On February 23, 2007, I awoke at 11am having slept 2 hours. I'd worked all night to deploy two extra new servers.  What transpired next would transform my life into a stress-inducing, gut-wrenching nightmare that would last many years and nearly destroy my spirit. 

None of the passwords to the servers worked. My first thought was that we had been hacked.  I phoned Jules. There was no answer.  I tried to log into the main WebHost account. The passwords didn't work.  What was going on? 

 I tried Jules's number again. No answer.

A sick feeling began to well in my gut. But I pushed the thought away. I tried phoning again and again. A self-professed phone-a-holic Standen rarely missed a call. Panic coursed through my body. Sirens went off in my head.  I ordered myself to calm down.  But my body refused.

Then something happened which caused me to freeze in fear.  Our signed May 11, 2005 agreement which assured my ongoing 1/3 share and retirement pension was not in the box where I kept it. 

I did not want to believe my eyes. But Julian was the only person who knew where it was kept.  For over 15 years he had been like a brother to me. He even had a key to my flat. Often I left him alone while I popped out for food. 

After an agonizing amount of time, an email popped up in my inbox. It was from Jules. He stated that from now on he would only "communicate by email".

That was the moment the penny dropped.  I could no longer avoid the awful truth. My dearest, closest friend Julian Standen had seized the business. 

The pent-up disbelief fear and confusion exploded inside me.  I fell into a pitiful stream of sobbing. The anguish arose deeper in my heart. Panic gripped me. What could I do? I needed to do something but I didn't know what.  My eyes darted desperately around for something to do that would stop what I could see happen before me.  But there was nothing I could do...

Think! Think! Think!

Clearly, Jules had hired a new sysadmin who was now running the server. Who was this person?  Who had taken over my machines? As the person who knew the system I designed better than anyone, I remembered there was a back door into the server through my non-root account. I logged in and put a notice on the Gearslutz page;

"Gearslutz is down temporarily till Jules and I settle a business issue".  

It was a stupid move. Jules would later cite it as the excuse for why he stole the business. He exploited the usual cliche of women being hysterical and emotionally unstable.

But this was a lame excuse that held no water.

Although what I did was ill-considered, the crucial detail missing from Standen's narrative is that I did it only AFTER the business was seized from me and as a last-ditch attempt to fight back. My desperate action was not an offensive but a defensive action and taken in a state of grief. For once the penny dropped that I had been betrayed by my most trusted friend in the world along with his then-wife (now ex-wife), I was in no state to think straight. What I saw in those last moments was the retirement pension I had worked for, sacrificed for, and counted on, ripped away from my eyes, and me unable to do a damn thing about it.

But there is no doubt that Standen had planned this for many months if not years.  For there were too many balls in place for it to have been pulled off out of the blue. When did the contract go missing? When did he open a new bank account? How did he manage to remove my name from the web hosts? Jules replaced me with Ryan Spevak (who later threatened to take him to small claims for non-payment).  When did he arrange this with Ryan?

That night I shook and cried uncontrollably throughout the hours unable to sleep. How could this happen? I thought that Julian Standen was my most trusted friend?

In 1993, when Jules returned to London after a failed stint as a music producer in Berlin, he found himself penniless and homeless. He couched surfed around London to the great amusement of his social circle who sniggered and sneered at the "The Great Julian Standen".  It pained me to see my friend so low. 

At this point, his parents were fed up with the fiscal irresponsibility of their wayward son and decided at the age of 33 to impose tough love on him. Both parents refused to bail him out. 

I couldn't bear to see my good friend so humiliated. He'd probably deserved it for he was known to show off. But it pained me to see my normally cheery and endlessly optimistic friend so low.  So I did something I'd never done in my life. I withdrew money from my credit card and went into debt. I paid the first and last month's deposit so Julian could move into a  Soho, London flat.

Julian was grateful and over the years he, in turn, tried to help me out when he could. After he got his inheritance he often treated me to meals at our local Wong Kei, Chinatown restaurant. He even bought me insurance before my first US Pigface tour worried that I might have an accident or fall off the stage.

Others admired our tight bond. It was rare for a platonic friendship to last so many years. Though we each had various other partners we remained the closest of friends throughout. Jules never had a sister and I never had a brother so I suppose we were like surrogates to each other. We'd squabble and bitch at each other like siblings. 

But suddenly Jules would only communicate to me via email and in a strange new polite business-like tone which suggested it wasn't really him behind the words.

For the next two nights, I could not sleep. I would just start to drop off when a voice would suddenly scream in my head;

"He thinks he's worth everything! He thinks I'm worth nothing!"

It was my own voice that made me snap bolt upright and wide awake. This went on time and again over the next few years.  Occasionally even today 14 years later, it still happens.

Days later, and exhausted from lack of sleep, the hunger drove me to finally emerge from my flat and go in search of sustenance. I found a nice Indian restaurant on Bateman Street in Soho and ordered a chicken madras. But no sooner did I start to eat than my stomach started to hurt. So I scuffled to the ladies. Once inside, an itch took hold of my scalp and quickly spread like wildfire all over my body. Quickly I paid the bill and raced home. As I scratched violently at my skin, people in the streets of Soho stared in horror. Once up the stairs to my flat, I had energy only to knock on my door before I collapsed.

Thank God Honey, my laid back and sensible Hungarian flatmate was at home. 

"MEG! WHAT HAPPENED? YOUR FAAAAAACE IS SWOLLEN LIKE A BALLOON! OMG! YOU'RE TURNING BLUUUUUUE!".

Honey phoned the ambulance. When the ambulance guys arrived I didn't care that my pants were down as  I whimpered on the bathroom floor. I had not a shred of dignity left at this point.  They rushed me into the University College of London Hospital where I was given a strong Piriton injection.

The relief from that precious shot spread throughout my body. I was so happy to feel myself again and grateful to be alive...

The doctor told me I had suffered an anaphylactic shock. I had never been allergic to chili before and am not allergic to it today. At the same time, I had never experienced this level of stress and emotional upheaval in my life either. Standen had engaged in the worst  Shakespearean type of treachery and betrayal. I had endured a severe emotional state of life-threatening proportions at the hands of a friend. 

Hours later, after the weakened shell that was me, slowly made its way back up the stairs to my flat, I could see that a courier arrived with a package for me. It was an expensive bowl of fruit in a posh basket - the kind of useless thing someone sends when they have more money than sense. The note on it said;

"Everything will work out - Jules"

The irony was a further slap in the face.  An overpriced bowl of fruit was in no way close to any kind of compensation for the theft of my income and future security. Needless to say, I was far from reassured. With my ownership agreement missing and no access to our servers and accounts, it was clear I could no longer rely on the words of my former best friend.

In the weeks to follow, and like a cornered and panicked small animal, I desperately sought legal advice. But I was out of my depth. As a creative person, I had a longtime phobia of business and very little knowledge of the law. Like many musicians, I was like a child when it came to business matters.

By contrast, Julian's wife had trained as a solicitor(lawyer). His mother was a head hunter in the City of London with clients and associates who were lawyers. My Dad died pretty much penniless. My Mom was a housewife who spoke broken English. 

The cards were stacked.

I would have to act quickly to learn how to defend myself.