Dr. Laurence Godfrey (born 21 November 1952) was educated at the independent The Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, at

Westfield College Westfield College was a small college situated in Hampstead, London, from 1882 to 1989. It was the first college to aim to educate women for University of London degrees from its opening. The college originally admitted only women as students and ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

( BSc Physics, first class honours, 1975) and at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

, High Energy Nuclear Physics, 1982). He established a legal precedent for

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

, in the landmark Godfrey v Demon Internet Service case. He lives in France with his son Waylan and is unmarried. He is self-employed ''inter alia'' as an expert witness, consultant and technical adviser in Internet-related litigation.

History

In 1993 he and

CERN The European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN (; ; ), is an intergovernmental organization that operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Established in 1954, it is based in Meyrin, western suburb of Gene ...

colleague

Phillip Hallam-Baker Phillip Hallam-Baker is a computer scientist, mostly known for contributions to Internet security, since the design of HTTP at CERN in 1992. Self-employed since 2018 as a consultant and expert witness in court cases, he previously worked at Comod ...

became immersed in a very public dispute on Usenet, which culminated in a libel action (settled out of court in Godfrey's favour). Godfrey was a regular and controversial presence to the Usenet newsgroups ''soc.culture.british'', ''soc.culture.canada'', ''soc.culture.german'' and ''soc.culture.thai''. His main topics of discourse there were the perceived and real shortcomings of the inhabitants of those countries. He launched a series of court cases including '' Godfrey v Demon Internet Service''. Godfrey has used Britain's strict libel laws to bring successful libel actions, suing in British courts a number of organizations based in other countries, including

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

and the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota Twin Cities (historically known as University of Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint ...

Libel cases

* 1995, Godfrey v. Hallam-Baker * 1997, Godfrey v. Demon Internet * 1998, Godfrey v.

/Dolenga * 1998, Godfrey v.

/Starnet/Quanchairut * 1998, Godfrey v. Melbourne PC Users Group * (unknown) Godfrey v. New Zealand TeleCom * (unknown) Godfrey v. Toronto Star

References

External links

Cornell University & Minnesota cases
story from 1998

freelance writing from 1992
Recent case in which Laurence Godfrey acted as expert/ technical consultant
his main occupation since 2001. 1952 births Living people People educated at Haberdashers' Boys' School {{UK-law-bio-stub