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British caver says he approached by U.S., British lawyers over Musk's comments


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As a retired UK expat in Thailand it's unlikely that Mr U has sufficient funds to initiate a case against Mr M.

So the decision to proceed will be ENTIRELY dependent on the lawyers.  If they think they can win a case on a no win - no fee basis, only then will Mr U need to agree to proceed.  At that stage it may be worth playing a few lawyers off against others (even US vs. UK) to get the team most likely to win and with the highest net payout.

 

As an aside...

The headline of this thread is a little confusing and IMO, makes no sense... Did Mr U approach the lawyers, or did the lawyers approach Mr U..  

ie.   ...says he (was) approached by US, British...... add the "was" and they approached him.

or   ... says he approached (by) US....  delete the "by" and it was he who approached them..

 

Perhaps deliberate confusion to generate more forum traffic...?  (What, me cynical?)

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10 minutes ago, steve73 said:

As a retired UK expat in Thailand it's unlikely that Mr U has sufficient funds to initiate a case against Mr M.

So the decision to proceed will be ENTIRELY dependent on the lawyers.  If they think they can win a case on a no win - no fee basis, only then will Mr U need to agree to proceed.  At that stage it may be worth playing a few lawyers off against others (even US vs. UK) to get the team most likely to win and with the highest net payout.

 

As an aside...

The headline of this thread is a little confusing and IMO, makes no sense... Did Mr U approach the lawyers, or did the lawyers approach Mr U..  

ie.   ...says he (was) approached by US, British...... add the "was" and they approached him.

or   ... says he approached (by) US....  delete the "by" and it was he who approached them..

 

Perhaps deliberate confusion to generate more forum traffic...?  (What, me cynical?)

Nah, just poor reporting as with the newspaper that claimed Unsworth played an "integral part in rescuing the kids from the cave". He did not. He is NOT a diver. He made a phone call like any concerned human being. Musk did a whole lot more than this guy did and had a whole lot to lose if they did use the sub and kids died.  And for what? To be abused by a whole lot of couch potato no nothings.

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5 hours ago, dufusdonald said:

Nah, just poor reporting as with the newspaper that claimed Unsworth played an "integral part in rescuing the kids from the cave". He did not. He is NOT a diver. He made a phone call like any concerned human being. Musk did a whole lot more than this guy did and had a whole lot to lose if they did use the sub and kids died.  And for what? To be abused by a whole lot of couch potato no nothings.

I think your rhetoric are completely screwed up. 

1. integral part =  part of the TEAM to rescue the kids and the coach

2. Musk did a whole lot .... = he did a lot of what us "couch potatoes" have done, yourself included I guess, he wrote on Twitter etc.

 

Where you involved in the rescue attempt and are you a close friend to Mr. Musk? That would explain how you have complete knowledge over Mr.Musks thoughts, motives and actions, also including Mr. Unsworth not excluding the rest of the rescue team. 

You seem to have deep knowledge of the whole situation and what transpired, if you don't have it, are your posts depending solely on media's coverage and Mr.Musks Twitters?

Personally, I have no knowledge what happened "behind the scenes", how much Mr. Unworth contributed to the rescue, but I do know one thing, I applaud the WHOLE team for getting the boys and the coach out of the cave, the guys that manned the pumps, medical staff, people giving information about the cave structure, the divers, the people behind the logistal part with food and water to the boys and rescue team, the companies that supplied with all needed to the rescue, if I don't mention all, I DO mean all people involved in the action of the rescue. 

In my eyes they were all heroes and this rescue also strengthened my belief that Thailand's citizens are way more caring towards each other than we farangs give them credit for. 

 

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6 hours ago, steve73 said:

As a retired UK expat in Thailand it's unlikely that Mr U has sufficient funds to initiate a case against Mr M.

So the decision to proceed will be ENTIRELY dependent on the lawyers.  If they think they can win a case on a no win - no fee basis, only then will Mr U need to agree to proceed.  At that stage it may be worth playing a few lawyers off against others (even US vs. UK) to get the team most likely to win and with the highest net payout.

 

As an aside...

The headline of this thread is a little confusing and IMO, makes no sense... Did Mr U approach the lawyers, or did the lawyers approach Mr U..  

ie.   ...says he (was) approached by US, British...... add the "was" and they approached him.

or   ... says he approached (by) US....  delete the "by" and it was he who approached them..

 

Perhaps deliberate confusion to generate more forum traffic...?  (What, me cynical?)

Yes, the headline is confusing and we have seen it over and over again. Mr Unsworth is sometimes referred to as a diver and sometimes a caver even he had stated more than once that he is not a diver... 

 

What we know for sure is the last Mr Unsworth told in public that this is not finished and after that Mr Musk has given a formal apology on twitter and my bet is that it will end with this - hopefully Mr Unsworth will give an apology in return for his submarine statements and PR stunt accusation to end this in a good manner, but I have my doubts....

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6 hours ago, dufusdonald said:

Nah, just poor reporting as with the newspaper that claimed Unsworth played an "integral part in rescuing the kids from the cave". He did not. He is NOT a diver. He made a phone call like any concerned human being. Musk did a whole lot more than this guy did and had a whole lot to lose if they did use the sub and kids died.  And for what? To be abused by a whole lot of couch potato no nothings.

That's not how he has been portrayed by the Thais (Unsworth). He has a prominent place on the mural.

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8 minutes ago, grollies said:

That's not how he has been portrayed by the Thais (Unsworth). He has a prominent place on the mural.

It has been said that Mr Unsworth was the one who kickstarted the rescue by sending a note with the name of the cave diving experts to the authorities - this cannot be taken away from him...

 

https://news.thaivisa.com/article/23199/unsung-hero-brit-vern-unsworth-started-the-cave-rescue 

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On 7/20/2018 at 11:41 AM, dufusdonald said:

I am surprised that we have not heard from any lawyers here.  I would be quite interested to know the thinking from a lawyer not some num nut here where they think Mr Unsworth would have to file a lawsuit if he chose to.  Twitter home office is in California.  Then again does it matter where Musk was when he made the tweet?  If he was 40k feet in the air what country is that?  

 

Anyone have any "factual" commentary?  

You cannot be reading very much if you did not notice the input of ThaiVisa laywers here.

If i recall the one, (or maybe a few?) is famous for much work on the prosecution of the Burmese 2 in Kho Tao case

 

 

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Elon at the stand answering the question "Why you called him a pedo".

 

Elon: "Because i was angry at him for saying i was doing it as a PR stunt while many people ask for help and my team thought of a good solution. He also said to shove it up my a$$ which added to the anger. So i tweeted back and corrected him and in anger called him a 'Pedo guy', you know that is slang for 'Fart guy'. Here in California we many times use Spanish words. After i posted it, i deleted it because it could be read otherwise."

 

? ?

 

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On 7/22/2018 at 9:50 AM, steve73 said:

As an aside...

The headline of this thread is a little confusing and IMO, makes no sense... Did Mr U approach the lawyers, or did the lawyers approach Mr U..  

ie.   ...says he (was) approached by US, British...... add the "was" and they approached him.

or   ... says he approached (by) US....  delete the "by" and it was he who approached them..

Yes doesn't make grammatical sense. Mind you, headlines often drop the pronoun, so the phrase "approached by" is the key one here - the story also was reported that way elsewhere...

https://en.mogaznews.com/World-News/968696/British-caver-called-pedo-guy-by-Elon-Musk-approached-by-lawyers.html

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Vern Unsworth's comments on the usefulness or otherwise of the mini-sub were unbelievably snarky and disparaged the motives of Elon Musk in providing it to the rescue effort. 

It doesn't excuse Musk calling him a 'pedo', but if anyone destroyed the good feelings associated with the rescue of the boys it was Vern. 

My view is that Vern should demand a sizeable contribution by Elon to a Thai charity combatting Paedophilia, with a statement saying that Vern asked him to do it and he was happy to comply.

Vern should also apologize for questioning Musk's motives (given that this was so far from a managed PR stunt, it's just not possible anyone was managing this!)

Then that should be the end of it!

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Barring any lawsuit initiated by Mr. Unsworth's future attorneys, what would be the end of it would be when Mr. Unsworth's attorneys come to some binding agreement with Mr. Musk's attorneys. And as Mr. Unsworth is on record threatening legal action to numerous media, I wouldn't likely expect much of anything else.

 

Headline DailyMail:

'This ain't finished': British diver who 
helped save Thai cave boys says he
may SUE Elon Musk after the US
billionaire labelled him a 'pedo' in 
extraordinary Twitter rant

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5957895/British-diver-helped-save-Thai-cave-boys-sue-Elon-Musk-pedo-attack.html

 

 

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I don't doubt that Vern will pursue this with legal action, his whole demeanour is not very pleasant.  I doubt much of anything he gets will find its way to charity!

I'm reminded of Squidword in the Spongebob cartoons!

 

 

 

 

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On 7/18/2018 at 7:33 AM, kannot said:
On 7/18/2018 at 7:29 AM, Mattd said:

So, you would be perfectly happy if someone rich and famous declared to the whole world that you are a "pedo" just because you stated that the contraption you designed would not work, albeit with a sad choice of words, even though you physically had been where the contraption was supposed to go and that rich person or any of his staff had not, which would make you better qualified than the rich person any of his so called experts?

There was a huge difference between the two statements and unless Mr. Musk has any foundation to back up his statement, which I seriously doubt, then he should be penalised, one way or another, these kind of statements can ruin somebody's life, Vern's statement would come nowhere near to ruining Musk's life, his huge ego yes, life nope!

The other difference is that NONE of the volunteer rescuers did any of what they did for publicity or profit, in fact most shunned publicity, Musk did what he did ONLY for the publicity and the potential profiteering later on, the man is a sorry human being IMHO.

 

Its  pretty clear to any sane person he isnt a paedophile his life wont be ruined it will be even more respected and even more so if  he  just lets it go

 

 

It's also clear to me that a lot of hostility is generated by feelings of envy and jealousy toward Mr. Musk.

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Vern knows the caves as well as, if not better than anyone - his advice was extremely important, possibly crucial.

 

If Musk's justification for his appalling personal insult is that Vern is a foreign male living in Thailand, then that would apply to all of us wouldn't it? (Bar the very few females here.)

 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand why Musk's submarine idea couldn't possibly have worked: the most likely conclusion is that it was, as Vern said, a publicity stunt. 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, My Thai Life said:

<snip>

If Musk's justification for his appalling personal insult is that Vern is a foreign male living in Thailand, then that would apply to all of us wouldn't it? (Bar the very few females here.)

<snip2>

No not all but it might apply figuratively to those whose wives or Girlfriends in Thailand are younger than their daughters (or granddaughters) from their previous marriages back home.

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8 hours ago, JLCrab said:

No not all but it might apply figuratively to those whose wives or Girlfriends in Thailand are younger than their daughters (or granddaughters) from their previous marriages back home.

It's plausible he might have meant something vague like this from his first tweet, but not the second.

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1 hour ago, lamyai3 said:

It's plausible he might have meant something vague like this from his first tweet, but not the second.

Do you mean by the second -- after someone tweeted real classy calling the guy who found the children a pedo, he sent back "Bet ya a signed dollar it's true" ?

 

Maybe it is true. He has an adult daughter in UK. Does he have a young Thai wife or girlfriend in Chiang Rai?

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2 hours ago, JLCrab said:

Do you mean by the second -- after someone tweeted real classy calling the guy who found the children a pedo, he sent back "Bet ya a signed dollar it's true" ?

 

Maybe it is true. He has an adult daughter in UK. Does he have a young Thai wife or girlfriend in Chiang Rai?

Yes. Even if the initial insult could be interpreted vaguely (to mean having a much younger girlfriend here), the second tweet was much clearer, in response to a comment saying "you just called him a paedophile?" or something very similar (can't find the exact tweet right now). At this point it was being reported globally in the same way, so I think by this time the meaning was completely unambiguous. In any event, he didn't try to backpedal out of his initial statements when making his apology, rather he took the line of escalating Unsworth's comment to a literal suggestion, which as anyone familiar with colloquial UK English would know it wasn't. 

 

Regarding the second tweet, perhaps he could try something along the lines of what Trump did last week... When I said "is", I misspoke - I actually meant "isn't"... 

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Without saying anything about UK law, in the US, especially California, Musk calling him a pedophile wouldn't, in and of itself, under the totality of the case,  constitute libel.

 

BTW here it is

Screenshot-2018-07-15-22.22.39.png?w=680Screenshot-2018-07-15-22.27.01.png?w=668

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On 7/26/2018 at 4:39 PM, watcharacters said:

 

 

It's also clear to me that a lot of hostility is generated by feelings of envy and jealousy toward Mr. Musk.

If you are inferring that I am envious and jealous (aren't they the same thing) then you are really quite wrong, there is no way on this earth that I would want to be like Mr. Musk, no thank you!

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21 hours ago, Mattd said:

If you are inferring that I am envious and jealous (aren't they the same thing) then you are really quite wrong, there is no way on this earth that I would want to be like Mr. Musk, no thank you!

So why do you have such hostility towards him then? You don't like people who accuse others of being pedos? Or you disliked him before that? For electric cars? Reusable rockets? Boring machines? PayPal? What did he do to upset you?

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2 hours ago, manjara said:

So why do you have such hostility towards him then? You don't like people who accuse others of being pedos? Or you disliked him before that? For electric cars? Reusable rockets? Boring machines? PayPal? What did he do to upset you?

His sheer arrogance and egocentricity, remembering that the real people of the rescue came, did what they had to do and faded back to their normal lives.

Mr. Musk decided that it was a perfect PR opportunity, whilst I don't deny that he probably had some good intentions with his mini sub idea, there was absolutely no reason to publicize this for the whole world to see, none at all.

Then to react to a realist by calling him a 'pedo', which is an extremely insulting accusation, is simply pathetic from a person of his standing, I still wonder why he did not attack the Governor, who said thanks but no thanks way before Vernon said anything.

His inference that all white males that live in Thailand are ONLY here to shag young girls or boys is not only insulting to all, it also alludes to his lack of intelligence, as he thinks like the masses.

I have zero problem with his business ventures, although he needs to control himself if he wants to remain part of them going forward.

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Yes -- and, as per the topic heading, it looks like one of the rescue team members was able to take time off from his legal discussions to participate in the photo op before again fading back into his normal life.

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14 minutes ago, JLCrab said:

Yes -- and, as per the topic heading, it looks like one of the rescue team members was able to take time off from his legal discussions to participate in the photo op before again fading back into his normal life.

There is a huge difference between being involuntarily thanked by your own government as opposed to self advertising to the whole world 'look at me, I'm building a mini sub and it will save the children' 

If you can't see that, then I truly feel sorry for you, as it is not even close to being comparable.

NONE of those involved in the rescue and pictured with Mrs. May sent social media requests to be praised, not one of them and they would have not been offended, at least publicly, if that praise wasn't forthcoming, which highlights the difference in the type of person and one of my main gripes with Mr. Musk.

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There is a huge difference between being involuntarily thanked by your own government as opposed to self advertising to the whole world 'look at me, I'm building a mini sub and it will save the children' 

If you can't see that, then I truly feel sorry for you, as it is not even close to being comparable.

NONE of those involved in the rescue and pictured with Mrs. May sent social media requests to be praised, not one of them and they would have not been offended, at least publicly, if that praise wasn't forthcoming, which highlights the difference in the type of person and one of my main gripes with Mr. Musk.

Yea and dont forget the CNN interview 1 day after you cant get more public than that.
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