Shropshire Star

Man targeted baby death couple online

Michael Murphy had never met or spoken to Richard Stanton and Rhiannon Davies - but it did not stop him from attacking the couple from behind what he believed was the safety of his computer keyboard.

Published
Rhiannon Davies and Richard Stanton

It took West Mercia Police nearly six weeks, with help from colleagues across the Atlantic, to unmask Mr Murphy as the anonymous author of "cruel" and "offensive" blogs written on the website www.ludlow-eye.com

Michael Murphy

The 43-year-old's identity had been hidden behind multiple US-based privacy servers as he accused the couple of lying about the circumstances of the death of their daughter Kate.

She was born in 2009 at the midwife-led unit at Ludlow Hospital with anaemia, but died after being transferred to Birmingham's Heartlands Hospital just six hours after her birth.

District Judge Nigel Cadbury said Michael Murphy's claims against Richard Stanton and Rhiannon Davies were "distressing" and contained "factual inaccuracies and opinions which were perverse".

"However, and I have to say this with some reluctance, I have to conclude this does not amount to harassment. I therefore find the defendant not guilty,"he added.

However, Mr Murphy was given a restraining order for life banning him from ever contacting or writing about the couple or their family again.

Mr Murphy first took to the internet to attack the couple in May last year after watching them give a live interview on ITV's This Morning. He has since defended his posts as freedom of expression.

Speaking after Mr Murphy was cleared of harassment at Telford Magistrates Court, Mr Stanton said: "We were alerted by a friend to an anonymous post on YouTube accompanying a video of our previous day's interview on ITV.

Rhiannon Davies of Ludlow Shropshire pictured with her daughter Kate just moments after her birth

"The post was lengthy, and written by someone hiding behind the moniker LudlowEye.

"It was abusive – it accused us of being toxic, embittered, aggressive, liars-for-hire.

"Ultimately the poster accused us of fabricating our traumatic experience.

"The post alleged we were media manipulators who had been in the press extensively, making up stories about our experience. The post was very upsetting and we found it threatening."

The couple googled "LudlowEye" and came across www.ludlow-eye.com, where the Youtube post was repeated and expanded upon. A second blog, containing further slurs on the couple, soon followed.

They contacted the police, who put security measures into their home while the identity of the author of the blogs remained a mystery.

After Mr Murphy was identified detectives urged him to take the posts down, but he refused until autumn last year when he was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with harassment. Speaking exclusively to the Shropshire Star, the couple said although Mr Murphy had been cleared, his actions had still had a long-lasting and traumatic effect on them.

Mr Stanton said: "The impact of this man's actions have been grave. We lived in acute and intense fear until Mr Murphy was identified and arrested, not knowing if he had an agenda specifically to harm our daughter Isabella or us.

"We continue to have to face him from time to time within the community in which we live, and we find that to be a very threatening and upsetting experience.

"His publicly published outpourings of pure hatred undermined us within the community in which we live, and within which we are both self-employed and trying to make a living. We have no idea how many people have read his abusive posts and what they now think of us.

"We may have lost work, friends, respect and credibility – we have certainly lost our own personal feelings of safety within our community. Life continues to be a daily struggle directly because of the impact of this man's actions. We don't sleep well, we experience a lot of stress, our wellbeing has been harmed.

"Mr Murphy's postings about our daughter's tragic death sought to undermine her life, her death and our struggle to have the truth heard at inquest. He even attempted to undermine our own grief in his writings.

"The only comfort we could take following Kate's death was that she could not suffer any more harm. But now Mr Murphy's actions to call her life and death, indeed the tragedy of her avoidable death, into question have harmed her – and as a result they have deeply harmed us. We cannot overstate how deeply upsetting we still find this fact.

"We were terrified and hugely grief stricken by Mr Murphy's words and actions. The level of threat posed by this anonymous poster of hateful and absolutely false information about our family's grief was truly frightening for us both.

"Being powerless to do anything to stop these postings made us feel deeply upset.

"We were also traumatised that someone could lie about a very tragic and personal set of circumstances within our lives.

"We have been left feeling violated in terms of our memories of our daughter, frightened, stressed and upset.

"We would like to give our most sincere and heartfelt thanks to West Mercia Police.

"They have personally helped us through this very difficult time when they themselves have much more important work to do than having to stop such people from writing offensive lies about others."

Speaking after being cleared at court yesterday, Mr Murphy, of Whitcliffe Cottages, Ludlow, said: "I was engaged in freedom of expression within the law, even though it was unattractive for some."

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