Peter Jukes and the Dan Wootton sleaze misdirection play

Peter Jukes is not deriving as much pleasure from the Dan Wootton exposé as you'd think. The story is a smokescreen to hide from his own indiscretions, some of which the Metropolitan Police interviewed him about last month. He’s desperate to hide them. Jukes’ world is spinning and he’s now out of control. Lashing out at his many targets.

As Jukes faces up to the backlash from overreaching stories about Wootton, he’s already playing the victim with fantastical tales of blood smeared on his car windscreen. In private he’s telling friends that the security services are out to get him.

For those of us that know Peter Jukes well, this is par for the course. Deluded Jukes once claimed he was burgled and followed around by a private company linked to News UK. He then posted a series of sympathy tweets from sock-puppets which a Sun journalist pointed out Jukes had set up himself.

The Wootton story is designed to distract from, among others, the Jay Beecher story, which is far more interesting than any story about Wootton’s alleged bisexual (but legal) filmmaking kinks, ordering private films while using the alias Martin Branning.

Beecher tweeted in June 2021 that he had been approached by a man who, when he was just a child, had been molested by Jukes (in his 20's at the time) at a theatre company which Jukes attended. The story seemed credible. The dates and location tallied. However, Jukes immediately denied the story.

Jukes threatened Beecher with a defamation action and set up a crowdfunding appeal to raise £100,000.00 to instruct and pay for Bindman’s solicitors to represent him in the action: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/peter-jukes/

Jukes then took thousands of pounds off various individuals who had retweeted Beecher’s ‘slander’ and forced them to issue apologies on Twitter for their retweets. One of those individuals happened to be a man he hates, the journalist James Melville.

Why is this at all relevant?

Because the defamation action never happened.

You’d think Jukes would want to clear his name from ‘life-changing’ paedo smears and that legal action would be a slam dunk if Beecher’s claims were untrue?

Were Beecher’s claims true?

 Beecher never issued any apology and sticks by his claims to this day.

If the paedo claims were true, was James Melville therefore extorted by Jukes?

In March, Beecher revealed that he had not received a single letter from Bindman’s or any other solicitor hired by Jukes and that, ‘Jukes was scamming people. He owed his lawyers over £50,000.00 for a previous failed libel lawsuit, and so put out his fundraiser to sue me (the fundraiser ironically contained false claims and libel), collected the cash, and then went silent on it all’ https://twitter.com/Jay_Beecher/status/1499632591711920128

 Now it turns out that there are some teenage girls who have come forward who say that they too were molested by 63-year-old Jukes. One at an art event in London and another at the Byline Festival which Jukes describes himself as the organiser of.

Married Jukes, like Wootton, is bisexual.

Other (girls) reveal Jukes to be a sleaze promising them the world, but their reports draw attention to Jukes’ duplicity and abuse of position rather than any criminal behaviour.

The Phillip Schofield and Huw Edwards revelations have initiated a media clean-out. All and sundry associated with the business are now confident enough to expose perpetrators. Perhaps Media is finally cleaning its house like Hollywood did with the #MeToo movement.

Is Peter Jukes as much of a sleaze as Wootton? Or worse? And what happened to all that crowdfunding money?

The £56,820.00 that went to Jukes and therefore presumably made its way to Bindman’s solicitors went unused as no legal action went ahead, so according to Crowd Justice rules should have been donated to charitable causes or, more likely in this case, refunded to donors. Here are the Crowd Justice ‘Unused Funds Policy’ rules: https://support.crowdjustice.com/en/articles/3074226-what-happens-if-we-recover-costs-or-have-leftover-funds

Crowd Justice’s Chris Johnston confirmed last week that Peter Jukes and not Bindman’s was the arranger and beneficiary of the Beecher Crowd Justice appeal but stated that it was Crowd Justice policy to ‘confirm directly with a lawyer that they are willing to accept funds from us and that they are instructed.’ Whether Crowd Justice got such confirmation from Bindman’s is unclear and it is possible that Jukes pocketed monies raised because of his friendly relationship with Bindman's (see below).

Peter Jukes also crowdfunded £18,000.00 on the Crowd Justice platform to defend Byline against the Daily Mail when the latter had not and did not issue proceedings.

Again, Crowd Justice have now confirmed these funds have not been refunded or given to charity.

So, what happened to the £18,000.00?

What makes Peter Jukes’ crowdfunding so suspicious is the nature of his relationship with Bindman’s. Invariably Tamsin Allen is the solicitor who deals with Jukes’ claims. Tamsin Allen is a partner at Bindman’s and Head of their Media and Information Law team: https://www.bindmans.com/our-people/tamsin-allen/ And what Jukes fails to disclose in any of his crowdfunding is his personal relationship with Allen.

Jukes crowdfunds and lets his friend Allen handle the donations.

Yes, you heard that right.

These donations, when unused, should be refunded or given to charity but that has not happened in either the Beecher or the Daily Mail case.

During the News International phone hacking scandal trial of Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and others, Jukes used the crowdfunding tool Indiegogo to raise donations to allow him to livetweet the trial from start to finish. Byline Times is described as a ‘crowdfunding site’ by Jukes on the Crowd Justice Beecher appeal page. Crowdfunding is what has been supporting Peter Jukes’ lifestyle on and off for the last decade. It’s a shame Peter Jukes hasn’t been open and honest to donors about where the money raised has gone. Has he pocketed tens of thousands of pounds and got away with it?

Remember, funds raised on Crowd Justice are monies raised for specific legal actions. You cannot move funds from one specific action onto another specific legal action. Donors in the Beecher and Daily Mail cases should have been refunded immediately or warned that their monies were going to be donated to a specific charity.

So, what happens next?

With Dan Wootton ready to launch legal proceedings against Jukes and Byline, donors should keep an eye on who Jukes appoints as defence solicitors. If Bindman's or Tamsin Allen’s name crops up then beware.

A dossier on Peter Jukes has been handed to the Metropolitan Police. Contact new.scotland.yard@met.police.uk with any further information about Jukes that may be useful to their investigations into him, the Byline Festival and Byline Media Holdings.

Peter Jukes and Byline Media were contacted before publishing and denied any wrongdoing. They had no answer as to where the missing £80,000.00 had gone.

K.D.