PRESS RELEASE
Paul Waugh Holding Daily Mail Accountable After Libellous Articles on Lighthouse International Group
In response to two Daily Mail articles, Lighthouse International Group Chairman, Paul Waugh, has publicly held the Daily Mail and its reporter Tom Kelly accountable for publishing false accusations in a Live series on YouTube called The Waugh Rooms – a platform bringing leading thinkers together to discuss controversial, hard-hitting topics and freedom of speech. See Lighthouse International’s response here.
Mr Waugh is bringing together senior figures and anyone who has been damaged by the Mail to hold the paper formally and publicly accountable for their actions. His latest video series will be “The Abuse of Freedom of Speech” where he is inviting senior leaders to discuss their experiences.
This comes after The Mail On Sunday’s misogynistic article towards Labour MP Angela Rayner, insinuating that she was using ‘Basic Instinct’ tactics to distract Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Mr Waugh announced that Lighthouse will be holding The Daily Mail accountable for making money from publishing ‘libellous’ articles based on ‘hearsay’, saying:
“It’s [The Mail] trying to kill people, it’s trying to sensationalise everything. These people are desperate. You are abusing freedom, in the name of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, you are abusing freedom, you have destroyed many people and you have made many people commit suicide and it’s got to stop, end of.”
The Daily Mail has been banned from Wikipedia as an “unreliable” source since 2017 and has consistently received the most complaints to the Independent Press Standards Organisation and Mr Waugh says “they are giving the freedom of the press a bad name”.
Despite a 17,000-word response provided to Mr Kelly at Daily Mail with evidence of baseless allegations and manipulations of the truth, Lighthouse International Group, its partners and Mr Waugh have been painted as ‘abusive’ and ‘manipulative’. The Daily Mail did not print any evidence of the harmful, derogatory and racial slurs made by its sources and their families against Lighthouse International Group. Mr Waugh said:
“The most important work we do at Lighthouse is we create support communities here for people to come together to get out of their toxic families and these toxic families are now attacking us. This is what is happening behind the scenes. Along the way, these toxic families have gone online and met other people, like a handful of ex-partners and clients, who have had a financial dispute with us.” He went on to say, “The reality is, the ones that will really get damaged in the long run will be the sources who have made up this story and the Mail have gone, “we’re not taking any responsibility”. The Daily Mail has hung them out to dry.”
Paul Waugh is inviting the media for interview to discover his next steps on the above and the truth behind these stories.
Lighthouse International has responded in full to the second Daily Mail article printed on 9th May on Paul Waugh here addressing all the accusations.
Notes for Editors
The Daily Mail articles on Mr Waugh contained accusations that were instigated by an online smear campaign lasting more than a year against him and Lighthouse International Group. So far 7 co-conspirators of the campaign have been reported to the police. Mr Waugh addressed the false allegations by ex-Lighthouse partners and their families of ‘swindling’ and ‘abusing’ them.
The Saturday Star in South Africa featured a more balanced story with comments from Mr Waugh.
Background information
Lighthouse International Group was founded in 2004 and is a personal development organisation specialising in mentoring, coaching, counselling and leadership training. Lighthouse specialises in building support communities for people to grow and develop and achieve their goals in life, often coming from difficult upbringings.
Lighthouse International Group is the founding organisation of anti-trolling campaigns; Parents Against Trolls. This is a personal video introduction by Paul Waugh on the desperate need to protect children and adults from trolling.
Additional media commitments
Paul Waugh is available for interview and comment on any subjects related to personal growth, abuse, bullying, toxic employees, trolling and much more.
Additional Fact and figures
- Lighthouse International Group has had contact with over 70,000 people over nearly 18 years.
- Those trolling Lighthouse International Group online are less than 0.01% of all the people it has had contact with.
Contact number and email address
Jai Singh: 0208 638 5508
Financial distribution of this release
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