Neil Wilby Media

At the conclusion of a five day hearing in Liverpool County Court, that ended unluckily for the defendant on Friday 13th March, 2020, a circuit judge handed down an ex-tempore judgment that left a West Lancashire computer and hair curler repairer holding a £30,000 adverse costs Order and a permanent (until further notice) injunction. The effect of which was to very largely restrain him from further adverse contact with officers and staff of Lancashire Constabulary (Lancs) and making malicious communications or lying about or threatening them.

The civil action was commenced by the force’s chief constable (as corporation sole) in August, 2019 under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014. It was against Paul Ponting, 55, whom, by that time, had already gained notoriety locally as The Ormskirk Vigilante. An obvious nod to the town in which he lived, and still lives, and the fact that, for at least the previous six years, had ‘waged war’ on a large number of ‘enemies’. Anecdotally over a hundred, which included upwards of forty officers from his local police force. Thirty of whom gave written evidence in the court case and nine gave evidence from the witness box.

The defendant, represented by counsel, robustly denied any wrongdoing throughout the hearing. Indeed, he sought further to justify his grotesque actions before the court.

The judgment of HHJ David Knifton QC (now KC) pulled no punches.and these were the headline fact-findings against Paul Ponting: 

– He is a persistent harasser.

– He frequently breaches personal data and privacy rights.

– He is flagrantly dishonest.

– Some of his website posts were grossly unfair, inaccurate, distorted, with no basis in fact.

– He makes ‘outrageous slurs’ on the character and integrity of police officers.

– He is a bully.

– He is anti-social.

– His behaviour is abusive, aggressive, confrontational and intimidating

– and selfishness.

The latter, whilst on the face of it much less serious than the rest, actually involved an incident where Ponting called 999 a very short time after the Manchester Arena bombing atrocity in May, 2017 and insisted, accompanied by what the judge described as harassing threats and intimidation, that a non-emergency incident was dealt with, over a number of minutes by the 999 operator, rather than, as suggested, calling back on 101 when there was less demand on the service. In reply, he said he ‘didn’t give a flying shit’ about life or death emergencies involving others. Or, it seems, a terror attack in which 22 people died.

A detailed version of the full court judgment can be read here. The judge was subsequently the subject of several unattractive allegations by Ponting, whom strongly disagreed with the outcome of the proceedings. It is not necessary to repeat them here.

But, very recently, an insider has contacted Neil Wilby Media with a startling, but credible, allegation that Ponting has still not satisfied the costs Order and £30,000, plus interest amounting to almost £11,000, is still owed to Lancs. Or, to put it more accurately, owed to hard-pressed taxpayers. There would also be the not so small matter of contempt of court triggered by non-payment of those costs, punishable by up to two years in prison.

Our informant also asserts that, despite what appear to be regular and flagrant breaches of the injunction over the past five years, no committal application for contempt of court has been made by the police and, moreover, Lancs’ lawyers, headed by Force Solicitor, Sharon Cottam, have no intention of challenging those breaches, either now or in the future.

One of the most recent of those breaches was a contrived and utterly ludicrous allegation of assault against a custody sergeant in Preston Police Station following an arrest at Ponting’s home. The officer was attempting to take off Ponting’s socks in the custody suite after he had childishly refused to do so himself.

Another was allegations of a range of very serious criminal offences against a serving neighbourhood inspector that, eventually, was distilled into a single claim of perjury. Ponting took out a private prosecution against this officer (‘laid an information’ to give the process its correct legal term) but was given short thrift by a senior district judge at Preston Magistrates’ Court.

The public interest, in the legal and policy sense, would not be well served by naming either of the two officers in those circumstances.

This startling news of alleged non-payment and laissez-faire over the injunction breaches has prompted a Freedom of Information Act request to the force by journalist, Neil Wilby. It was submitted on 18th February, 2025 and a response under the Act is required from Lancs ‘promptly‘ and, in any event, after 20 working days, 18th March, 2025. This is the request in full. Short, and to the point:

“On 13th March, 2020, a civil claim in which the Chief Constable of Lancs was Claimant concluded. The claim carried the court URN F70LV339 and was brought under the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014.

“The court’s principal findings were that the Defendant in those proceedings was ordered to pay costs of £30,000 to the Claimant and a permanent injunction restrained the Defendant from further harassing Lancs officers.

“Please provide the following information by way of the Freedom of Information Act:

1. The date upon which the Defendant paid the £30,000 costs to the Claimant. If in instalments, the date the final payment making up the £30,000 was paid.

2. On how many occasions has Lancs taken action against the Defendant in those proceedings over what are, self-evidently, upon even cursory examination of the Defendant’s website and social media output, very serious breaches of the injunction referred to above.”

The fact that, at the time of publication of this article, on 10th March 2025, no ‘prompt’ response had been received from Lancs to that FOIA request suggests the force is either going to try to dodge answering the request or, as suspected, the answers are 1. Not paid 2. None.

A further fact is that Paul Ponting, and his wife and business partner, Anna Ponting, whom both obsessively track every move of Neil Wilby, and will doubtless be aware of the FOIA request, have not, in their usual belligerent style on social media (@UKCorruptPolice, @ukcp_temp, @doe1_john333 and @MysteriousYing on ‘X’), asserted that the costs Order was satisfied and sought to smear the journalist over this investigation and threaten him with legal action.

The standard courtesy of right of reply has not been offered to Paul or Anna Ponting as, in the past, they have only ever used such opportunities to make abusive, defamatory and highly personalised comments. 

A statement has been requested from the Force Solicitor via the Lancashire Constabulary press office.

UPDATE: Since publication of this article yesterday (10th March, 2025), Neil Wilby has pressed Lancashire Constabulary to respond to the FOIA request lawfully. Section 10(1) of the Act requires them to respond ‘promptly’. The force has replied with an apology, adding: “We are working through the requests as quickly as possible, but due to high volumes of requests responses can, at times, be delayed.”

Lancs will, at some later stage,  be put to proof over that rationale. Looking at the number of publicly accessible requests on the iconic WhatDoTheyKnow FOIA platform, made over the last six months, it does not appear that volume of those made recently to the force should be a reason for the delay in responding to the Neil Wilby request.

A quicker check showed that the request most recently finalised by Lancs, made by another requester, was made 4 days later and disclosure provided 5 days ago.

Throughout very lengthy civil proceedings, which went against him earlier this week (22nd July 2025), Paul Ponting has declined to provide any evidence to the court that the £30,000 plus interest was paid to Lancashire Constabulary. Or rebuttal of the submissions made repeatedly on this point, both orally and in writing.

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Article first published: 10th March, 2025

Page last updated: Thursday 24th July, 2025 at 11h15

Photo Credits: WYP

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