Further to the Mark Hales story we have received this note of thanks from him to all the people who have sent some money to help him out. It is hard to believe that Piper's lawyers are trying to take away his home. I think that that is disgraceful. I am at a loss to see as to why the magazine have not sorted this out as he was driving the car for them. I feel very sorry for him as is a good guy and I hope he can find a resolution to this issue.
Anyway here is the text of the thank you note from Mark.
To everybody who has been kind enough to donate...
My apologies for this round robin email, but the fund and its details has been kept remote from me for obvious reasons. The good people who set it up were obviously keen that Piper and his henchmen couldn't get their hands on it, but that means I haven't seen any of the messages. I wanted to send this much sooner but when a way was finally found to extract all the addresses from Paypal, they arrived as a long list. So here we are.
Thank you all so much for your support, it does mean a lot. It sounds trite to say that there are more deserving causes, because there certainly are, but when something affects you personally to this extent, it's very real indeed. Your help is very welcome, as have been the expressions of support from so many quarters. The fund has already meant that some of the legal bills have been paid.
At the moment, it isn't feasible that Piper can be paid off. The judgement was for £120,000, of which £63,000 (plus VAT) was his legal costs, and I do know that despite the generosity of many people, the fund stands a long way short of that. His lawyers are currently trying to take the family home which is deeply upsetting for my partner Allison but we are doing our very best to protect her interest. I didn't sign up to put our home, future livelihood and my sanity on the line in order to drive a millionaire's car for a magazine feature.
Thank you for any messages of support too and please excuse the fact that I am not able to reply individually. I am bearing up reasonably well and doing my best to get back to work. If I may, and now I have this list, I will keep you all advised of any developments
Thanks again.
Mark