Last week Cambridge University announced a two-part investigation of Jason Arday's death. As I pointed out here, a group called the Good Law Project seems to be driving a lot of this. They not only demanded an investigation, they've also demanded the resignation of the Vice-Chancellor who they believed turned her back on Arday before his death. You can find samples of some of their demands related to the Arday case at the link above.
About three weeks ago, a retired barrister (a trial lawyer) in London named Barbara Rich noticed that the Good Law Project seemed to be fundraising off the Arday case. The person behind the Good Law Project, whose name is Jolyon Maugham, was asked about this during an interview with the BBC and he became outraged and denied it.
Anyway, here’s the relevant part of the interview. Anyone can read this thread, listen to this clip, and then judge for themselves pic.twitter.com/m2B5Pvayq0
— Barbara Rich (@BarbaraRich_law) August 17, 2026
Someone informed Rich that she'd been attacked on air and she went to have a look. Here was her response.
I’ve listened now. What an unseemly and petulant outburst from him. Anyone can read my public timeline. Nothing I have posted to it is untrue. The GLP is not running a specific crowdfunder associated with its petition, but its site makes a clear general solicitation for donations
— Barbara Rich (@BarbaraRich_law) August 17, 2026
She then provided the receipts, showing that GLP has indeed had "Donate" buttons all over the pages for their posts about Arday.
And the primary stated purpose of data collection as set out in their privacy notice is for solicitation of donations for their work pic.twitter.com/glOvCURipu
— Barbara Rich (@BarbaraRich_law) August 17, 2026
However, someone at GLP must have decided the donate links were a problem because they suddenly disappeared about the time the interview above took place.
Right, someone else has also posted to me about this, with an archived version. This looks like a pretty shabby attempt to change the appearance of facts to fit the earlier broadcast expostulation. So much for those vaunted values of the Good Law Project pic.twitter.com/4vWXUqKtoB
— Barbara Rich (@BarbaraRich_law) August 17, 2026
A garbled paraphrase of this post was put to Jolyon Maugham in a BBC News Channel interview today. He rejected it as “lies”. It is not. The “donate” button on the GLP’s petition page, which was present until at least 3.30pm today has since been removed. See my timed screenshots https://t.co/qbfx4ePwW7 pic.twitter.com/okFvhmhbJy
— Barbara Rich (@BarbaraRich_law) August 17, 2026
All of this got enough attention that the Telegraph did a story about it, including Maugham's eventual walk back.
She and Maugham have sparred on X, formerly Twitter, since 2019. Last week, however, the hostilities were stepped up a notch by Maugham, who called Rich a “troll” in “polite white grandmother clothes”, an insult she said “appears to be a trifecta of ageism, sexism and racism”...
On X, Rich had criticised the project’s Arday petition as “high outrage, low effort activism, in both cases enabling the [Good Law Project] to add names and contact details to its database to promote its activities and solicit public donations for them”. Asked by the BBC about Rich’s post, Maugham shot back: “I think it is disgraceful for the BBC to take lies from social media about our fundraising off the back of Jason Arday.” He added, in no uncertain terms, that the Good Law Project had not fundraised in connection with Arday’s death.
This was not quite true. The Arday petition did in fact feature a prominent button soliciting general donations for the Good Law Project, which was quietly deleted following the interview. The BBC issued a correction, and Maugham later published a lengthy statement that included the acknowledgement that “Barbara Rich, a retired barrister with a long history of hostility towards Good Law Project, is right about this narrow point”.
Here's the BBC correction which notes that Maugham lied.
In an interview with Jolyon Maugham from the Good Law Project about their online petition calling for a public inquiry into the media coverage of the Jason Arday story we mentioned an X thread started by former Chancery barrister Barbara Rich which suggested the organisation was fundraising alongside the issue. This was described as “social media lies” by the guest but Ms Rich has pointed out to us that there was a donate button on the petition page at that point which was removed later that day.
And here's the Good Law Project response to the BBC.
I’m afraid the truth is complicated. Although we got the important things right, we also got some things wrong...
However, we did not rebuild our site to remove all general donate asks, or rebuild our pro forma email to remove general donate asks. So people who went to our site and saw the petition page were still being asked (e.g.): “Good Law Project only exists thanks to donations from people across the UK. When we work together we can win together” and shown a donate button.
He then goes on at length about how none of the emails sent out about Arday included a request for money because he asked those be removed.
We have never asked anyone to “support this case” financially or any words to that effect. I can’t recall another occasion in which I have directed Good Law Project to take this action – public fundraising is the lifeblood of the organisation – but I did here.
So his argument is that he wasn't specifically fundraising off this case but there were still Donate buttons everywhere you looked and he was still collecting contact info that could be used for solicitations later on. The bottom line is that his statements during the interview weren't completely accurate.
I have apologised to the journalist (above) for misleading them. And it is right that I acknowledge that Barbara Rich, a retired barrister with a long history of hostility towards Good Law Project, is right about this narrow point.
Barbara Rich noted there was no apology to her.
The great helmsman of the Good Law Project, Jolyon Maugham KC, has published a long statement on its website. He notably moderates his language about me from a few days ago and acknowledges that I was right, though cannot bring himself to apologise to mehttps://t.co/jEhCTJPieA pic.twitter.com/hryjbqqAaT
— Barbara Rich (@BarbaraRich_law) August 27, 2026
In any case, now that he's been forced to apologize, Maugham seems to be over his concern about asking for money in connection with Arday. His Good Law Project just sent out this email including a specific solicitation.
When the BBC suggested that The @GoodLawProject was leveraging the Jason Arday tragedy to raise money, GLP director Jolyon Maugham became apoplectic, vociferously denying it.
— Benjamin Ryan (@benryanwriter) September 8, 2026
Multiple Arday-related GLP emails sent since then, including one sent just now, have asked for money. https://t.co/jPgMHBx2MG pic.twitter.com/Jh2bkNp5u6
So the thing he was outraged at being accused of doing (fundraising off the Arday case) is something he's now openly doing.
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