9 Oct 2013

Hunny bunny funny business at the high court

You could not make it up. So I won’t. All that follows is from the pen of The Honourable Mr Justice Males.

Indeed a name to rejoice under in this particular tale of a Surrey harem, the flat, the Range Rover, the Hunny Bunnies, and… our old friend Paul Baxendale-Walker: one-time barrister, pornograher, owner of Loaded and erstwhile tax-adviser to the financial corporate car-crash AKA Rangers FC.

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Here goes.

Mr Justice Males handed down his judgment in the high court on 3 October, and it is not often the arcane judgments of High Court law and the ribald world of pub stand-up comedy come together.

They do here.

Appropriately enough for Mr Baxendale-Walker who brought the shared shady world of tax law and pornography into one lurid Venn diagram. You gotta love him. Possibly.

Giving judgement the Honourable Mr Males sets the background, and from the off you sense he’s enjoying himself. It’s one long rom-com – minus the rom:

“Paul Baxendale-Walker… was formerly a barrister and then a solicitor specialising in tax law. Some people might have found that exciting enough, but since 2005, when he acquired and ran a company making pornographic films in which he also starred, he has been active in the sex industry.”

So where’s the rub, so to speak?

Judge Males continues: “His lifestyle involves essentially casual relationships with multiple sexual partners, a group or club of women known as his “hunny bunnies” to whom, in return for their sexual favours, he makes lavish gifts, including money, clothes and holidays, as well as providing flats and cars for their use.”

Which was fine and dandy until one hunny bunny, aka 25-year-old Natasha Eustace got fed up with the deal, claiming ownership of a flat and a Range Rover come to that.

Oh no, says Paul Baxendale-Walker – the flat and vehicle are not hers at all. He wants all this stopped and stopped right now in the high court, by the Honourable Mr Males.

The judge cites Mr Baxendale-Walker’s evidence: “She was never anything more than a TV stripper…  She is only one of more than a dozen girls for whom I procure the provision (of) housing, cars and other benefits. The provision is always conditional upon my satisfaction with the relationship. As soon as I am no longer satisfied the use of benefits are (sic) withdrawn.”

The judge then turns to the fact that Miss Eustace viewed things somewhat differently: “She claims they had a loving and close relationship… which would eventually lead to marriage… That might seem an implausible claim to avid readers of Loaded magazine, but emails produced in evidence suggest that there was or at least may have been something more to the relationship than the less than gallant evidence quoted above.”

His judgment continued: “For example, in an e-mail dated 29 April 2012 Mr Baxendale-Walker assured Miss Eustace (among many other things) that:

I do care about you.

More than anyone on this f*****G planet.” (Our asterisks).

Unable to resist perhaps, The Honourable Mr Justice Males goes on:

“He said that without her (at that time their on-off relationship was going through one of its off periods) he felt ‘like my right arm’s been torn off’.”

The judge concludes: “While these e-mails would not necessarily win any literary prizes… they do have a genuine ring… ”

Despite Mr Baxendale-Walker’s assertion “… in somewhat less measured terms, that her case is a “try on” and that: “… this 25 year old unemployed sex-worker, former model and former temporary member of my girlfriends club, decided to make up a silly story in a desperate attempt to obtain a property and house that she cannot legally be entitled to, and complains because the legal owners have asserted their rights in litigation.”

Well, it seems that Miss Eustace though has won the day thus far over her pornographer-boss-sugardaddy-marriage prospect.

The judge has ruled that the case merits cross-examinatoin in a full and open court hearing and the application by Mr Baxendale-Walker to have things dealt with in summary judgement is thus dismissed.

So it is that the High Court is likely to hear a good deal more of the emails and the inside workings of the hunny-bunny club.

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