Latest news with #DonnaSands
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My life was ruined by Tattle Life: Trolls lied about my business and claimed they were stalking me in person - so I exposed the site's gossip king
A couple whose lives were ruined by ruthless trolls on a viral gossip site have laid bare the nightmare they endured - after 'menacing' anonymous posters would leave nasty comments, stalk them, and drive back and forth past their home. Neil and Donna Sands from Northern Ireland have fought back and were awarded £300,000 at the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in 2023 - after successfully suing the 'toxic' platform Tattle Life; whose founder was revealed to be a male vegan influencer who had penned a cookbook. Speaking to MailOnline, the pair explained that the past four years have been marred by the 'lonely' legal endeavour, and left them riddled with panic over what would be said online. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie, revealed how the online harassment started in 2021. She had briefly known that Tattle existed, but coming from a small village 'was never going to be on it or anything of the sort'. One afternoon, a friend called her and warned that people in her office were 'laughing' at a post on the message boards. 'It was horrible,' she continued, on discovering the 45-page thread. 'I've been working in fashion since I was 16, I started on the shop floor and really built a community. 'To watch a reputation just fall apart... I was just so upset.' Speaking on GMB this week, the pair detailed how defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices. Neil said the trolls even went down to the 'molecular level' of finding information about their finances on Companies House and posting them on the site. 'It got more menacing overtime and eventually it got into stalking,' he added. 'There was lots of commentary about where we were, who we were in restaurants with, "we are watching you" stuff like that.' Some even turned to in person, and would tell the couple: 'We we can see you in this restaurant, we are looking at you right now.' Obsessive 'Tattlers' even started driving back and forth past their home and posted details of their house on Tattle Life threads dedicated to abusing them. 'It's just that most businesses need to have a social media presence these days,' Donna told MailOnline. 'And with these threads, it almost gets competitive with who can have the nastiest comment about it.' Overwhelmed, Donna and Neil reached out to the site and asked them to take the comments down, with the fashion founder's husband sending 'at least' five emails with the request. 'We begged him at one point,' Donna added. 'Eventually we had to take legal action.' The defamation case proved to be a 'lengthy' and technical process, as the couple had to prove that the remarks were indeed - defamatory. On another level, they were faced with the daunting task of digging into the site itself, which eventually led them to the 41-year-old British businessman behind the forum - Sebastian Bond. The website publisher, who also goes by alias Bastian Durward, used the fake name 'Helen McDougal' on Tattle Life. 'I was surprised and not surprised that it was a man pretending to be a woman,' Donna explained. 'Not to be mean to men of course, but I was just not surprised that it was a man portending to be a woman and pinning these women against each other - driving them to their darkest places.' Neil - who works in AI - explained how Tattle's mastermind was found following lengthy research on his digital footprints and any 'chinks in his armour'. 'It's tough,' he admitted. 'Even if you're just visiting the site, you're paying this guy money.' Elsewhere, investigation firm Nardello & Co has also spoken of their involvement , which included 'the piecing together of countless, disparate fragments of the operator's multiple online identities, aliases, and personas, amassed over the course of two decades'. 'Despite their sophistication, traces were left in the public record across the UK, including in the operator's online digital footprint,' said Alan Kennedy of the firm. 'Cases of anonymous harassment and online defamation of this nature are becoming increasingly common, complex and damaging.' Although the couple won their defamation case, Bond - whose legal team has in a letter to court confirmed he runs Tattle Life, but claimed they weren't aware of litigation (something Donna and Neil's team has disputed) - they admit their work is far from done. The couple are still waiting for the case review later this month, and want to highlight the severity of what the site has driven people to do - as well as the duress they're put under. 'We got married amid all this,' Donna - who has privately also dealt with health issues during this period - said. 'It's all been in the background when we should have been getting on with our lives. It breaks my heart.' 'Our story pales in comparison,' Neil added. 'Some of the messages we've gotten have been horrific, with the self harm and mental health issues people have grappled with because of the site. 'It's been really, really dark. People have had to completely shut down their businesses.' They specifically highlighted the case of Lisa Davies, who lost her husband Richard to Stage 4 stomach cancer, aged 37, in 2022. The Irish couple who unmasked him as Tattle Life, have shared the names of his alises on their social media - stating that he was masking under the false name as a site moderator, Helen McDougal To this day, the widow is receiving awful trolling on Tattle life from people who are convinced he did not pass away - and demanding to see a death certificate. Some people have even had child protective services come around after getting calls from anonymous online users - a tactic Neil says is often 'weaponised' by tattlers. 'That's the level of depravity you're looking at,' he added. However, the couple say the reaction to Bond's un-masking has been 'phenomenal' - with their Instagram post about the situation, shared over the weekend, being viewed more than 8.3 million times. 'We never wanted or expected to undertake this work, however when we discovered the hate site we were forced to take action,' they wrote. '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.' The pair are also taking their case to higher places, adding that they've been in touch with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy about the matter. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - a public body sponsored by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology - is also amid their goals, as is search engine Google. And what's more, Neil is working on a software that helps unmask trolls ethically. 'If you want to sat something, put your name on it,' he said. 'As we say, everyone has a right to free speech, but it's not free of consequences.' Speaking on ITV earlier this morning, Donna also revealed how popular British influencer Mrs Hinch reached out to her on the weekend and told the couple how she had been 'actively targeted' on Tattle Life. She added there may be a lot of 'big personalities' who have been abused on the gossip site but highlighted the 'small business owners' and lesser known micro-influencers who have also fallen victim. 'I have a modest following of 20,000 which was a community I curated for years,' she said. 'We all thought we were anonymous and that you could write whatever you want, but maybe now we can move forward positively and know that that's not the case.' For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be now surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author he has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. Following the court case, Neil and Donna got £150,000 each in damages, and the Court granted an injunctive relief to prevent Tattle Life from posting about the couple again. It was also ordered that the Sands' legal costs be paid, with 'further costs and third-party compliance expenses' amounting to £1.8 million. The thread about them was removed in May this year, but thousands and thousands of others remain. Awarding damages to the couple in December 2023, Mr Justice McAlinden hit out at Tattle Life, stating there was 'clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit'. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism - the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism,' he continued. 'Which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' Bond also had his assets frozen and must pay a cessation figure of £1,077,173 to have this order lifted. It's likely that deeply popular Tattle Life racked up a decent amount of money for Bond. As reported by The Guardian in 2021, the blog had 43.2 million visits in just six months of that year. The figures are still in the millions this year. In May, as per Similarweb, there were 11.5 million visits on the site, mostly from British users. It is also understood that Sebastian uses different names online - one of them being Bastian Durward - and owns a number of businesses across the world. Two of them, Mr Justice Colton confirmed, include UK-registered Yuzu Zest Limited and Hong Kong-registered Kumquat Tree Limited. According to Companies House information, the former is currently in liquidation but alleged to offer 'media representation services'. At a hearing last Thursday, the court saw a letter from Sebastian's legal team, sent to one of the plaintiffs, claiming he was the Tattle Life founder but was 'unaware of any legal proceedings against him'. The Sands legal representatives disputed that he was unaware. Tattle Life states on its site that it has a 'zero-tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful, harmful and a team of moderators online 24/7 to remove any content that breaks our strict rules - often in minutes'. However, it adds that 'influencer marketing is insidious' and 'revolves around people that occupy the space between celebrity and friend to stealthy sell when in reality it's a parasocial relationship. 'It's an important part of a healthy, free and fair society for members of the public to have an opinion on those in a position of power and influence; that is why tattle exists. 'We allow people to express their views on businesses away from an influencers feed on a site where they would have to go out of their way to read, this is not trolling.' As reported per The Journal, Neil also said: 'We undertook this case not just for ourselves but for the many people who have suffered serious personal and professional harm through anonymous online attacks on this and other websites. 'We believe in free speech, but not consequence-free speech – particularly where it is intended to, and succeeds in, causing real-world damage to people's lives, livelihoods and mental health. We were in the fortunate position to be able to take the fight to these faceless operators, and it took a lot of time, effort and expense.'
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Operator of gossip forum Tattle Life unmasked after losing defamation case
The previously anonymous operator of an online gossip forum described as a trolls' paradise has been unmasked after losing a defamation case. Sebastian Bond, also known as Bastian Durward, has been confirmed as the man behind Tattle Life after an Irish couple successfully sued the publisher, according to reports. Tattle Life 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'. It attracts up to 12 million visitors monthly, mostly in the UK. The website has long been criticised for threads of toxic and hate-filled comments. On Friday at the high court of justice in Northern Ireland, Mr Justice Colton confirmed that Bond and two of his firms – Yuzu Zest Limited, a UK-registered company, and Kumquat Tree Limited, registered in Hong Kong – were the publishers of the site, the Journal reported. Bond had been using the name 'Helen McDougal' on the website. Bond, who the court heard uses a number of other aliases, is known on the internet as a vegan cooking influencer and author of the book Nest and Glow. The Nest and Glow Instagram account has 135,000 followers. The plaintiffs in the case were Neil and Donna Sands, who were originally awarded £300,000 damages against the then unknown operators of Tattle Life in late 2023. Donna Sands runs the popular clothing brand Sylkie, while Neil Sands is an AI founder and businessman. The couple were subject to defamation and harassment on the website. Mr Justice McAlinden said the website was 'solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery'. He said: 'This is clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit. People facilitating this are making money out of it … protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' After the ruling on Friday, the couple posted a statement on Instagram. It read: 'For nearly a decade, the hate site Tattle Life has profited as a space where users could defame, harass, stalk and attack others online – all behind a veil of seeming anonymity. 'Today, we secured a court order to unmask the site's operator, who has used the false name 'Helen McDougal'. Their true identity, however, is an Englishman named Sebastian Henry Bond, aka Bastian Durward (43). 'For some this court ruling comes sadly too late, as the site has cost innocent people their businesses, reputations and mental health. For others we hope it marks a turning point – a reminder that the internet is not an anonymous place.' This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. The Sands claimed to be subject to defamatory and harassing commentary in a 45-page thread that was only finally removed last month. In 2023 the court issued a series of orders designed to trace and freeze assets owned by the then anonymous Bond. The couple succeeded in freezing money believed to be the proceeds of Tattle Life in a range of jurisdictions around the world. Peter Barr, a partner at the law firm Gateley NI, who represented the Sands, told the Journal: 'This wasn't just a matter of law, it was a global forensic investigation. We had to pursue the money around the world, from the UK to Hong Kong, using a mix of legal innovation and digital evidence to expose what was clearly a sophisticated effort to avoid scrutiny.'
Daily Mail
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Katie Price leads celebrities supporting the downfall of Tattle Life as its creator is finally unmasked and sued over gossip forum posts
Katie Price has led the celebrities supporting the take down of Tattle Life after the anonymous blogger was unmasked on Monday. British 'business owner' Sebastian Bond, 41, who goes by the alias Bastian Durward, has been confirmed as the secret mastermind behind the online forum with thousands of threads where people comment on influencers, celebrities and anyone with even the smallest public profile. After losing a £300,000 defamation case after he was successfully sued by Donna and Neil Sands, celebrities have rushed to share their support for the couple against the gossip site. Replying to Donna's Instagram announcement post, Katie shared an array of applause emojis before also taking to her Story to raise awareness. Meanwhile psychologist Dr Jessica Taylor took to Instagram on Monday to share that she and Neil Sands were beginning government action against Sebastian and the website itself. And Katie reshared the announcement to her story, which asked the government to begin criminal action against Tattle users. Replying to Donna's Instagram announcement post, Katie shared an array of applause emojis before also taking to her Story to raise awareness It read: 'Individually, we were victims, but together with the ruling pursued by @neilsands_ and @donnasands_ - we are now unstoppable.' A host of other celebrities also commented on Donna's post as they shared their support after falling victim to the site themselves. Stacey Solomon wrote: 'Thank you. ❤️ for all you've done'. Meanwhile actress Alice Evans commented: 'Hopefully this will encourage more lawyers to take our cases on. 'Maybe we can make up some of the income we lost through their lies.' Influencer Sophie Hinchliffe, who is best known by her online brand Mrs Hinch, penned: 'Oh my gosh I pray this is true. 'The website that has damaged my mental health and harassed me and my family beyond words for over 6 years. 'They've stalked me, lied about me, mocked me and my beautiful children. Accused me of the unthinkable, brainwashed my supporters. Sickening behaviour that I've silently had to put up with every single day. Influencer Sophie Hinchliffe penned: 'The website that has damaged my mental health and harassed me and my family beyond words for over 6 years' 'My thread (as I'm sure you've seen) is one of the largest on there , with hourly abuse. I hope to god this site gets taken down. Thank you for all you've done'. Big Brother star Henry Southan added: 'Great news' while Love Island's Tasha Ghouri posted applause emojis. Fellow Love Island stars Kady McDermott and Siannise Fudge wrote: 'Thank you so much'. Ashley James added: 'Amazing!!!' and Sharon Gafka penned: 'Thank you'. Lauryn Goodman commented: 'Well done guys! Amazing work now time for the data … who's been behind those accounts! Thank you so much for taking this on .. it was huge!' After Donna and Neil appeared on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, Lauryn also reposted the video as she commented: 'Can still see the pain @donnasands_ has had to endure, Well done guys @neilsands_'. Responding to Sebastian's comment that he 'strongly denies ruining anyone's life', Lauryn penned: 'I'm sorry the audacity.... SEBASTIAN you have denied it???? DENIED it? 'You had SO much time to respond you ignored and still do. You're actually in contempt of court. Honestly if you don't laugh you'll cry... just call him shaggy from now on "it wasn't me." Even with the piles of evidence.' Thanking Donna and Neil for their work she added: 'We can't thank you both enough and the fight continues.. you kept going even though it took a lot of resources! Warriors'. Tattle's site attracts 12 million visitors a month, and is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers who make money from social media. But it rapidly descended into a paradise for trolls to aim abuse at everyone including Mrs Hinch and Stacey Solomon to mummy bloggers with small followings. Last week restrictions on identifying Sebastian were lifted after Neil and Donna were awarded £300,000 at the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in 2023 after successfully suing Bond for 'defamation and harassment' in posts aimed at them on the site. For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be now surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author he has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. Meanwhile, influencers, their partners and even their children, have been on the receiving end of abuse and mockery over their weight and disabilities - while private details such as their home addresses have been shared on the forum.
Daily Mail
10 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Tattle Life victims who unmasked creator of 'trolls paradise' reveal every time they turned on their phone they would shake with fear at what was coming next
The couple who unmasked the creator of the brutal gossip forum Tattle Life have told of how they would 'shake with fear' every time they woke up and checked their phones at what was coming next. Neil and Donna Sands won their historic libel case after suing the founder for 'defamation and harassment' in posts aimed at them on the site and were awarded £300,000 at the High Court of Justice in Northern Ireland in 2023. In turn, they uncovered the man behind it all to be British 'business owner' and vegan influencer Sebastian Bond, 41, when restrictions on identifying him were lifted last week. The site, which attracts 12 million visitors a month, is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers, but it quickly became a paradise for trolls to hurl abuse at everyone from Mrs Hinch and Stacey Solomon to mummy bloggers with small followings. Neil and Donna today appeared on Good Morning Britain and told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about the 'stalking' and the 'horrendous feeling' of the 'daily abuse'. Donna, who runs fashion label Sylkie along with other brands and has a 'modest' 20,000 followers, said: 'It impacted me on so many different levels. 'Every morning I would wake up and I would think "ok what have they said now in the last 7 hours" when I would turn on my phone. My body would actually just shake.' In an effort to 'overcome' it all, she joined Trinity College to do an MBA but when her fellow professionals in class asked her what her business was called she didn't want to tell them. The site, which attracts 12 million visitors a month, is supposedly aimed at exposing disingenuous influencers, but it quickly became a paradise for trolls to hurl abuse at them 'Everyone is normally proud of their business and able to say it and the first thing I thought when I started an MBA was "they're all going to google me and this thread will come up",' she said. Her husband Neil, an AI founder, explained how they found 'defamatory details' of their businesses 'that were completely untrue'. The couple said the defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices. Neil said the trolls even went down to the 'molecular level' of finding information about their finances on Companies House and posting them on the site. He said: 'It got more menacing overtime and eventually it got into stalking. There was lots of commentary about where we were, who we were in restaurants with, "we are watching you" stuff like that.' But the online stalkers soon turned to in person harassment with trolls telling the couple 'we we can see you in this restaurant, we are looking at you right now'. Obsessive 'Tattlers' even started driving back and fourth past their home and posted details of their house on Tattle Life threads dedicated to abusing them. Donna, revealed how she went from 'someone who has stood on the shop floor since I was 16 years of age meeting people all the time' to being 'completely withdrawn'. The couple said the defamatory comments about their enterprises 'completely misrepresented' everything they do and accused Donna of selling 'poor quality' clothes and 'over-representing' her prices Neil and Donna today appeared on Good Morning Britain and told hosts Susanna Reid and Richard Madeley about the 'stalking' and the 'horrendous feeling' of the 'daily abuse' 'It made me doubt what people were thinking of me,' she said, adding that Bond 'needed to be made accountable' for the impact it had on them and others. The pair explained many other people who were victimised by cruel posts and threads have attempted to take legal action in the past but were unsuccessful. Neil said: 'We didn't do it for us , we never wanted to undertake this work. 'I'm a technologist by trade and I think folks did try. This gentleman would open his inbox and see very many solicitors letters, I'm sure, from different entities that were affected by the site. 'But you need both a legal fortitude to pursue something like this and also a technical understanding of how they are built and thankfully some of my friends who worked in Silicon Valley helped with the unpacking of who was behind the site.' Donna added: 'It's quite amazing because so many people have got to a certain stage in the legal battle and when we undertook it we didn't want to do it but we thought if we could do something, we should. 'My mum said, "Donna, why are the police not stepping in at this stage?".' They are 'just delighted that the judge took it so seriously', with Donna adding: 'It's been a really difficult road and there has been so many twists and turns in the case to get where we are today.' She explained how the 45 pages of abuse which were presented to the High Court 'wasn't that much' in the context of the whole site. 'That it actually probably one of the smallest threads on there. Other people have huge amounts, it reaches people all across the world from Australia to America and even closer to home.' Donna revealed how popular British influencer Mrs Hinch reached out to her on the weekend and told the couple how she had been 'actively targeted' on Tattle Life. She added there may be a lot of 'big personalities' who have been abused on the gossip site but highlighted the 'small business owners' and lesser known micro-influencers who have also fallen victim. 'I have a modest following of 20,000 which was a community I curated for years,' she said, 'We all thought we were anonymous and that you could write whatever you want, but maybe now we can move forward positively and know that that's not the case.' For nearly a decade, since the site was set up in 2017, no one knew who ran Tattle Life, with the site's operator going under the fake name Helen McDougal. Many will be now surprised to learn the creator is in fact a man, who is the author and foodie behind plant-based recipe Instagram page Nest and Glow, which boasts 135,000 followers. For the past eight years, the vegan cookbook author he has secretly presided over the site, which makes an estimated £276,770 in Google Ad revenue every six months, according to figures from 2021. Donna and Neil found a 45-page thread about them and reached out to the site operators in 2021 asking them to take down the commentary 'or face legal action'. The Irish couple who unmasked him as Tattle Life, have shared the names of his alises on their social media - stating that he was masking under the false name as a site moderator, Helen McDougal In 2023, they initiated the process. Neil and Donna got £150,000 each in damages, and the Court granted an injunctive relief to prevent Tattle Life from posting about the couple again. It was also ordered that the Sands' legal costs be paid, with 'further costs and third-party compliance expenses' amounting to £1.8 million. The thread about them was removed in May this year, but thousands and thousands of others remain. Awarding damages to the couple in December 2023, Mr Justice McAlinden hit out at Tattle Life, stating there was 'clearly a case of peddling untruths for profit'. 'It is the exercise of extreme cynicism - the calculated exercise of extreme cynicism,' he continued. 'Which in reality constitutes behaviour solely aimed at making profit out of people's misery. People facilitating this are making money out of it… protecting their income streams by protecting the identity of the individual posters.' Bond also had his assets frozen and must pay a cessation figure of £1,077,173 to have this order lifted. It's likely that deeply popular Tattle Life racked up a decent amount of money for Bond. As reported by The Guardian in 2021, the blog had 43.2 million visits in just six months of that year. The figures are still in the millions this year. In May, as per Similarweb, there were 11.5 million visits on the site, mostly from British users. It is also understood that Sebastian uses different names online - one of them being Bastian Durward - and owns a number of businesses across the world. Two of them, Mr Justice Colton confirmed, include UK-registered Yuzu Zest Limited and Hong Kong-registered Kumquat Tree Limited. According to Companies House information, the former is currently in liquidation but alleged to offer 'media representation services'. At a hearing last Thursday, the court saw a letter from Sebastian's legal team, sent to one of the plaintiffs, claiming he was the Tattle Life founder but was 'unaware of any legal proceedings against him'. The Sands legal representatives disputed that he was unaware.
Extra.ie
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
Neil Sands speaks out after winning Tattle Life court case
The entrepreneur who took an infamous gossip site to court alongside his wife has detailed how they decided they 'had to do something' after discovering the magnitude of the hate-site. Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 (€350,000) in libel damages at the Belfast High Court on Friday following a historic legal battle to unveil the person behind Tattle Life. The site is marketed as a gossip site, with Mr Sands stating that 'it's actually a well-designed forum for hate, harassment, defamation and stalking.' Neil and Donna Sands were awarded £300,000 (€350,000) in libel damages at the Belfast High Court on Friday following a historic legal battle to unveil the person behind Tattle Life. Pic: Donna Sands/ Instagram The couple are business owners, with Donna operating popular clothing brand Syklie and Neil a tech businessman. After the lifting of reporting restrictions on Friday, it was revealed that UK national Sebastian Bond was the man behind the site alongside UK-registered company Yuzu Zest Limited and Kumquat Tree Limited, registered in Hong Kong. Sebastian Bond also goes by the alias Bastian Durwood, with the Daily Mail confirming he is a vegan influencer with 135,000 followers on his Instagram page, nestandglow. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Neil O. Sands (@neilsands_) More than 12 million users take to the site on a monthly basis. The site has thousands of threads on influencers and celebrities. Among those under fire were the Sands, who were subject to defamation and harassing commentary over a 45-page thread, which was since been taken down from the site. The couple were awarded £300,000 (€350,000) on Friday for libel damages after winning their defamation and harassment lawsuit. Among those under fire were the Sands, who were subject to defamation and harassing commentary over a 45-page thread, which was since been taken down from the site. Pic: Donna Sands/ Instagram Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland on Monday, Mr Sands detailed how 'very defamatory' comments were being made about himself and his wife on the forum site. He explained how people who were spoken about on the hate page ranged from influencers and celebrities to business owners. 'We're just a normal couple,' he said, 'Thousands of people have reached out to us in the last 48 hours who have explained their stories, but for us, the online space was always quite a positive community.' Mr Sand's tech background helped him in uncovering Mr Bond alongside a legal team. The couple were then able to take him to court.
