BrewDog’s cofounder James Watt has won a Court of Sessions action against his ex-lover Emili Ziem after a judge determined she conned him out of £100,000. She was additionally ordered to pay £500,000 in damages.
Ziem defrauded Watt after she promised to help identify the "trolls" behind the online ' bullying ' aimed at him. However, Watt later discovered that Ziem was secretly involved in the bullying campaign.
Watt was previously accused on social media of harassing women and other criminality. In January, BBC Scotland broadcasted a documentary called 'The Truth About BrewDog' in which it was claimed Mr Watt, 40, had behaved inappropriately with female employees - allegations he denies.
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Watt claims he was the subject of “relentless campaign of abuse” and he said the trolling saw him "harassed, defrauded and defamed", and took a "significant" impact on him and his family.
On Monday, Watts posted an explanation on his LinkedIn account. In the post, he said he felt like he had "no choice" but to take up Ziem's offer to "help identify the people responsible." She asked for payment to do so, and he paid her in Bitcoin.
"I was desperate to stop this horrific abuse, so I paid up," he explained.
"What we now know, and the court has found, is that she was actually one of the perpetrators and was operating an extremely active troll account against me as part of a dedicated network looking to ‘take James down’ (her words).”
"She gave me knowingly false information with the sole intention of deceiving me into agreeing to pay her."
Watt continued:
"She was, in fact, a key part of a network involved in a campaign to do as much damage to me and my business as possible, spreading false and defamatory information with the objective of destroying me personally and damaging our business."
Watt said he and Ziem were “briefly in a relationship,” but later discovered that Ziem was part of what he described as a two-year 'Take James Down' campaign spreading "appalling lies".
She sent messages from a fake Instagram account under the name Laura Keller and Watt eventually hired a private investigator to prove she was behind the page.
BrewDog is a global drinks company, based in Ellon, Scotland. The company recently opened its latest branch in Waterloo, London ahead of another in Las Vegas, USA, due to open later this year.
Martin Dickie and Watt launched BrewDog from Scotland in 2007, and there are currently four BrewDog branches in Edinburgh.
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