(1) Julian Francis (2) Frank Maloney v. (1) Dawn Neesom (2) Express Newspapers (Sued as Express Newspapers Ltd)
The Claimants brought an action in libel against the assistant editor and publisher of the Daily Star in relation to an article published on 3 February 2000 entitled "Ripped off by Julian Freezer". The article concerned a boxing match in January 2000 between the first Claimant and Mike Tyson and alleged that the Claimants had concerted to deceive spectators into believing that Francis had trained for and would try to win the fight. It also alleged that Francis had feigned distress at losing the fight and that both Claimants had compromised their integrity for financial gain.
In a joint Statement read in Open Court by the parties, the Defendants accepted that the first Claimant had trained properly for the fight and had been determined to fight to the best of his ability.
Granada Television Ltd v. (1) News Group Newspapers Ltd. (2) Ian Edmondson
On 25 April the News of the World published an article entitled "How TV bosses rewarded murder suspects £22,990. That's the cost of pandering to the Lawrence thugs". The article related to a "Tonight" programme broadcast on 8 April 1999 which had interviews with five of the suspects in the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence. The article claimed that the interviewees had received an all-expenses paid holiday, worth £23,000, in return for an interview and that the Claimant had lied to the public when it said no payment had been made to the suspects.
In their Statement in Open Court following the Claimant's action for libel, the Defendant's accepted as true that the Claimants had made it clear in a number of articles published before the Defendants', that the interviewees were provided with only accomodation one week before and after the broadcast and transport, at a total cost of £7,115.83. the Claimant's had also repeated this when approached by the Defendants for comment before they published the article. A payment was made to a charity of the Claimant's choice.
R. v. Michael Stone - TLR 22/02/01
The Appellant was convicted in October 1998 at Maidstone Crown Court of
the murder of a mother and her youngest daughter and the attempted murder
of the eldest child. He successfully appealed his conviction in February
2001. An investigation by the Crown, sparked off by statements made after
the trial by one of the prosecution witnesses who claimed that he had
given false evidence at the trial, revealed that the CPS could not rely
on that witness's evidence and, as this evidence may have led to the jury's
guilty verdict at the trial, the conviction was unsafe. The court held
that public interest required a jury verdict where a defendant had been
accused of such a grave matter, provided that it could be achieved without
any unfairness or oppression to the defendant. Therefore a re-trial should
be ordered unless the court found that on a balance of probability, a
subsequent guilty verdict would be rendered unsafe by the effect of the
publicity. It was submitted by the CPS that the Appellant would not receive
a fair re-trial because of the amount of publicity surrounding the case.
The court was not so satisfied because most of the coverage occurred when
the verdict was returned in 1998 and there had been little publicity since
then and a considerable part of the publicity was not adverse to the Appellant.
The court also decided that the risk of prejudice would be reduced if
the retrial did not take place in Kent or London.
Alan Sugar v. (1) Associated Newspapers Ltd (2) Jeff Powell
Tottenham Hotspurs chairman, Sir Alan Sugar, successfully brought an action in libel against the publishers and author of an article published in the Daily Mail in December 1999 in relation to statements blaming him for the team's failure to win the Premiership title. The article, said Sugar, who gave evidence in court denying responsibility for decisions to buy players, should come out of his "counting house" and give manager, George Graham the funds to buy high cash players.
The jury, who took only two hours to return the unanimous verdict, rejected the paper's case on fair comment and awarded £100,000. The Defendants, ordered to pay the costs estimated unofficially at £400,000, were granted leave to appeal. A spokesman for the paper said afterwards that Jeff Powell, the paper's soccer writer, was only exercising his right to comment on a matter of public interest.
Arab News Network (2) Soumar Al Assad v. (1) Jihad Al Khazen (2) Al Hayat Publications
The Court of Appeal dismissed the Claimant's appeal against a decision of Morland J., striking out the claim. The Defendants had applied to the court for a preliminary ruling to determine whether an article appearing in an Arabic newspaper published in the UK was defamatory of the Claimants.
The First Claimant was a television broadcasting company based in London and broadcasting in Arabic, and the Second Claimant was its chairman. The statement of claim alleged that the article was defamatory of the Claimants in that they, despite being Arabs, were willing tools of the Israelis and Americans, being used as a medium to undermine the pan-Arab cause. It further alleged innuendo, that the Claimants had allowed their political agenda to influence the Network's broadcasting, contrary to Independent Television Commission rules on impartiality, and that the Claimant's had deceived advertisers and subscribers by advertising the network as objective and neutral.
The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court's decision that, applying the principles in Gillick v BBC (1996) EMLR 267, no reasonable ordinary reader could come to the conclusion that the editorial gave rise to the meanings pleaded. The fact that the Claimants were Arab was highly relevant to damages, because any allegation that the Network was an Israeli/US medium would seriously damage their trading reputation in the very community it relied upon. However, this fact was irrelevant when applying the meaning test. Ordinary readers would not be imbued with prejudices and or beliefs for or against the Arab community and therefore would not have rationally understood the article to mean what was pleaded understood the article to have any meaning defamatory of the Claimants.
The
question arose as to whether meaning should be judged by the ordinary
reasonable reader in society as a whole (presumably this means within
the relevant legal jurisdiction) or by ordinary reasonable readers within
a particular community within that society. Although it did not rule on
the issue, the court of appeal noted that there was significant authority
to support the former approach and this would be difficult to depart from.