With love,
Dad x
Extracts from a letter from legal firm Coolidge and Fairfax to Mr Kevin Pirbright, former member of the Universal Humanitarian Church
18 March 2013
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL LEGAL CORRESPONDENCE
NOT FOR PUBLICATION, BROADCAST OR DISSEMINATION
Dear Sir…
This letter is written on the understanding that you are responsible for the blog ‘Exposing the Universal Cult’, which you write under the name ‘Ex-UHC Member’…
Blog Post of April 2012: ‘The Aylmerton Connection’
On 2 April 2012 you published a blog post titled ‘The Aylmerton Connection’. The post contains several false and highly defamatory claims about the UHC. The opening paragraphs read:
Unbeknownst to the vast majority of its booming membership, who’ve been drawn to the church by its message of equality, diversity and charitable service, the Universal Humanitarian Church was born out of the Aylmerton Community, a notorious Norfolk-based commune, which in 1986 was revealed as a front for the paedophiliac activities of the Crowther family.
Most members of the Aylmerton Community were arrested along with the Crowther family, but those who were lucky enough to escape prosecution remained on the community’s land, which they re-christened ‘Chapman Farm’. This diehard group would become the founding members of the UHC.
Any reasonable reader would understand by this that the UHC is, in effect, a continuation of the Aylmerton Community under another name, and that the UHC’s activities resemble those of the Aylmerton Community, specifically with relation to paedophiliac activity. Both assertions are false and highly defamatory of our clients.
Furthermore, the phrases ‘lucky enough to escape prosecution’ and ‘diehard group’ would suggest to the reasonable reader that those who remained on the community’s land had committed unlawful acts similar to those for which the Crowther family and others were jailed. There is no truth whatsoever in this assertion, which is false and highly defamatory of the UHC’s members and Council of Principals.
The True Position
In fact, only one member of the UHC was ever part of the Aylmerton Community: Mrs Mazu Wace, the wife of the UHC’s founder and leader, Jonathan Wace.
Mazu Wace was fifteen years old when the Aylmerton Community was disbanded and she gave evidence against the Crowther brothers at their trial. This is a matter of public record and easily discoverable through court documents and press reports of the case.
Mrs Wace has talked openly of her traumatic experiences at the Aylmerton Community, including at church groups you personally attended. Far from being ‘lucky enough to escape prosecution’, Mrs Wace was herself a victim of the Crowthers. The imputation that she was complicit in, or otherwise approved of, the Crowthers’ vile, unlawful behaviour is highly defamatory and has caused Mrs Wace significant hurt and distress. It has also caused, and is likely to continue to cause, serious reputational harm to Mrs Wace, and to the UHC. This exposes you to significant liability.
Blog Post of 28 January 2013: ‘The Great Charity Con’
On 28 January 2013, you published a post titled ‘The Great Charity Con’, in which you state:
In fact, the sole purpose of the UHC is generating money, and it is remarkably good at this. While better-known members are allowed merely to proselytise in press interviews, the rank and file are expected to be out on the streets with their collecting tins every day, and to remain outside, no matter the weather or their own state of health, for as long as it takes for them to make their ‘offering’. This is the minimum one hundred pounds per day each foot soldier must return with, unless he or she wishes to face the wrath of the church’s volatile enforcer Taio Wace, who is the elder of Jonathan and Mazu Wace’s two sons.
The description of Mr Taio Wace as a ‘volatile enforcer’ will be understood by the reasonable reader to mean that Mr Taio Wace is aggressive, unpredictable and a bully. This categorisation is highly defamatory of Mr Taio Wace and likely to cause significant reputational harm to him, as a Principal of the Church, and to the UHC itself.
You further write:
Where does all the money go? Good question. Visitors to the church’s Chapman Farm ‘retreat’ will note that while ordinary members are ‘enjoying’ the experience of pre-mechanised farming, sleeping in unheated barns and swapping their collecting tins for hoes and horse-drawn ploughs, the accommodation offered to Principals and celebrity members is rather more comfortable.
The main farmhouse has been enlarged and renovated to a distinctly 21st-century standard, complete with swimming pool, jacuzzi, gym, sauna and private cinema. Most Principals drive brand new, top-of-the-range cars and the head of the church, Jonathan Wace (known to members as ‘Papa J’), is known to own property in Antigua. Visitors to the Central Temple in Rupert Court can also see the increasingly opulent fixtures and fittings, not to mention the gold-embroidered robes worn by Principals. ‘Simplicity, Humility and Charity’? Try ‘Venality, Duplicity and Vanity’.
Again, any reasonable reader of this post would understand it to mean that the Council of Principals is illegally appropriating funds donated for charity and redirecting it either into their own pockets, or into luxurious accommodation or clothing for themselves. This is entirely false and highly defamatory of the Council of Principals.
The True Position
It is a matter of public record that Mrs Margaret Cathcart-Bryce, a wealthy, long-standing church member, donated substantial funds to the church while alive to renovate Chapman Farm, and that when she died in 2004, the Council of Principals was the sole beneficiary of her will, enabling the church to purchase suitable properties in central London, Birmingham and Glasgow, for congregants to meet.
Your blog post contains several outright falsehoods. Chapman Farm contains neither a jacuzzi nor a swimming pool, and Mr Jonathan Wace does not own, nor has he ever owned, property in Antigua. All cars owned by the Church Principals were bought out of their own salaries. Your assertion that church members are required to collect one hundred pounds per day, or they will face the ‘wrath’ of Mr Taio Wace, is likewise wholly false.
The Church is open and transparent in all its financial dealings. No monies collected for charitable purposes were ever used to maintain or renovate Chapman Farm, or to purchase or upgrade the UHC headquarters in London, or to personally benefit the Principals in any way. Again, the suggestion that the UHC or its Council of Principals is ‘venal’, ‘duplicitous’ and ‘vain’ is highly defamatory both of the Church and its Council, and likely to cause serious reputational damage. This increases your liability.
Blog Post of 23 February 2013: ‘The Drowned Prophet’
On 23 February 2013, you published a post titled ‘The Drowned Prophet’, in which you made a series of defamatory and deeply hurtful assertions about the death by drowning in 1995 of Mr and Mrs Wace’s firstborn child, Daiyu, who is considered a prophet within the UHC.
UHC members are well aware that while all prophets are, theoretically, equal, one is far more equal than others. The Drowned Prophet has become central to the cult of the UHC, with her own rites and separate observances. Doubtless there was an initial desire on the part of Mazu Wace to keep her dead daughter [Daiyu Wace] ‘alive’ in some sense, but she milks and exploits her association with the Drowned Prophet at every available opportunity. Very few of the brainwashed are brave enough to ask (even in whispers) what made a drowned 7-year-old deserving of prophet status. Still fewer dare note the strange coincidence that Jonathan Wace’s first wife (always airbrushed out of UHC history) also drowned off Cromer beach.
The assertions and insinuations contained within this paragraph could hardly be more offensive, hurtful, or defamatory of Mr and Mrs Wace, or of the UHC as a whole.
The suggestion that Mrs Wace ‘milks’ or ‘exploits’ the tragic death of her young daughter is a vile slur and highly defamatory of Mrs Wace, both as a mother and as a Principal of the church.
Moreover, a reasonable reader is likely to conclude from your use of the phrase ‘strange coincidence’, when referring to the accidental drowning of Mrs Jennifer Wace, that there is something suspect, either about Mrs Jennifer Wace’s death, or about the fact that Daiyu Wace met her end in a tragically similar fashion.
The True Position
On 29 July 1995, 7-year-old Daiyu Wace drowned in the sea off Cromer beach. As is a matter of public record, and easily discoverable through court records and press coverage of the inquest into her death, Daiyu was taken to the beach in the early morning by a church member who hadn’t asked permission from Daiyu’s parents. Mr and Mrs Wace were devastated to hear their daughter had drowned while swimming unattended.
It is part of the belief system of the UHC that some deceased members of the church become ‘prophets’ after death. Religious belief is protected under English law.
A true account of Mrs Jennifer Wace’s tragic death is likewise available through court records and press accounts of the inquest. Mrs Jennifer Wace died on a Bank Holiday afternoon in May 1988. An epileptic, she suffered a grand mal seizure in the water and in spite of every attempt of nearby swimmers to save her, she drowned. Numerous witnesses gave evidence at the inquest that Mr Jonathan Wace was not in the sea at the time Mrs Wace drowned, and that he ran into the water upon realising what was happening, but was too late to save his wife. Mr Wace was distraught at his first wife’s untimely death, and far from wishing to ‘airbrush’ her out of his personal history, he has commented publicly on the fact that the tragedy deepened his burgeoning religious faith, to which he turned for solace. Any suggestion to the contrary is false, malicious and highly defamatory of Mr Jonathan Wace.