The Unsought Evidence
Anyone who read my publications about the devastating impact that cancellation had on me, and the lack of due process leading up to that cancellation should have recognized that the authors of the Open Letter and the two blogposts participated in an act that was disproportionate and extrajudicial.
I’m grateful that many people removed their signatures from the Open Letter afterwards. But those who remain may have found some comfort in a belief that they were condemning behavior that was heinous and real.
I intend to dismantle that belief by releasing my exculpatory evidence.
I have reached this decision reluctantly after careful consideration, and with particular regard for the likely impact on the two women who made the accusations. But I have tried every alternative route to exoneration and justice, and I have been met with intransigence by the authors of the Open Letter: there is no willingness to listen to me privately.
I will exercise my proportionate right to reply. The argument I will make is not one of subtlety, of nuanced interpretation, or of framing. I will not quote messages out of context and then tell you how to interpet them.
Instead, I will share my view that the allegations materially misstate events, and that they present a misleading narrative. I will show you documentary evidence, in context, so you can judge for yourself. I will show what didn’t happen, as well as what did happen.
The Evidence
My evidence will include emails I exchanged with the two accusers and third parties, 20,377 direct messages over eight months with the first accuser (whom I shall call Y) and 132,464 messages over four years with the second accuser (hereafter, V). It will include precise records of my whereabouts and whom I stayed with on every night from 2014 to 2019, derived from my phone-tracking data, travel and accommodation records. This evidence was prepared in anticipation of my legal action in 2022, and I was prepared to present it in court.
Starting today, and over the next few weeks, I will address the most flagrant falsehoods that were promoted across the three publications on 27 April 2021. At the time of writing, all three publications remain online, four years later and at least seven years after most of the events they misrepresent. And they continue to cause me harm.
Throughout, I will avoid naming the two accusers. This will not hide their identities from those who know them, but I am deliberately making it inconvenient for uninvested bystanders to target them with online hatred. I am aware that my posts carry that risk, and I wish to minimize it. I encourage others to do the same.
While both women are ultimately responsible for the words they put their names to, I speculate that that they would never have published anything without the facilitation and encouragement of the authors of the Open Letter, though I cannot speak for each author’s motives. I believe that Y and V were let down by those who endorsed the Open Letter alongside their publications as a “solution” to the problems they claimed.
For this reason, Y and V should be given every opportunity to move past this matter and get on with their lives. I would like the 23 authors to offer them better support and care now than they did in 2021. That support should be unconditional, for the simple fact that they are human beings, and deserve kindness and forgiveness.
Artificial Intelligence
I have used ChatGPT 5 extensively to evaluate my evidence. This has three significant benefits:
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analysis is unbiased, objective and does not need to omit or limit context
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it can analyze a larger corpus of text much faster than a human, and
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it preserves the privacy of the participants.
All factual claims have been checked against the primary sources that I cite.
The truth is on my side. My extensive documentary evidence of my relationships with Y and V is hugely advantageous for the discovery of objective truth. And artificial intelligence can find and reveal that truth.
I have tried to ensure that my prompts did not coerce ChatGPT into giving biased responses, and I always show my prompt so you can make your own judgement.
The Allegations
1. Allegation: I initiated the relationship with Y at a conference
I approached Y at a conference only because Dr Heather Miller asked me to encourage her within the Scala community; for no ulterior reason. We developed a genuine and mutual friendship based on common interests, which became romantic only later, over the course of eight weeks, almost exclusively through online interactions. I felt that the words and photos Y sent me became increasingly romantic. When we met in Berlin, I was not in any doubt that Y wanted an intimate relationship, and she reciprocated when I kissed her.
Significance
Professional conferences are not intended to be a venue for romance, and women should expect to attend Scala conferences without being approached by a prospective partner. For a man to do so would compromise this expectation, and the trust of the conference organizers.
2. Allegation: I stopped Y inviting someone else to join us in our AirBnb
This refers to a specific conversation on 13 May 2018, but omits important context that materially changes its interpretation. It fails to mention two important details: the AirBnb we booked had only two beds (in separate rooms); and our conversation took place one day before we were due to arrive at the AirBnb.
Y proposed a specific mutual friend to join us, but neither of us had spoken to him about it. I rejected the suggestion because it was very unlikely that he, or anyone else, would have no accommodation booked two days before a conference. But more importantly, if we did find someone, they would have nowhere to sleep. The conversation was flirty, not tense, and continued in the same manner after this conversation.
Significance
This alleges that I made a deliberate intervention to maintain a situation where Y and I would be sharing an apartment alone together. It suggests that I did so against her will, and exploited power in doing so.
3. Allegation: My relationships with V and Y followed a pattern of behavior
The two relationships were very different from each other. I dated V for 20 months, in contrast to the relationship with Y which was very brief. Their ages were not the same: Y was over a decade younger than me, whereas V was around three years younger.
V claims that she met me at a conference; a similarity with Y. I met her at the Scala eXchange conference on 1 December 2013, but she was not a conference attendee or a Scala developer. We did not see each other again until 16 October 2014, and not at a conference. We gradually developed a friendship over the following year, which included two group vacations. Our relationship remained platonic until November 2015. This was 23 months after we first met, and long enough to make our first meeting at a Scala-related event irrelevant.
Significance
A “pattern of behavior” indicates broadly similar, repeated and practised actions to meet and begin relationships with women, and implies a degree of exploitation. If the relationships had been similar, it would be an indication of a “pattern”.
4. Allegation: I gaslighted Y after our relationship ended
There is no record of gaslighting in any of my communication with Y. LLM analysis found four instances of potential dismissive contradiction or minimization. In my opinion, these four instances do not show substantive evidence of this. All four conversations have been faithfully reproduced so that readers can form their own independent interpretations. I have shared a further conversation with Y, in which I give her advice that appears inconsistent with her allegation that I gaslighted her.
Significance
Y’s continued friendship with me for six months after our relationship ended is inconsistent with her description of the relationship. The claim she was gaslighted provides her with a way to explain the continued friendship.
5. Allegation: I bragged about close interactions with “at least ten women in the Scala community”, specifically “coffee, dates, kisses, and sex”
The claim that I had “close interactions” with at least ten women in the Scala community is not true. The claim that I bragged about doing so is also untrue. I did not do it, talk about it, boast about it, or imply it in any other way.
However I recall telling Y that in my entire life I had probably been on romantic dates with “about ten women”. This was response to her asking a specific question about how many. There was no suggestion that those women were in the Scala community. There was no room for Y to have misunderstood what I said because I clarified this point to her. Nothing about the way I said it suggested “bragging”.
Significance
This alleges a “pattern of behavior” that had been repeated successfully several times in the past, within the Scala community. It also suggests casual promiscuity, potential objectification of the women in those relationships, and pride in such behavior.
6. Allegation: I arranged accommodation for women to make it easier for them to attend Scala conferences
The words appear to suggest that this happened several times; that when it happened I stayed in the accommodation with the women in question; that when we shared accommodation, nobody else stayed with us. Readers could also infer that I paid for the accommodation. None of this is correct.
Besides the time Y references in her statement, I shared AirBnb accommodation alone with another female Scala developer on just one occasion in 99 conferences I attended between 2008 and 2020. I never paid for any woman’s accommodation, except where she was a speaker or partner of a speaker at my own conference.
Significance
To offer accommodation—implied to be free—to women at conferences suggests an attempt to place the woman in a debt of gratitude, which they might feel obliged to pay back.
7. Allegation: I “harassed” V after our relationship ended
I communicated little with V after the abrupt end to our twenty-month relationship on 6 September 2017. I gave her space to get on with her life. Over 18 months after our relationship ended, I sent her a total of three emails, direct messages on three different dates, and either one or two likes on her public posts on Twitter. I do not agree with her characterization of these messages. She told me not to contact her for the second time on 27 February 2019, and I have not made contact with her since then.
Significance
To harrass an ex-girlfriend with unwanted contact after a relationship ends suggests resentment, and an intent to cause her distress. It is implied that such behavior is in my nature, which would add credibility to the allegation I also caused Y distress after my relationship with her ended.
8. Allegation: Y “knows” other women were “targeted” by me and has met some of them.
I did not, at any point, “target” any woman in the Scala community. I spoke to several women at conferences, and many are my friends. I know of three women who met Y at a conference while I was present. None of them recognize having been “targeted”. Two of them recall Y directing “anger” towards them.
In 2024, Daniel Spiewak told me that he had retrospectively reported something he interpreted as an “incident” involving me and another woman in 2017. This may have been classified as an instance of “targeting”. He did not check any details with me or the woman in question. She and I did nothing but speak, in public, and neither she nor I have any idea what was wrong with our conversation.
Significance
This adds credibility to the allegation of a “pattern of behavior” by suggesting the other women existed who were not just speculative, but were known and verified. It added urgency by implying the alleged “pattern of behavior” was ongoing.
9. Allegation: I had sex with Y while she was intoxicated and did not want to
Y did not appear intoxicated on the evening in question, or any other evening we spent together. She had poured herself a cup of sparkling wine before I arrived in Berlin, which was unfinished when I arrived. I did not see her drink any. She told me she did not like the wine, and did not want it. On this basis, I am confident that she had barely drunk any alcohol and was sober. The idea to drink alcohol at all was proposed by Y. I also had a cup of wine which I did not finish.
The allegation that we had sex when Y did not want to refers to a particular identifiable occasion. On that occasion, I stopped prematurely, and Y told me only afterwards that she had not wanted to continue.
Significance
These are the most serious allegations. The suggestion that I encouraged her to drink suggests an intention to reduce her resistance to a sexual advance. If she had not consented to sex, that would constitute rape.
10. Allegation: I never showed any remorse, sympathy or guilt to Y
I showed remorse and sympathy to Y, but she may not have been perceptive to it. We met and talked in depth on three occasions following our relationship. I felt responsible for my part in starting the relationship, and responsible for the hurt she felt when I ended it, and I apologized for this. Y did not accept my apology.
Significance
An apology would have demonstrated regret and contrition, and would signal a desire not to repeat the alleged conduct; conversely, its absence would show the opposite.
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