Setting the Record Straight #1

What Was I Actually Convicted Of?

There is a particular clip that has circulated online showing me walking out of the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where I was subsequently interviewed by the BBC South Today team.

Over the years, that footage has been accompanied by a very simple — but completely incorrect — interpretation:

“Matt Taylor was found and convicted of stalking.”

That is not what happened.

And this is precisely why I am Setting the Record Straight.

The fact that I was filmed leaving the Royal Courts of Justice, and that I was interviewed by the BBC afterwards, does not mean that I had just been found guilty of stalking.

The actual finding against me was contempt of court, relating to a court order which prohibited me from blogging about a particular individual.

In other words, the issue before the court was not a finding that I had been convicted of stalking.

It concerned whether I had breached an existing court order restricting what I was permitted to publish.

Those are two very different things.

Yet when a short piece of television footage is separated from its original context, it becomes remarkably easy for people to fill in the gaps themselves.

Someone sees:

Royal Courts of Justice.

Matt Taylor walking out.

BBC interview.

And then, somewhere online, the story becomes:

“He was convicted of stalking.”

But that is not an accurate description of what happened.

This distinction matters.

A court finding of contempt for breaching a court order is not the same thing as being found guilty of the underlying allegation that somebody may associate with that court order.

The words used to describe a conviction matter. The circumstances matter. And the actual court finding matters.

I am therefore not asking anyone to take my word for it.

I am simply asking people to distinguish between what they think happened and what actually happened.

If you have seen that BBC footage and believed it demonstrated that I had been convicted of stalking, then you have been given the wrong impression.

I was not found guilty of stalking in that proceeding.

I was found guilty of contempt of court for breaching a court order that prevented me from blogging about a particular individual.

That is the record.

I have never been convicted of Stalking.

And that is what I am setting straight.

Setting the Record Straight #1.