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Attached to the email were the statements of claimand defence and a letter from Vieira providing her version of events and its impact upon her.

It concluded that “my employer ThyssenKrupp did the right thing when it fired Mark Render, the man who sexually assaulted me. I can now only hope and pray that the court system does the right thing too.”

Most companies, rightly or wrongly, work assiduously to keep their cases out of the press. ThyssenKrupp, on the other hand, chose to launch a public relations campaign against the employee suing it.

There is a legal debate as to whether it is appropriate to hand out copies of statements of claim or defence. My practice is to let journalists know, when asked, where a pleading can be found so that they can research it themselves in the public record.

You might have observed that, invariably, when a pleading is written about, words of caution such as “the Plaintiff alleges” etc., are used to avoid any risk of being sued for defamation. But whatever privilege a pleading may have, a witness/victim impact statement such as Vieira’s has no analogous protection and indeed, no protection at all.

If Mr. Render is successful and the judge makes findings of fact inconsistent with Vieira’s version, she has opened herself up to a libel case. One would have to imagine that Render would be quick to sue her if the judge finds the comments in her letter to be false. Vieira, who wrote that she had wished to put this behind her, might, by her own act, relive it for years to come.