The pair were discovered on Facebook calling the sick and disabled “down and outs” and “parasitic wankers”.
The incidents were widely reported in the mainstream press and came shortly before the Government's de-benefitting boot-boys attempted to shut up a bunch of whining cripples by sending them threatening letters.
It is looking increasingly like it is ATOS Healthcare that is going to find itself the victim of legal action as the true nature of their “case” against CarerWatch becomes clearer.
And ATOS says “Fuck You!”
ATOS are claiming the reason they nuked the CarerWatch forum was because of A SINGLE LINK in a post over FIVE MONTHS OLD. The target of that offending link is STILL ON TEH INTAWEBZ - and with no sign of ATOS having attempted to take it down. The offending link is back there <---- which leads here
OK, *speechless* Try to finish this later. In the meantime please read the update from CarerWatche's blog.
ATOS are a very dishonest organisation. They should have informed Carer Watch if they were genuinely concerned about any of the posts on its site... They have done the same thing with other carer and disability sites.
When you consider the way ATOS treat claimants it is hardly surprising that complaints are made about their behaviour. As a member of the LRC and the Labour Party and a founder member of Carer Watch, I would like to ask MPs to take this matter up with the government, who employ ATOS.
CarerWatch received this reply from Atos, to their earlier letter:
Dear Frances,
Thank you for your email. The posting which we consider to be defamatory against Atos Healthcare and our employees is dated March 23rd, 8:51 pm.
As I said in my previous email, we fully support the right of people to express their opinions and would very much like to work with you to ensure your forum is reinstated as soon as possible...
CarerWatch replied:
Dear Caroline
Thank you for supplying the date and time of the post that concerns you.
We have finally traced it. We run a live discussion group and posts are normally only current for a few days. In this case the post is five months old. It did not create any interest at the time and has long since become inactive.
Having seen the post we are even more confused as to why you took this aggressive action against us. We were surprised to see that this post was not written by a member of CarerWatch but is merely a link to an article on another site.
We were also surprised when we followed the link to see that the original article is still visible on the site of origin.
We cannot understand why you would take this matter up with us when your dispute is with the authors of the linked article. We feel like collateral damage in this.
We would like to point out that we are running a private discussion group for members and we do not know how you saw this link on our site. But if you have some how been watching the posts in our group you will know that members post on an enormous breadth of topics and post links to a wide variety of other sites.
Members often post links to material on other sites precisely because they are vehemently opposed to the material.
We repeat – this is a discussion group and posts have to be read in the context of open discussion.
We are concerned that this type of extreme hyper vigilance of discussion groups could seriously damage free and open discussion.
You say that you embarked on this action to protect the reputation of your company. But you can call on unlimited resources to obtain legal advice and you should bear in mind that groups like us have no resources and cannot obtain legal advice. We think you should bear this in mind when making your actions proportionate and appropriate.
We are sure you, like us, wish to bring this situation to a speedy conclusion. As it was your action that resulted in our forum being taken down, we suggest the following. We will remove the post in question (without prejudice), and in turn you will make arrangements to have our forum reinstated, whilst also giving us a guarantee that should you have any concerns in future, you will bring them directly to us and not to the hosting company.
Considering the immense distress caused to our members, and the volume of unnecessary work created for us, we consider these to be extremely reasonable requests.
Atos Healthcare are today magnanimously negotiating with the owners of the CarerWatch forum, with a view to formulating an arrangement that will silence criticism of their work for the DWP, on the forum, once and for all.
Other blogs, websites and forums are already cowed and refusing to do anything that may incur the wrath of ATOS's chief boot-boy, James Loughrey.
The ease at which the sick and disabled can be whipped into submission and compliance, by a multi-billion pound company is shocking.
“Oh, I'm sorry - I got a bit scared when the lawyer called and gave in”
What all campaigners need to realise that this is a battle for our lives:
There is a very big difference between "libellous material" and a lawyer's claim of "libellous material". A lawyer claiming "false and malicious allegations" is substantively different to "false and malicious allegations".
This is the most shameless and callous examples of corporate bullying I've seen since the McLibel trial.
This is not a time for negotiation and capitulation:
James Loughrey - Chief Solicitor and head of ATOS's Dept. of Killa Fish
The shocking tactics used by ATOS Healthcare to silence their sick and disabled critics are rapidly coming to light all over teh Intawebs.
In the last week, website after website after website have been closed after ISP's received letters from ATOS's chief legal-thug James Loughrey.
Another one bites the dust...
More worryingly, Loughrey is also with the aid of LBi , a digital support services company, targeting internet fora and discussion boards where the sick and disabled meet online for mutual support - including the notoriously moderate and respectable CarerWatch.
“On behalf of CW can I thank every1 for their support, here,DMs and via email. Off to hospital most of today so will be later b4 updating u x”
CareWatch's Francis published their response to ATOS on their website this morning:
“CarerWatch is an internet forum for sick and disabled people and their unpaid family carers. This is a private forum and only members are allowed to make/read posts.
We understand from the organisation that hosts our forum that they received a letter from your solicitors threatening to sue us for libel. The provider immediately closed our site down.
This video was made as a tribute and thank you to the authors of
We have many members who are very fragile and the sudden disappearance of a support group has caused a lot of distress and fear. Some are ringing us in tears. We cannot get in contact with all of them though as we have lost their contact details through the closure.
All this distress could have been avoided if you had had the courtesy to contact us first and tell us what had been posted on our site that you considered libellous. Obviously if any post was possibly libellous we would have removed it and all this distress could have been avoided.
People... and websites...
We imagine this distress is unintended and hope you will work with us in looking at the problem and finding a solution.
Please note that this letter, and any reply received from yourselves, will be posted on our website. It is the only means left to us to reach some members and keep them updated.
It is vital we have our forum up and running again to reach those that are isolated.
On behalf of CarerWatch members”
Call a cunt, a cunt.
It's been a bad couple of weeks for ATOS - 12 of their doctors are to face action for misconduct by the General Medical Council and two of their employees are (claims ATOS) facing disciplinary action for describing the sick and disabled as "parasitic wankers" and "down and outs".
One notably effective online campaigner commented:
:( I have a huge fucking urge to troll ATOS again. We have storms tomorrow... I'm really fucking angry over this... To remove a lifeline such as the carer watch forums is sickening.... I'm on the fucking warpath now ATOS. Do you hear me?...
