jfo Petition - Libel Action Against Tim Field

Please note the libel action against Tim Field by Thomas Long & the NUT has been settled:

'This litigation has now been settled on my understanding against repetition of the original allegations, the publication of this apology, and the payment of the sum of £100 to charity.' Extract of Tim Field's statement on www.bullyonline.org

The petition created by jfo was signed by 300 people and will now draw to a close. Please click here for a download to see who signed it, whether they are a member of the NUT, whether they have been bullied and their comments relating to the libel action. Thank you to all who signed it.

This was the petition:

Tim Field is being sued for libel by Thomas Long, an Oxfordshire County Council Education Department personnel officer, backed by the full support of the National Union of Teachers (NUT). This has resulted in Tim having to make the sad decision to close the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line at the end of January 2004.

Tim started the advice line 8 years ago to help those suffering from workplace bullying and through it, he has personally dealt with over 8000 enquiries and over 7000 cases of workplace bullying. These calls have helped thousands of people identify and deal with bullying and also involved Tim counselling many targets out of committing suicide. As the libel action is about allegations of NUT failings that were reported to Tim via this Advice Line, the closure is sadly ironic.

Extract from Tim Field's Press Release of 4th January 2004: 'Field believes that the legal action against him is a specious misappropriation of the civil laws of libel with the objective of controlling, manipulating, punishing and silencing a critic of the actions and inactions of paid officers of the National Union of Teachers. On reflection Field says he can see that he wittingly and unwittingly blew the whistle on failings in both Oxfordshire County Council Education Department and of National Union of Teachers paid officers.'

www.jfo.org.uk has recently been launched by someone who has been helped by Tim. jfo stands for 'just fight on' and as well as helping targets fight on through adversity, it is appropriate to help gather together all those who wish to help Tim fight on through this libel action.

jfo have therefore initiated a petition to raise awareness of this case to gain further publicity to the actions of Thomas Long and the NUT, and to provide and show the support that is behind Tim Field in his fight.

The aims of this petition are to seek the following:

to ask Thomas Long to stop this specious libel action against Tim Field with immediate effect;

in the event that Thomas Long does not withdraw the libel action, to put pressure on the NUT to withdraw their financial and legal support for this libel action;*

in the event that the NUT does not withdraw support for Thomas Long, to demand that the NUT fully inform their paying members that subscription funds are used in this way and ascertain that the members are happy with this arrangement;

to ask any NUT members to come forward who have not done so already, in support of Tim Field.

This petition should be signed by anyone who has received help, directly or indirectly, from Tim Field (whether through his advice line, his book Bully In Sight, his website or any of his other projects) or have been inspired by his work in helping others and anyone who disagrees with the libel action and the harm caused to Tim by it, and whether they have suffered from workplace bullying or not. It is time to repay our debt to him for all the work he has done by showing our support of him and our indignation of the action against him.

This petition can be signed at PetitionOnline and the number of signatures will be updated on this website at regular intervals and will include some extracts from the comments made. The petition is simply signed: Supporters of Tim Field

*The wording of this petition has been amended slightly since it was first introduced, due to a change in circumstances that I was not aware of. I would like to apologise to Tim Field, Amicus-MSF and anyone who signed the petition before the change for any inconvenience that this may have caused. In making the change, PetitionOnline also removed the second aim, listed above*, in error. Numerous requests have been made and this will hopefully be corrected shortly so that it again appears on the PetitionOnline website.