To follow on from our statement of yesterday, and to be clear it is not in any Party’s interest for this matter to be dealt with in the Court of “Public Opinion” Whilst the Public’s opinion is important, this is a legal matter and should be handled as such.
We have issued a legal claim against Mr William Hammerton Smith ( Bill Smith) and The Bluebird Project, it has now been suggested that we are ruining the public’s chance to see Bluebird K7 at a Straightliners event this weekend.
We would like to address any confusion or misconception surrounding this.
Our legal representatives wrote to Straightliners and Baton of Hope in December 2022, and warned them that legal action was imminent and that The Bluebird Project did not have permission to display or run Bluebird K7.
A response was received from Straightliners advising us that it was nothing to do with them, suggesting we take the issue up with Bill Smith and The Bluebird Project.
Last night we received phone calls from Straightliners asking us to reconsider, we have been engaged in detailed discussions with our legal representatives late yesterday evening and early this morning.
Discussions were had with Straightliners and we are informed that Straightliners had discussions with Bill Smith, but sadly no agreement was reached.
We would like to inform all onlookers, supporters and parties with an interest that unfortunately although we tried to warn Straightliners this may happen, and we have also tried to find a compromise, (this however has been unsuccessful) this situation is not of our making.
We publicly stated on 8th December 2022 that we would not be granting permission for The Bluebird Project to display Bluebird K7 at Elvington. Indeed, numerous times previously we have told The Bluebird Project & Bill Smith that he did not have permission to display Bluebird K7 anywhere.
We would also like to make clear that the timing of issuing papers is coincidental to the Elvington event; court cases take months of preparation and Bill Smith has been, or should have been aware of us preparing this case.
Bill Smith has had recent correspondence from our representatives and was aware that legal papers were being prepared. Bill Smith informed our representatives that a reply would be received no later than 18 February 2023, in response to previous correspondence sent by our representatives, which stated that proceedings would be issued without further notice if the matter was not resolved.
As you may have gathered no response was received despite the deadline being set by Bill Smith himself.
We do not wish to engage in a social media frenzy but all should be aware of the accurate position as explained above.
It is not appropriate to only consider one side and we reiterate that we will not be making any further comment on this matter at this stage unless absolutely necessary.
