'Forum of hate' founder unmasked as couple win libel case against gossip site

Daily Mirror

6 hours ago

Neil and Donna Sands embarked on their two-year case against toxic gossip site Tattle Life, finally winning £300,000 and exposing the person behind the site as Sebastian Bond
Online gossip site, Tattle Life, known for the vicious trolling of influencers and celebrities alike could finally be shut down. The site describes itself as a platform for 'commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain'
Like many social media platforms, Tattle Life allows users to post discussion threads, but these often took a nasty turn, resulting in toxic and hurtful conversations which targeted a selection of celebrities and influencers, from TikTok star GK Barry to TV host Stacey Solomon. Despite its nature, the site accumulated 12 million readers per month.
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'I thought someone was going to kill me and my unborn baby'
Since the site opened in 2018, Tattle Life has had a notorious reputation for going a step too far. Victims of the site have reported that their partners and children were all 'fair game' to Tattle Life's trolling, which often targeted people's weight and disabilities. Tattle Life trolls even went as far as exposing the GDPR details such as the addresses of their family homes, reports MailOnline.
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A female creator feared for her life and her pregnancy after her home address was shared on the website. The anonymous mother told Cosmopolitan: "I had such paranoia that someone was going to break in and kill me, and my unborn baby, that I was signed off work for a week".
A site 'making profit out of people's misery'
Now, after years of celebrity complaints against the site, a couple has finally won their libel case against Tattle Life. Neil Sands, 43, and his wife Donna, 34, sued over posts made in February 2021. They claimed they were subject to a campaign of harassment, invasion of privacy, defamation and breach of data rights.
The legal battle lasted two years and was undertaken at the cost of Mr and Mrs Sands. The plaintiffs were originally awarded £300,000 in damages against the then unknown operators of Tattle Life in late 2023.
On June 13, the defendant companies and suspected operator of the site, Sebastian Bond, was revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted at Belfast's High Court.
Ruling in their favour, Belfast's High Court judge said the website was 'solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery', according to The Guardian.
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The court case was funded by the Sands and included a list of freezing orders made that were worth more than £1 million as a global forensic investigation operated to identify both the defendants and their assets. The cessation figure the defendant has to pay was revealed to be a huge sum of £1,077,173 to have the frozen assets order lifted.
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Who is Sebastian Bond?
At Belfast's High Court in 2023, it was revealed that Sebastian Bond, a 41-year-old Brit, was the man behind the gossip forum. He also goes under the alias of Bastian Durwud. Bond was unveiled as a vegan influencer and the author behind the plant-based recipe Instagram account Nest and Glow, which has 135,000 followers. MailOnline reports that Tattle Life's six-month revenue is estimated at £276,770 in Google Ads, according to figures from 2021.
'The internet is not an anonymous place'
Mr Sands has said that the case had been done for all those who had suffered severe professional and personal distress from the anonymous virtual attacks. Though the thread about Neil and Donna was successfully removed in May 2025, thousands of others persist online.
The couple posted a statement on Instagram, writing: "'We are very grateful for your support, and hope that this serves as a reminder to those who want to attack others from behind a screen - that the internet is not an anonymous place. We will share more soon, but for today, we hope that this news will provide some peace to those affected by online hate and harassment, and that the internet can be a safer space for us all. Onward".
Tattle Life remains live and running, with the next case review scheduled for June 26 at Belfast's High Court.