The Events of Last April - in the words of Tom Jones

On April 16th, the Save Bristol Zoo Gardens campaign relaunched with a petition calling for the current BZS leadership to stand down and for the developer, Acorn Property Group, to withdraw their bid for luxury housing. A public event at Bristol Beacon was organised for April 29th to present our alternative vision, featuring international experts and former zoo staff.

The contract was signed, the fee paid, and 35,000 flyers delivered. Then, on April 22nd, the Beacon abruptly cancelled my booking.

What the Emails Revealed

I suspected interference from the zoo, which the Beacon initially denied. However, a Subject Access Request (SAR) later revealed the truth:

The Pressure: Hours before my cancellation, Bristol Zoo CEO Justin Morris emailed the Beacon’s CEO, Simon Wales, claiming most of my statements were "false" and mentioning that BZS and Acorn were "taking legal advice." In the same email, Justin Morris took the opportunity to report to Simon Wales that a former zoo employee who now works for the Beacon, a supporter of the SBZG campaign and a friend of mine, “has been messaging former members of staff encouraging them to attend. I have attached the information that he has been sharing.” How Justin Morris even got hold of those private text messages is one question. The second is; why was Justin Morris - Bristol Zoo's CEO and my friend's old boss - attaching my friend's private text messages to an email to his new boss? (Click here to see a photo of Bristol Zoological Society CEO Justin Morris, and Bristol Beacon CEO Simon Wales at an event together shortly after the cancellation of the zoo meeting).

The Cover-up: Mr. Wales updated Justin Morris to reassure him his involvement would be kept quiet, saying that the Beacon had: “told Tom that it's because we are now aware of the public petition and we can't support this or be associated with it. Tom has of course asked if we've been contacted by anyone at the zoo and we've said we're aware of the petition, nothing more.” In the days and weeks that followed, the Beacon continued to try to cover up what had really happened and refused to refund me my publicity costs. Only when I threatened an SAR did they agree to pay but this too was initially conditional on signing an NDA.

Unfortunately for Bristol Zoological Society and Bristol Beacon, these emails were not properly redacted, consequently revealing the full extent of the interference from Justin Morris and the attempted cover-up from Bristol Beacon.

Additional Attempts to Suppress: Our international zoo expert speaker who was scheduled to speak at the Beacon public meeting and also at another private meeting for zoo shareholders, was contacted by two very senior individuals from Bristol Zoological Society to suggest that he should not attend either meeting. Although he respectfully declined to take their advice, this put him in an uncomfortable position on both occasions.

Legal Intimidation

The day after the Beacon meeting was officially cancelled, I received a legal letter from BZS lawyers which reserved their rights in respect of defamation if I continued to make “inaccurate and misleading” comments about the charity. A veteran lawyer described the letter to me as "bullying," designed to force compliance through the threat of financial ruin. This is known as ‘SLAPP’ - Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, which according to Wikipedia are: "Lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence until they abandon their criticism or opposition. In a typical SLAPP, the plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs, or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate."

The legal letter sent by Bristol Zoological Society's lawyers, using SLAPP tactics (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) designed to silence speech, using defamation law as a tool.

The following day, BZS even asked to share my details with the developer, Acorn, presumably for further legal threats. I declined.

Since April, it would appear that Bristol Zoological Society’s leadership has been pulling out all the stops to try and silence me and stop me exercising my democratic right to campaign against them and say things publicly about them which they don’t like. 
 
Until last April, I had believed - perhaps naively - that today in the UK, we live in a society where free speech was not just allowed but celebrated. 
 
I am an individual, my only asset is my family home. By reserving their rights in respect of defamation—which if it were to go further could cost hundreds of thousands in legal fees, even if I won a case brought against me - BZS is holding a metaphorical "legal gun" to my head. The Society is not just fighting a campaign; it is indirectly threatening my children’s future.

I am continuing to campaign on this issue by myself, but on behalf of the many thousands of people who support this campaign who miss the zoo’s presence in Bristol and would love a reimagined Bristol Zoo to return. 

Everything about the cancellation of the zoo meeting is a very serious matter and bad for Bristol. Until April, I believed Bristol Beacon was a place that championed free speech, diversity, inclusion and welcomed people from all of Bristol, many of whom no doubt hold opposing views. 

However, Bristol Beacon - an institution which until recently I held in high regard - tried to leverage my request to be repaid several thousand pounds of publicity and marketing costs for the cancelled meeting, in order to persuade me to drop my Subject Access Request, the findings of which, the Beacon's senior leadership knew would be deeply embarrassing for them.

I don’t know about any of my fellow Bristolians, but the fact that our flagship concert venue and music charity behaved in this way is, to me, incredibly disappointing and deeply shocking.

My Subject Access Request revealed that there was been a clear attempt to suppress legitimate debate and free speech about the future of our city between people at the top of two significant Bristol institutions.

The bigger question all of this raises for me is; what else is going on in our city that people in positions of power don’t want us - the people - to know about?

Click here to read Bristol Live's full coverage of the story.