No, not that home educator, you fools! I’m referring not to Cheryl Moy but rather to her friend; Katya Lamb. I had heard vaguely of Katya Lamb, but had no personal dealings with her until this year. She contacted me out of the blue, in a very friendly fashion, in order to tell me that Maire Stafford had bought special computer software to analyse comments on her blog, to see if they were being made by me. Yes, I thought it sounded pretty mad as well. Then, a month or two later, I had another brief exchange with Katya; but this time the mood was very different. Instead of being chatty and amiable and suggesting that we exchange stories, as she had in her first message, she threatened my family. This threat was so explicit and awful, that I think it deserves to be widely known.
After claiming to be a friend of Wendy Charles-Warner, on whose behalf she was evidently speaking, Katya said;
What if, to get back at you and your obnoxious attitude, someone put your daughters photo, profile and home address on a rape fantasy website and invited undesirables to break into her house and fulfil her fantasy? How would you feel?
Any further comment would be superfluous!
It's difficult to make a judgement on that without being able to put it into the context of the whole conversation. Without that context it sounds as though somebody has done this, or at least threatened it, to her (or someone else) and she's asking how you would feel if it happened to you.
ReplyDeleteWell, it wasn't really a conversation at all. It was a long message from Katya in which she accused me of putting Wendy Charles-Warner's daughter at risk of being raped. Don't ask how I was supposed to have done this; I honestly don't know. Here is the context;
ReplyDelete'To put her daughter's safety at risk - someone who has never even looked in your direction - because you have a feud with her mother is the lowest level of deviance.
All because Wendy doesn't agree with you. Such an awful offence quite clearly.
You can only have intended harm through that action.
What if, to get back at you and your obnoxious attitude, someone put your daughters photo, profile and home address on a rape fantasy website and invited undesirables to break into her house and fulfil her fantasy?
How would you feel?
A tad disproportionate don't you think and nothing to do with your daughter maybe?
This is no different to what you've done.'
I have no idea what it was all about, other than that I understood that Katya was making some sort of veiled threat to my family.
The comment "This is no different to what you've done" would seem (to me anyway) to imply that she is not accusing you of actually doing this to Wendy's daughter, but something similar and that would put her in the same sort of danger. And you've no idea what that could be I assume? (genuine question btw, no sarcasm)
ReplyDeleteHas there been a misunderstanding somewhere along the way? Or maybe somebody has attributed their own actions to you because you make a convenient scapegoat....
"The comment "This is no different to what you've done" would seem (to me anyway) to imply that she is not accusing you of actually doing this to Wendy's daughter, but something similar and that would put her in the same sort of danger."
DeleteThis may well be right and it probably is not a threat but considering that Katya and others know the situation between Simon Webb and Wendy Charles-Warner and others then sending missives of this nature can only serve to fan the flames.
Regardless of the content you have to ask why it was sent
AFAIK, she's not from Doncaster, but N. Notts/Bassetlaw-way. We're not all awful here ;)
ReplyDeleteWhat does AFAIK mean
DeleteSorry for any confusion, it means "As Far As I Know".
DeleteKatya is Nottingham city
ReplyDeleteI genuinely have little knowledge of all the politics and in fighting that has gone on in the HE community and to be frank, as a newbie to the 'community' (!) I find it quite disturbing and unsettling. Don't think I've ever seen anything like it tbh.
ReplyDeleteBut this statement from Katya implies that something had gone on before and there was a genuine feeling there was a threat to WCW's daughter, no?
'To put her daughter's safety at risk - someone who has never even looked in your direction - because you have a feud with her mother is the lowest level of deviance.
All because Wendy doesn't agree with you. Such an awful offence quite clearly.
You can only have intended harm through that action.'
In this context her paragraph about putting things on a rape fantasy website doesn't seem like a threat to me, it seems to me to allude to how WCW and her daughter had felt about whatever they perceive you did to them?
And you genuinely have no idea what they could be referring to?
I know nothing at all about Wendy's daughter; other than that she is a barrister. I have no idea at all what I am supposed to have done to either her or her mother and all the talk about rape fantasies sites still seems to me to be deeply sinister. It may not sound like a threat to you, but this may be because you don't have a daughter. I cannot think that I could say anything like this to anybody and it would not be taken as a threat.
ReplyDelete