Talk:David Haigh

The history of this page shows that it was created by Liam Atkins, who is an employee of a PR/Marketing organisation employed by Mr Haigh.

Page was created and is maintained by user 98Lemur29

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Changing_username/Simple&oldid=569191882#Liamatkins_.E2.86.92_98lemur29 Liamatkins → 98lemur29

Current name: Liamatkins (talk · contribs · deleted · logs · target logs · block log · listuser · SUL info · central auth · Google) (ping user) Requested name: 98lemur29 (talk · contribs · deleted · logs · target logs · block log · listuser · SUL info · central auth · Google) For bureaucrat use: rename user Datestamp: 08:38, 19 August 2013 (UTC) Reason: Change for privacy on edits, unable to delete my account. Liamatkins (talk) 08:38, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Liam Atkins is credited as the creator of Mr Haigh's personal website (see bottom left): https://web.archive.org/web/20121002080459/http://www.davidhaigh.co.uk/

Hi Melcoustalk. This is exactly accurate. This page is created by a David Haigh associate for promotion of David Haigh. It is full of inaccuracies. The most heinous being that he never graduated from Southampton University with a degree in law. You will notice the citation given is simply a newspaper article where he himself claims to have graduated.

This does not appear to be true. the opposite appears to be the case where this page has been subjected to continual vandalism from those having a conflict of interest or dispute with subject or otherwise paid by themCarndu77 (talk) 01:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Please can an editor review the continual removal of clear sourced content by user Melcous and others. Carndu77 (talk) 01:03, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

I have absolutely no connection to the subject of this article, nor have I ever been paid to edit wikipedia. All my edits to this article have attempted to bring it in line with core guidelines and policies, as well as making sure content is verifiable and as per the sources used. Carndu77 you are a single purpose account and were asked in June 2018 to disclose your connection to the subject of the article, which you have still not done. Melcous (talk) 01:20, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Dear Melcous, Thank you for confirming you have no connection to the David Haigh. However do you have a conflict of Interest and / or another reason to act in a bias manner and negatively edit and vandalise this page. What is you specific interest in David Haigh. Your summary above is not accurate. You are removed =sourced indpiednt stamens of fact and replacing them with libellous statements. for example that Haigh was convicted of fraud. its public information that this was not the cae. you seemingly want to place this libel stamens at the head of the page and repeat it elsewhere. We have also seen other edits you have made where any reference of Mr Haigh being appointed by Princess Latifa are removed by you. A international noteworthy story. It shows Mr Haigh positively though. so again you remove it. Please clarify what your COI is and that you are not paid by any connection or otherwise under the influence or connected to any party opposing Mr Haigh or his human rights work. Carndu77 (talk) 09:48, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

1. There are currently at least two sources in the article that state Haigh was arrested and convicted regarding fraud charges: 1 and 2. If you wish to provide other sources that say differently, please do so here but so far you have not.
2. The content about Latifa was removed because no sources were provided when the content was restored by you here. Melcous (talk) 11:15, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Dear Melcous, please note that the above account (arguing with you and trying to get your edits undone) is David Haigh himself. Having previously worked with him, I can confirm that the poor spelling, grammar and syntax combined with his confrontational self promotion are an absolute giveaway.

Dear Melcous, we have created a serape heading to deal with this. Please can you explain each of your deletions, reversion and additions that are unsourced, or removal of sourced content. You have even seemingly simple deleted pictures of mr Haigh, why? Please disclose the reason for your Bias / COICarndu77 (talk) 09:57, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

Dear Melcous,

As one of the many example of your Bias. You removed all early life content about Mr Haigh. This was simple and fully sourced. You did this multiple times removing numerous edits by various editors or a long period.

It is normal practice to include place of birth and family and spouse details. Yet you repeatedly delete them so that the early and family life section of Mr Haigh is simple a statement about sexuality, and written in a negative way. Are you Homophobic, are you seeking to discriminate against Mr Haigh on these are others grounds. This is a criminal offence. It is also noted that any edits setting out the LGTB activism of Mr Haigh us generally deleted by you

An example of the normal writing is on all of the pages you create for yourself, again repeated are you a paid editor?

On your created page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemeri_Murray you wrote the below. Yet you delete any editors similar writing on Mr Haigh page. Please explain specifically why.

Murray was born in Adelaide.[1] She graduated from the University of Adelaide in Law in 1953 and Arts in 1954, studying piano at the Elder Conservatorium of Music.[2][3] Carndu77 (talk) 10:05, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

You will need to provide clearer examples of what you are talking about in removing "all early life content" because I cannot see which of my edits you could possibly be referring to by that statement. Yes, I have removed some personal information from this page because it was unsourced (eg here). This is clearly different to the example cited above about Kemeri Murray when the content is sourced. You have been calling me a "vandal" (eg here) for months. It is very clear that I am not (or that you do not understand what that word means), and my edits have been explained in my edit summaries. You will also need to explain what you are referring to when you say "any edits setting out the LGBT activism of Mr Haigh are generally deleted" by me because as far as I can see, I have never deleted such content, and it is still on the article right now. I have removed some headings that seemed excessive to me here. The things you have said about me here, on my talk page, and on your talk page are inaccurate and not verified by the facts of my editing of this article and I would ask you to stop making such accusations. Pinging a couple of other experienced, non-SPA editors who have edited here, who might be able to have a look and help out regarding this Jessicapierce, Pol098. Melcous (talk) 10:47, 23 February 2019 (UTC)Reply

First, apologies I'm a very very inexperienced user here, so if I've breached any usual syntax or etiquette, please forgive and / or delete and amend me as necessary. So, my point: The section which details Haigh's move to sign LUFC up as a Stonewall Diversity Champion appears under the heading of "Controversies" for reasons which are not apparent from the content. I am not aware that the development was seen as anything other than positive by commentators, and stakeholders (including fans). The only hint of controversy is the (uncited) assertion that this was done "ignoring the instructions of its Islamic owners" which, apart from being an assertion unsupported by any sources, is also suggestive to me that, with the use of the word "Islamic", of a comment inserted by someone with an agenda. It is also notable that the material around later events, which could perhaps be more widely seen as "Controversial" are not included under "Controversies". Something needs to be done here. Apart from either removing the "Islamic owners" assertion, or providing evidence of its veracity, this section needs to be called something more appropriate than "Controversies" imho. While not a confident editor, if no one comes back with a compelling reason not to (such as evidence of a controversy) I intend to change this section title, perhaps to "Activism" or perhaps "Support for LGBT Equality" as that would be more accurate and informative. 195.171.127.82 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 11:20, 3 June 2019 (UTC)Reply

Haigh never graduated with a law degree from any university. His citation is himself saying this to a media source (Law Gazette). Haigh is a convicted fraudster, who stole £4 million from GFH and is desperately trying to associate himself with human rights causes so that he can claim that he is being victimised by the Middle East. Nearly nothing in the article is true. The citations are all questionable in the same way the false one about him graduating university is — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.0.92.242 (talk • contribs) 06:38, 19 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Dear Melcous, when you removed the two paras initially, you appeared to be content one of the paras was agreeable as noteworthy to the page for David Haigh. The television appearances have been well covered by a number of credible sources, they are mainstream new events and have attracted global attention for the cause Haigh is involved with, the content of my para was merely informative, neither promotional nor favourable to Haigh, and I cited additional sources and removed wiki source Martin Paul Ireland (talk) 10:38, 20 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

I would like to add to this that Melcous is also removing any sourced/well cited information about Haigh's crimes, illegal activity, plagiarism, false representations and other negative activity — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.63.119.106 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

I would like to add to this that Melcous is also removing any sourced/well cited information about Haigh's crimes, illegal activity, plagiarism, false representations and other negative activity — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.63.119.106 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

Just to note that I did not "remove" any specific content, rather I reverted the insertion by the editor of content that was not neutral and violated the WP:BLP policy. Cheers Melcous (talk) 10:20, 21 April 2021 (UTC)Reply

I’ve reworked the article because the current version reads quite fragmented and, in places, promotional rather than encyclopedic. As others have noted, there is also a fair amount of self-publicity style content, and some issues with neutrality and balance, particularly in how the legal proceedings are presented.

The aim was to reduce repetition and promotional tone, and to make clearer distinctions between the subject’s own claims and the established legal and regulatory findings.

That said, while the article could probably be reduced in length quite significantly, I’ve tried to retain and reorganise material where necessary because the previous version did, in a number of places, mischaracterise or understate key legal outcomes, which needed correcting and contextualising.

The user below has a request that an edit be made to David Haigh. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 637 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

I am David Haigh, the subject of this article. I have declared my conflict of interest on my user page and am therefore requesting this change rather than making it myself.

The article's coverage of the GFH litigation currently ends with enforcement steps in 2020–2021 and does not record the outcome of the litigation. That outcome is reliably sourced: as reported by The Times, all of the claims were dismissed in 2025.

Proposed addition (at the end of the section on the GFH civil proceedings):

In March 2025, following a confidential settlement, all of GFH's remaining claims against Haigh were dismissed by consent: the High Court of England and Wales dismissed its claims and set aside a 2021 civil restraint order, and the DIFC Court of First Instance dismissed its claim, in each case with no order as to costs.^[1] The Times reported in 2026 that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year".^[1]

Consequential change: the sentence in the lead describing the GFH dispute should note the 2025 dismissal for currency and balance, e.g. by appending: "The civil claims against him were dismissed by consent in 2025.^[1]"

The consent orders (High Court claims CL-2014-000603, CL-2017-000058 and CL-2023-000121; DIFC CFI-020/2014, each dated 21 March 2025) are public court documents; I can provide copies through VRT if editors wish to verify. Per WP:BLP, biographies must not present superseded litigation as current, so I would be grateful for prompt attention. Davidhaighuk (talk) 16:35, 17 July 2026 (UTC) Davidhaighuk (talk) 16:35, 17 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Verification note (23 July): for editors wishing to verify the Times source (Baksi, "David Haigh: I expected a James Bond type to get me out of jail", The Times, 24 June 2026): the article is available through The Wikipedia Library news collections (ProQuest and Gale both carry The Times), and the full text, together with the underlying court orders, is with the volunteer response team under VRT ticket 2026071710007016. The 2022 and 2024 rulings referred to above are freely readable at the National Archives ([2022] EWHC 3110 (Comm) and [2024] EWCA Civ 65), and Law360 reported the 2022 ruling on the day it was handed down. Davidhaighuk (talk) 11:46, 23 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

wo points on this request.

1. The source. The Times piece is a profile based on an interview with Mr Haigh. It is a reliable source for what it reports, but it is reporting his account of a decade of litigation. The article should summarise what the court judgments and orders did, rather than adopting a characterisation from an interview as the framework for the litigation history.

The 2025 consent orders are the relevant primary source for what happened at that stage of the proceedings. The Times description that "all of the claims were finally dismissed" should therefore be treated as a summary of Mr Haigh's account, rather than as a replacement for the procedural record. It is also worth noting that GFH has publicly characterised the settlement differently, stating that it had not withdrawn the embezzlement claim and that the settlement concerned enforcement proceedings arising from earlier judgments.

2. The wording and placement. "Dismissed" is understandable shorthand, and I can see why a journalist might use it. However, simply stating in the lead that "the civil claims were dismissed by consent" gives a misleading picture of the litigation history, especially if the only preceding detail is the 2018 DIFC and 2020 High Court enforcement decisions.

The proceedings did not end with a court rejecting GFH's case. The DIFC proceedings resulted in judgments in GFH's favour, those judgments were subsequently recognised and enforced in England, and GFH obtained possession of Cornwall properties which the courts found were purchased with, or represented, funds misappropriated from GFH. The later consent orders should be understood in that context.

That level of procedural history belongs in the body of the article rather than being reduced to a single sentence in the lead. If the 2025 settlement is included, the wording should reflect both the conclusion of the later proceedings and the earlier judgments and enforcement steps, rather than suggesting that the entire dispute was simply dismissed. But the reality is that this is almost certainly too much detail for this subject's lead.

I've set out the remainder of my comments on this page and at BLPN rather than repeat them here. Leodensians (talk) 16:03, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

The user below has a request that an edit be made to David Haigh. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 637 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

So that editors have everything in one place (per the BLPN discussion), here is my complete position, with sources. I am the subject, COI-declared and VRT-verified (ticket 2026071710007016). What I am asking for is that this biography state what the reliable sources state — accurately and currently.

I should acknowledge openly that this article has suffered problematic editing over many years and from more than one direction — including, long ago, promotional editing on my behalf that predates my involvement here. make no assumptions about any editor's motives. I am asking for one thing only: that the article follow what the reliable sources say.

1. DESCRIPTION. Reliable sources, in their own editorial voice, describe me as a human rights lawyer: – BBC News (Usher, 4 June 2026): headline "Ex-wife of Dubai ruler's nephew missing, says lawyer"; first sentence: "A British human rights lawyer says the former wife of a nephew of the ruler of Dubai has gone missing"; – AFP (5 June 2026, syndicated incl. Dawn): "David Haigh, Javadli's British-based human rights lawyer"; – The Daily Telegraph (Bird, 9 Oct 2021): headline "...hacked phone of lawyer who campaigned to free Princess Latifa"; body: "a human rights lawyer's mobile phone"; – Haaretz (26 Aug 2021), headline: "The Target: A British Human Rights Lawyer"; – International Business Times (5 June 2026): "British human rights lawyer David Haigh"; – Daily Record (2018), headline: "Lawyer tortured in Dubai tells Scots..."; – Reuters footage caption (2021): "says lawyer" (Latifa); – The Washington Post (2 Aug 2021): "human rights activist"; – The Times (24 June 2026): "solicitor" (headline and text). Per WP:V and MOS:DOUBT, the article should use the sources' own term – "human rights lawyer" — not the qualifier "self-described", which no reliable source uses. My register status is precise and citable: I remain on the roll as a solicitor (non-practising) of the Senior Courts of England and Wales.

2. LEAD AND STRUCTURE. Per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarise what the sources predominantly cover — the casework — rather than foregrounding litigation that ended in dismissal. Proposed first sentences, on the model of comparable biographies of lawyers with prominent casework (compare Lisa Bloom: "...is an American civil rights attorney known for representing high-profile clients..."): "David Lawrence Haigh (born 1977) is a British human rights lawyer known for representing women fleeing Dubai's ruling family, and a former managing director of Leeds United Football Club. He is a solicitor (non-practising) of the Senior Courts of England and Wales." Short description: "British human rights lawyer and former football executive". Suggested section outline: Early life and education; Legal career (Palmer Cowen, Thomas Eggar, DLA Piper, Akin Gump, then GFH — per The Times), with a "Notable clients and cases" subsection covering the representation of Sheikha Latifa (BBC Panorama; The New Yorker), the legal team of Princess Haya (The Times), and Zeynab Javadli (BBC News; AFP); Leeds United; Detention in Dubai and litigation (through to the 2025 dismissals); the Pegasus hacking (Amnesty; The Washington Post; The Guardian); LGBTQ+ advocacy and recognition; Writing and media. External links should include his IMDb profile (standard for subjects with screen credits).

3. THE MARCH 2025 DISMISSALS (pending request edit above). All GFH claims were dismissed by consent on 21 March 2025 (High Court CL-2014-000603, CL-2017-000058, CL-2023-000121, civil restraint order set aside; DIFC CFI-020/2014; no order as to costs). Source: Baksi, The Times, 24 June 2026 ("All of the claims were finally dismissed last year"); orders available via VRT. Any account of the litigation that ends at 2020–21 is incomplete and, per WP:BLP, must not stand.

4. EDUCATION AND LEGAL CAREER. The Times (24 June 2026): I "studied law at Southampton University and the College of Law in Guildford and trained at Palmer Cowen", later working at Thomas Eggar, DLA Piper and Akin Gump before GFH. The infobox degree deleted on 6 July is therefore citable, as is a Legal career section using those firms.

5. THE SDT ALLEGATIONS. The 6 July text recited particulars of allegations never tested (proceedings stayed indefinitely in 2023 on medical grounds), whose related civil claims were dismissed in 2025. WP:BLP requires conservative treatment of unproven allegations. Accurate wording: "Disciplinary proceedings brought by the SRA in 2018, relating to the GFH dispute, were stayed indefinitely by the Tribunal in 2023 on medical grounds; the underlying civil claims were dismissed by consent in 2025."

6. CURRENT AND RECENT WORK. Per The Times: I assisted the legal team of Princess Haya bint al-Hussein and advise Zeynab Javadli (also covered by BBC News and AFP, above). The article's casework coverage currently stops at Latifa and is out of date.

7. WRITING AND BROADCASTING. The article does not reflect my work as a writer and commentator, though it is directly verifiable: – The Guardian (comment, 23 Nov 2018): "There's no justice in the UAE — I learned that in a Dubai prison" — already cited in the article as a source, but not reflected as my authorship; – The Independent (Voices, 25 Oct 2017): "I was jailed in Dubai like Jamie Harron — it's worse than you could possibly imagine" (already cited in the article); – Daily Mail (comment, 12 March 2026) on the suppression of reporting of the Iranian drone attacks on Dubai; – Television and film: contributor to BBC Panorama "The Missing Princess" and 60 Minutes Australia "The Princess Diaries" (both already cited in the article), and a regular news commentator on UK and international broadcasters; filmography per IMDb (nm11391980). A short "Writing and media" section reflecting this, with the above citations, would complete the biography.

8. SOURCED ADVOCACY CONTENT. Sourced material must not be lost in any restructure: the Stonewall Diversity Champion material and National Diversity Awards shortlistings (PinkNews, Voice Online, BBC) are cited and due.

9. THE 2017 JUDGMENT. 2017 SC EDIN 77 (para 71, already cited in the article): the sheriff, after my evidence was tested in court, described me as "an honest intelligent witness" and accepted my account of serious assault and rape in detention. These are judicial findings, not "claims", and the article must treat them as such.

70. THE 2015–16 "CYBER SLANDER" CHARGE. Human Rights Watch publicly took up the case, calling for the charge to be dropped and criticising the law under which it was brought (HRW, "UAE: British Businessman Faces Cybercrime Charges", 7 March 2016). I was acquitted (BBC News, 21 March 2016 — already cited in the article). Any account of that charge should carry both the HRW intervention and the acquittal.

I do not oppose a restructure — I have proposed one above and would welcome a genuinely thorough tidy by uninvolved editors. What cannot stand, under WP:BLP, is a version that omits the dismissals, applies qualifiers no source uses, and recites untested allegations in detail. I can supply the court orders and the Times print-edition reference through VRT for any editor implementing any of the above. ~2026-40383-94 (talk) 23:36, 18 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

It appears you've forgotten to log in. Editing without logging in is a bit like editing naked. Please remember to log in. You've provided ample feedback. Please give this some time. JFHJr (㊟) 23:40, 18 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

That was me again — apologies, both for the logged-out post and the stray line breaks from pasting; noted on both, and this reply is posted logged in. Nothing further from me — I'm happy to leave everything with uninvolved editors from here. Davidhaighuk (talk) 05:19, 19 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

To be clear, I dispute several of these, and I've set out why on this page and at BLPN rather than repeating it all here. In short: point 1, the "human rights lawyer" descriptor, isn't supported by the register or the legal press; point 2's proposed lead follows from it; point 3's "all claims dismissed" gives a reader the wrong impression of what the 2025 orders did; and point 5's "accurate wording" drops what the SRA actually alleged and attaches the civil settlement to a disciplinary matter it has no bearing on. Leodensians (talk) 15:38, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

I'm asking that the 6 July version of the article be restored. I made that rewrite; the subject reverted it on 17 July, and that revert is why the earlier version is currently live. I've set out my reasons in full at BLPN, including the material the restored version omits. I'm sure there are improvements still to be made, including reference to the 2025 consent orders. But the right way to do that is by working from the revised article, not by allowing the subject to scrap those changes wholesale and then propose revisions to what he has restored. On the substance, the 2025 orders dismissed the proceedings by consent following a settlement; they don't disturb Cooke J's finding in the DIFC that Mr Haigh "is a fraudster", or Henshaw J's holding in GFH Capital Ltd v Haigh [2020] EWHC 1269 (Comm) that he could not establish "a prima facie case, or indeed any case" that the DIFC claim was fictitious (§86). I'm involved, so I won't be editing the article myself, but I'd be grateful if an uninvolved editor would restore it. Leodensians (talk) 16:01, 22 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

The user below has a request that an edit be made to David Haigh. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 637 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

I have a conflict of interest: I am the subject of this article, so I am not editing it directly and am instead requesting the changes below. I have tried to keep each point strictly factual and tied to a reliable source. 1. Lead. The lead records that I was convicted of fraud in Dubai but omits the later developments, which leaves it reflecting the position as it stood years ago rather than today. I request that the lead also note that I received a royal pardon, that I was acquitted of a separate charge in 2016, and that the civil claims brought against me by GFH Capital were later dismissed in full by the English High Court and the DIFC courts. Reliable source: Catherine Baksi, "David Haigh: I expected a James Bond type to get me out of jail", The Times (Times Law), 24 June 2026, which reports that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year". 2. The GFH civil litigation. The relevant section describes the 2014 freezing order and the 2018 judgment and stops there. I request that it also record that: (a) on 11 November 2022 the Commercial Court held that the freezing order had lapsed on its own terms in 2018 (GFH Capital Ltd v Haigh [2022] EWHC 3110 (Comm)); (b) GFH's appeal against that ruling was dismissed on 5 February 2024 ([2024] EWCA Civ 65); and (c) in March 2025 all of GFH's remaining claims against me were dismissed by the English High Court and by the DIFC Court of First Instance, and the civil restraint order was set aside. Sources: those judgments as published by the National Archives (Find Case Law), together with The Times report of 24 June 2026 cited above. 3. Balance (WP:BLP). As written, the article gives prominence to the conviction and the 2018 judgment while omitting the pardon, the acquittal, and the 2025 dismissals. I would ask editors to consider WP:BLP's requirement of balance, and its guidance that a biography should reflect the current, reliably sourced position rather than a snapshot from an earlier stage of the litigation. I have also prepared a fuller, sourced draft in my sandbox at User:Davidhaighuk/sandbox, which editors are welcome to draw on or adapt; I am not asking for it to be adopted wholesale, only offering it as a starting point. I am happy to supply full citations or to answer any questions here on the talk page. Davidhaighuk (talk) 04:49, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Source verification for the 2025 dismissals, to help an uninvolved editor action this. To make this easy to check, here are the source, the exact wording, and access routes, so an uninvolved editor can verify it without hitting the paywall. I remain the subject of the article and am not editing it.

Citation: Catherine Baksi, "David Haigh: I expected a James Bond type to get me out of jail", The Times (Times Law), 24 June 2026.

Relevant wording in the source: the article states that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year".

On the paywall (WP:V): per WP:PAYWALL, a source does not have to be free or online to be verifiable. This article is available to editors through The Wikipedia Library (both ProQuest and Gale carry The Times); it also ran in the print edition of 24 June 2026 (Times Law section); and I am happy to have a copy provided at WP:RX for any editor who wants to read it in full.

Corroborating court record: the underlying facts are in public court documents on the National Archives (Find Case Law): the 2014 freezing order was held to have lapsed in GFH Capital Ltd v Haigh [2022] EWHC 3110 (Comm); GFH's appeal was dismissed at [2024] EWCA Civ 65; and the March 2025 orders dismissed all remaining claims (High Court CL-2014-000603, CL-2017-000058, CL-2023-000121; DIFC CFI-020/2014) and set aside the civil restraint order. I have offered copies via VRT (ticket 2026071710007016).

Suggested neutral wording, for whichever version stands, for an uninvolved editor to add or adapt: "In November 2022 the Commercial Court held that the 2014 freezing order had lapsed on its own terms in 2018 ([2022] EWHC 3110 (Comm)). GFH's appeal was dismissed in February 2024 ([2024] EWCA Civ 65). In March 2025 all of GFH's remaining claims against Haigh, in the English High Court and in the DIFC, were dismissed and the civil restraint order was set aside." Cited to the judgments above and to The Times, 24 June 2026.

I am not asking anyone to take a side, only to add the current, sourced position. Grateful to any uninvolved editor who can verify and action this. Davidhaighuk (talk) 05:15, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Three quick points:

1. I think the pardon should go in if it can be properly sourced and its relevance made clear. I didn't know about it. Worth flagging that a pardon is clemency, not exoneration, so it sits alongside the conviction rather than cancelling it out.

2. Mr Haigh wants the lead to say the civil claims were "dismissed in full". A reader will take that as a court having looked at the claims and found against GFH. That's not what happened. These are technical points about enforcement, not about whether he defrauded GFH, which the DIFC decided and the High Court did not disturb. And he's said himself the case settled: claims ended by agreement, no order as to costs, means both sides walked away. Which is precisely why WP:COI exists, and why the lead shouldn't be written to carry that implication. His suggested wording further down has the same issue. I'd go with: "In March 2025, following a settlement between the parties, GFH's remaining claims against Haigh in the English High Court and the DIFC were brought to an end and the civil restraint order was set aside."

3. More generally, none of this later stuff warrants prominence. It's procedural, about enforcement, and can go briefly in the litigation section rather than the lead. Otherwise we end up with a blow-by-blow of every interlocutory step across a decade of proceedings. Nobody reading a biography wants that. Leodensians (talk) 12:39, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Leodensians, you are describing the effect of orders you have said you cannot read. I have offered them, and the Times report, to any editor through VRT (ticket 2026071710007016). On their face they are not a stay and not a narrowing of the case: by consent the courts dismissed all of GFH's claims, the 2014, 2017 and 2023 High Court claims (CL-2014-000603, CL-2017-000058, CL-2023-000121, with the 2021 civil restraint order set aside) and the DIFC claim (CFI-020/2014). Those are the claims within which every earlier finding you cite was made.

More to the point, your characterisation has no source. That the claims were "brought to an end following a settlement" rather than dismissed, and that the earlier findings stand undisturbed, is your own reading, not something drawn from any reliable source, and by your own account you have not been able to read the one source that addresses the outcome. That source, The Times (Baksi, 24 June 2026), states in its own voice that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year". WP:V asks the article to follow that word, "dismissed", not an editor's unsourced interpretation to the contrary. If you have a reliable source that says the claims were not dismissed, please produce it; otherwise it is opinion, and opinion does not outweigh a cited source.

I would also ask uninvolved editors to look at the direction of these changes taken together. In each instance it is the sourced, favourable point that is minimised or reworded: the dismissals become a "settlement"; the word "dismissed", used by The Times, is replaced by a phrase no source uses; decade-old adverse steps are kept as present-tense fact while the 2017 judicial finding in my favour is recast as a "claim"; "human rights lawyer", used in their own voice by the BBC, Haaretz and The Daily Telegraph, becomes "self-described"; my degree, now citable to The Times, was removed. Any one might be arguable alone. Together they run in a single direction. I make no assumption about why, and I am not asking anyone to. I am asking that the balance be judged by uninvolved editors rather than by the editor who authored the disputed version.

On placement: a reader told in the lead of the conviction and the 2018 judgment cannot, in balance, be left without the outcome. That all the claims were dismissed is the result, not an interlocutory detail, and belongs in the lead in one line. Davidhaighuk (talk) 13:03, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

Before anything else: nothing in this dispute touches what happened to you in Dubai, and I'm sorry you went through it. That's why I expanded the 2017 Scottish judgment from a single line into a full paragraph in my rewrite, rather than leaving it as it was.

On the article, though, I'm finding this fairly exasperating. Taking the points in turn.

1. On "dismissed". Mr Haigh says my characterisation that it was a settlement has no source. Three points.

a. He said it himself. His request of 17 July asked editors to insert "In March 2025, following a confidential settlement, all of GFH's remaining claims against Haigh were dismissed by consent". His post of 18 July repeats it and adds "no order as to costs". He told The National the same thing. That's his language, in his own proposed article text.

b. GFH says it too. Its legal department told The National (1 May 2026) it had "not withdrawn the claim regarding the embezzlement of funds", that "that claim was already awarded in GFH's favour several years ago, both in the DIFC and in the UK", and that what it settled were "certain UK cases regarding the enforcement of GFH's rights arising from the DIFC and UK judgments". I don't know what weight The National carries and I've no doubt Mr Haigh will have views about it, but that's an on-the-record statement from the party that brought the claim. The piece doesn't appear to have been used in the article (I've only just come across it), and the GFH statement in it is worth including whichever version stands. It's the only place I've found where the claimant addresses what was and wasn't settled.

c. And the word alone misleads. Claims ended by consent following a settlement are not claims a court has rejected. In a lead sentence, "dismissed" will be read as the latter. If I were the subject of an article and had settled litigation, I'd want it to read as though the court had thrown the claimant's case out too. That's understandable. It just isn't what the article should say, especially in its lead.

2. On what the 2025 orders actually disposed of. Mr Haigh says they covered "the claims within which every earlier finding you cite was made", the implication being that if the claims went, the findings went too. That's wrong in two ways.

a. On the criminal side, he was convicted of breach of trust by the Dubai Criminal Court in 2015 and that conviction was upheld on appeal. A settlement between GFH and Mr Haigh in 2025 has no bearing on it at all: a criminal conviction isn't a party's claim to withdraw.

b. On the civil side, the DIFC court gave judgment against him in July 2018 and the English court entered judgment enforcing it in May 2020. Both were final years before 2025. What the 2025 orders dealt with was what remained live at that point, which is what GFH says too: not the embezzlement claim, but the enforcement proceedings flowing from judgments it had already won.

3. On the suggestion my edits all run one way. Mr Haigh, if I were trying to write this article to impugn you, there was no shortage of material in the judgments to work with. Cooke J described you as a fraudster. I didn't use the word in the article, instead writing that the DIFC court found you had fraudulently diverted company funds via false invoices, which is the finding without the epithet. Nor did I use anything Henshaw J says about your conduct of the proceedings.

What I did do was expand the 2017 Scottish judgment, as above, quoting the sheriff's findings that you were an honest and intelligent witness, that he believed your account of the conditions you were held in, and that he accepted you had been sexually assaulted and raped in detention. I kept the LGBTQ+ advocacy in full, the Stonewall material, #ComeOut2Play, both National Diversity Awards shortlistings and the 2016 acquittal. On the degree: what came out was the post-nominal string "LLB Hons Law", not the degree itself, which stayed in the body recording that you studied law at Southampton. That's formatting, not removal. And I've since accepted the disability nomination, the Make-A-Wish material, the 2022 and 2024 rulings and the pardon.

If that's editing in one direction, it's a strange way to go about it. Implying an editor is working to an agenda, however carefully hedged (or not...), isn't a substitute for showing where a change was wrong.

4. Where the settlement point goes. Mr Haigh says a reader "cannot, in balance, be left without the outcome", and that the 2025 orders belong in the lead.

But the settlement isn't the outcome, it's part of the outcome, along with the 2018 judgment, the enforcement in England in 2020, the bankruptcy, GFH taking possession of the Cornwall properties, and the agreement between the parties in 2025. Picking the last item in that sequence and calling it "the outcome" is what I keep objecting to.

The other thing is that this is starting to read like a case note rather than a biography. A reader wants to know what happened, not to follow a decade of procedural history through freezing orders, restraint orders and consent orders. The lead should carry the substance: he was convicted, a court found he had taken company money using false invoices, that judgment was enforced against him in England, and the parties later settled the enforcement proceedings. That is, as far as I can see from the available material, the shape of it. Everything else belongs in the body, briefly.

That's me done for the moment. I came across an article that read like a press release, spent far too much of my own time turning it into something encyclopaedic, and had the whole thing deleted by its subject. I then get a selective and partly wrong list of my own edits, read back to me by the subject, who assures me and others that he is implying nothing. If anyone else would like to take over arguing basic points of sourcing with the man the article is about, I would be grateful, if slightly bewildered that it needs doing at all. Leodensians (talk) 14:43, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

(Re-reading my comment, I referred to the criminal conviction being upheld on appeal. That was an error and I've struck it out. I was thinking of the English proceedings, where Mr Haigh was refused permission to appeal Henshaw J's judgment.) Leodensians (talk) 15:03, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

To uninvolved editors: I will leave the matter here and add nothing further, so as not to overload the thread. My position rests on a single point of policy. The only reliable secondary source that addresses the outcome, The Times (Baksi, 24 June 2026), states in its own voice that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year". The competing description, that the claims were "brought to an end following a settlement" with the earlier findings left undisturbed, is not drawn from any reliable source. It is an editor's own interpretation, and its only support is a report in The National asserting what a party is said to have stated. There is no such statement in evidence, only a newspaper's account of one, which is hearsay.

On that source: The National is owned by International Media Investments and linked to the Abu Dhabi state. The United Arab Emirates has one of the most restricted press environments in the world, as documented by Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Its coverage of me has not been neutral either: it ran a series of adverse articles between 2018 and 2021, the period in which I led a worldwide campaign to free Sheikha Latifa, daughter of the ruler of Dubai; it then fell silent for more than four years; and it resumed only in 2026, as I became publicly involved in the case of another woman connected to Dubai's ruling family Zeynab Javadli. An unverified assertion in a state-linked outlet, with no underlying statement in evidence, is not a reliable secondary source for the neutral description of a legal outcome, and under WP:V and WP:RS it cannot displace The Times reporting, in its own voice, that the claims were dismissed.

On the "lawyer" descriptor also disputed above: reliable sources describe me as a lawyer in their own editorial voice, including in current matters. On 4 June 2026 the BBC reported on Zeynab Javadli, the former wife of a member of Dubai's ruling family, whose three children remain in the United Arab Emirates, under the headline "Ex-wife of Dubai ruler's nephew missing, says lawyer", the lawyer being me. That is the BBC's own word, in a live case, and it is exactly the kind of current, reliable source WP:BLP asks a biography to reflect.

If editors prefer the mechanism of the 2025 orders to be recorded, "dismissed ny the English and DIfC courts by consent" is accurate and I have no objection to it. The court orders and the Times report remain available to any editor through VRT (ticket 2026071710007016). I am grateful to uninvolved editors for taking this on, and will of course answer if anyone asks me a direct question. Davidhaighuk (talk) 19:41, 24 July 2026 (UTC)Reply

The user below has a request that an edit be made to David Haigh. That user has an actual or apparent conflict of interest. The requested edits backlog is very high. Please be extremely patient. There are currently 637 requests waiting for review. Please read the instructions for the parameters used by this template for accepting and declining them, and review the request below and make the edit if it is well sourced, neutral, and follows other Wikipedia guidelines and policies.

@JFHJr: Thank you for your recent work on the article. As I have a conflict of interest (I am the subject), I am requesting an edit rather than making it. This request is deliberately narrow: it asks only that the article's account of the civil litigation, which currently ends in 2021, record how that litigation ended. I am not asking for anything to be removed or reworded.

Requested change: at the end of the section Proceedings in England (2020–2021), after the sentence ending "…in enforcement of the judgment debt.", add:

In November 2022 the High Court ruled that a freezing injunction obtained by GFH over Haigh's assets in 2014 had expired on its own terms in July 2018, ordered GFH to confirm its discharge to third parties it had notified, and awarded Haigh costs; the Court of Appeal dismissed GFH's appeal against that ruling in February 2024. On 21 March 2025 the High Court dismissed GFH's claims against Haigh, and the underlying DIFC action was likewise dismissed. The Times reported in June 2026 that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year".

And, consequentially, retitle that section Proceedings in England (2020–2025).

Sources:

• GFH Capital Ltd v Haigh [2022] EWHC 3110 (Comm), freely readable at caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk, with same-day coverage in Law360 (11 November 2022).
• GFH Capital Ltd v Haigh [2024] EWCA Civ 65, also on Find Case Law, with coverage in CDR News (February 2024).
• Catherine Baksi, The Times, 24 June 2026 — states in the paper's own voice that "all of the claims were finally dismissed last year". Paywalled, but accessible through The Wikipedia Library (both ProQuest and Gale carry The Times).
• The orders of 21 March 2025 (claims CL-2014-000603, CL-2017-000058 and CL-2023-000121) are with the Volunteer Response Team under ticket 2026071710007016 for verification.

Happy to supply full citation templates or anything else needed. Davidhaighuk (talk) 11:29, 1 August 2026 (UTC)Reply