamble, because the judge has agreed Jones was expressing a considered opinion. Two of Berg’s lawyer Mark Lewis’s clients were bankrupted in the same way, as journalist Rivkah Brown pointed out:

Writer Luke Turner had described both Miller and Power as “fascists” and Miller as a “neo-nazi”. Both were forced to declare bankruptcy over the loss.

BBC spat goes deeper

But they are not the only ones. Lewis was also the lawyer for Israel activists Edward Cantor and James Mendelsohn. The two men, along with ‘Labour against Antisemitism’ (LAAS) director Peter Newbon, had put James Wilson in danger by suggesting he was dangerous to children. Wilson sued. Mendelsohn and Cantor pursued the case disastrously when they could have settled. The High Court awarded Wilson around £150,000 in damages and costs.

Newbon, after putting his family home at risk through this case and another lawsuit, took his own life before the case concluded. According to Wilson, Cantor was losing his family home to cover his share of the loss.

Wilson later published documents, exposed as part of the case’s ‘disclosures’, showing that Lewis had told well-known barrister Gavin Millar that for him, continuing to fight the case was all about getting a large sum of money out of Wilson:

Mr Millar advised against an appeal, but what is more interesting is what the exchanges between the lawyers reveal. I provide a series of extracts below with some analysis and opinions.

The conference started with:

Gavin Millar: Looking at appeal, what do we get out of it?

Mark Lewis: get some money out of him [me]. If good appeal, do so anyway.

Mr Lewis’ apparent fixation with getting money from and bankrupting me is a recurring issue. Later on in the conference Mr Lewis said the most desirable outcome was me paying the lawyers £100,000. Any money that Mr Lewis might have got from me was for himself and Patron Law for their fees. His clients would have got none of it.

Wilson also points out Lewis withholding key documents from the court when Lewis tried to have the lawsuit ‘struck out’. Lewis had not disclosed evidence showing the extent to which his clients’ lies had been distributed and read:

While a discussion about the crucial evidence might have been omitted from the note, the most likely explanation is surely that Mr Lewis and Ms Grossman did not tell Mr Millar about the evidence and that is why it was not discussed?

If I am right about this, then something very weird has gone on. The defendants were paying – it cost them £1,680 – for the advice of Mr Millar, one of the foremost defamation lawyers in the country, but it seems their lawyers did not give Mr Millar crucial evidence so he could give informed advice on a key issue in the litigation.

My suspicion is that the crucial evidence was not given to Mr Millar because he might have advised “You cannot appeal the decision where you have evidence that suggests publication by Mr Cantor to over 500 people”.

Perhaps Mr Millar might also have said “Frankly, I cannot believe you ran what you knew was a misleading case on limited publication to try to get Wilson’s claim struck out”.

And on 11 March 2026 Wilson accused Lewis of lying to the police that he (Wilson) had tried to blackmail Lewis:

Wilson, himself a lawyer, has commented on Berg’s decision to continue the case:

Lewis is a fanatical Zionist who once spoke about ‘unapologetic Zionism’ at the launch of a UK pro-Israel group considered by many to be far-right.

He has been sanctioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority for abusive conduct on social media – wished a young Jewish supporter of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour dead – and was heavily criticised by a judge in a different case for his conduct of the case and his lack of proper research on behalf of his clients:

a matter of very real concern that the Claimants put evidence before the Court, on an ex parte application, that was not true…

…he had simply failed to carry out sufficient (or any) research or to take adequate instructions from his clients.

It is unclear whether Berg is continuing the case because of legal advice, or out of a personal determination to do so. But the evidence shows that similar stubborn pursuits have not ended well for the clients concerned.

Featured image via the Canary