Buying Silence How oligarchs, corporations and plutocrats use the law to gag their critics

“Terrific … It is the most extraordinary thing for an ordinary British citizen to read how it is that English law has become this system of menace around the world … A very timely book.”

Nick Cohen, The Lowdown

“A terrific look at the horrible way in which the rich [and] powerful can use the law against their critics.”

Law and Disorder

“An empowering journey through the labyrinth of SLAPPs, this book is a beacon of enlightenment, offering hope and solutions against legal bullying. A must-read for advocates of free speech.”

Eliot Higgins, journalist and founder of Bellingcat

“I’ve been in the trenches with David on one of his press v. plutocrat cases, and he’s the man you want watching your back. This is a vital book on how the rich use the courts, and the legal profession, to muzzle news organisations when it comes to the disclosure of their nefarious deeds.”

Graydon Carter, founder of Air Mail and former editor of Vanity Fair

“A SLAPPstick analysis of how a rogues’ gallery of crooks, thieves and thugs have perverted the course of British justice – and what should be done to curb such intimidatory lawfare.”

Ben Schott, author, photographer and journalist

“As an outstanding libel lawyer, David Hooper’s masterful investigation is a terrifying exposé of Britain’s corrupt judicial system.”

Tom Bower, writer and author of Maxwell: The Outsider

“Those with power have often been able to manipulate the law to buy their way out of trouble. But they also do the opposite. They buy the law and weaponise it against those who call them out. A new kind of warfare – lawfare – is in operation. Crush your opponent in the courts; pay lawyers so much money their ethics go out the window. A shocking and vitally important book.”

Baroness Helena Kennedy of the Shaws KC

“SLAPPs undercut our most important values: the freedom to speak and the right to know. If they are not effectively stopped, we will continue to be left in the dark about wrongdoing, malign influence and crimes that negatively affect our society and ultimately damage democracy, both here and abroad.”

Susan Coughtrie, director of the Foreign Policy Centre and co-founder of the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition

“Compellingly told, eye-popping, sometimes hilarious and always illuminating, David Hooper’s book is an excellent and forensic takedown of the often-corrupt clients who abuse a broken legal system – abetted by a generation of equally venal lawyers who have misplaced their moral compass – to sue those that would hold them to account into silence. The stories you will read here are more usually found in the pages of thrillers, but these stories are frighteningly and unfortunately true. Buying Silence is an urgent call to arms, exposing why the British tradition of ‘free speech’ is increasingly a myth, and why we should all be bloody furious at just how badly the British legal system serves us.”

Mark Stephens CBE, solicitor

“A detailed and shocking account by an experienced media lawyer of the scandal of SLAPP actions and the need for fundamental reforms of the law and the legal profession.”

David Davis MP