This 27 January 2016 email records Michael Leidig updating a media contact about the latest position in his dispute with BuzzFeed, saying that he had instructed his legal team to remove Heidi Blake’s name as a defendant in the libel action. The document is significant because the decision was made at a time when Leidig had been given assurances that Blake had not been substantially involved in the BuzzFeed/CEN article, and that she was relatively new to the organisation and had largely gone along with decisions made by others. On that basis, Leidig treated her differently from BuzzFeed as publisher and from those believed to have carried greater responsibility for the allegations. In the wider evidence chain, the email is useful because it records Leidig’s good-faith reliance on that understanding at the time, while later disclosure material would become important in reassessing Blake’s actual role and showing that her involvement in the BuzzFeed investigation was more active than those earlier assurances suggested. It therefore helps mark a chronology point: Blake was removed from the claim not because her background role was fully known, but because Leidig had been led to believe she had only limited responsibility.