Trials
ALAN CAMPBELL V NEWS OF THE WORLD
Aborted
- retrial pending
Claim brought by a businessman from Southport who was accused of homosexual
activity with young boys. The jury was discharged following the allegation
by the Claimant, who was representing himself, that Rupert Murdoch was
a sexual deviant.
TIM BLACKSTONE V SUNDAY MIRROR
£50,000
The Claimant, a public relations consultant and brother of Baroness Blackstone,
sued over an article which accused him of threatening his former wife
at the former matrimonial home, which resulted in his arrest. Justification
pleaded. The first trial was aborted following the Claimant disclosing
inadmissible and prejudicial material in the course of giving evidence.
PAMELA CORNELIUS V DR DE TARANTO
Lost
Claim by a patient against a psychiatrist who she had commissioned to
prepare a medico-legal report. Without permission the Defendant sent the
report to the Claimant's GP and to a consultant psychiatrist. The report
contained defamatory and confidential material relating to the Claimant's
mental state. The trial was by judge alone who applied s.5 of the Defamation
Act 1952 to uphold the justification defence. The defence of consent was
rejected. Damages of £3,750 were awarded in respect of additional
claims for breach of confidence and contract.
PETER CUNNINGHAM V ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL, PATRICIA ELLIOT AND PETER
AYRE
£9,500
The claimant, a teacher, sued over a letter from Elliot, his head teacher,
to Ayre, the Assistant Education Officer which accused him of theft. The
letter was republished by Ayre. The qualified privilege was upheld for
the publication to Ayre but not the republication. Additional claims for
malicious prosecution, breach of contract, negligence and malicious falsehood
were dismissed. Trial by judge alone.
Legal
cases of interest
DAVID MARTIN O'DOWD v (1) IPC MAGAZINES LTD (2) JANE ENNES (3) GILLIAN
CRAWLEY
The brother of the singer and DJ Boy George resolved his libel action
against the publisher of the magazine 'Now', the magazine's editor, and
one of the magazine's journalists. In March 2000 the First Defendant published
an article written by the Third Defendant entitled 'Oh Brother', in which
allegations were made against Gerald O'Dowd, brother of Boy George and
the Claimant. The article claimed that he suffered from schizophrenia,
abused drugs and had been committed to a secure mental institution for
the murder of his wife. The photograph accompanying the article was of
the Claimant and not Gerald O'Dowd. A statement was read in open court
in which the Defendant apologised for the mistake and accepted that the
Claimant had no connection with any of the allegations made against Gerald
O'Dowd.
PAUL MCKENNA v (1) EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CLINICAL HYPNOSIS LTD (2) MICHAEL JOSEPH (3) TRACIE O'KEEFE
The Claimant, a professional television and stage hypnotist and hypnotherapist, settled his libel action against the Defendants, a journal, its proprietor and a contributor. An article had appeared in the journal criticising a previous article in the journal which had been positive towards the Claimant's training courses. The Claimant understood these allegations to imply that he was willing to act ruthlessly and callously, and that he had bribed or made an improper payment to the author of the first article so that she would write well of him. A statement was read in open court by the parties in which the Claimant accepted that the allegations were not intended to form part of the article and accepted that the Second Defendant was not responsible for the publication of the article. No imputation was made against the professional integrity of the Second and Third Defendants. The Claimant contributed to the costs of the Second and Third Defendants in the sums of £5,000 and £1,000 respectively.
CAROLINE COON v (1) JONATHON GREEN (2) RANDOM HOUSE (UK) LTD
The Claimant, an artist and co-founder of the charity 'Release' sued the author and publisher of a book entitled 'All Dressed Up: The Sixtes and The Counterculture' in which it was alleged that the Claimant's charity employed unusual fund-raising methods including the offering of sexual services (by a woman understood to be the Claimant) to rock stars in return for money. In a Statement in Open Court, the Defendants accepted that the allegations were untrue and apologised unreservedly to the Claimant. The book was withdrawn in its original form and the allegations were not present in the paperback edition published in August 1999. The Defendants paid the Claimant damages of £40,000 and paid her legal costs.
PAULA
YATES v ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS LTD
The celebrity and former partner of the deceased rock star Michael Hutchence
resolved her libel action against the publisher of 'The Mail on Sunday'
in respect of a serialisation of a book in the paper, which alleged that
she had deceitfully and deliberately become pregnant by Hutchence in order
to trap him into having a permanent relationship with her. Further, that
she had tried to cover her actions by claiming after Hutchence's death
that she had had fertility treatment in order to conceive the child. The
parties read a Statement in Open Court in which the Defendant accepted
that the allegations were false and should not have been published, although
it had relied on a warranty from the book's original publishers that all
the matter contained in the book was true. The Defendant and the Australian
and British publishers of the book agreed to pay substantial damages and
the costs of the Claimant between them.
JOHN
SWIRE & SONS LTD v (1) FABER & FABER LTD (2) KAZUO ISHIGURO
The Claimant, a limited company which had traded in the Far East since
the late nineteenth century, sued the long-established publisher Faber
& Faber and the Second Defendant in respect of allegations contained
in a book written by the Second Defendant entitled 'When we were orphans'.
The fictional novel, set in Shanghai in the early twentieth century, alleged
that the Claimant, trading under its contemporary name of Butterfield
& Swire, was involved in the importation of Indian opium into China.
The Defendants accepted that the imputations against the Claimant were
untrue and agreed to co-operate with the Claimant in bringing this to
the attention of readers of the book. The Defendants also undertook to
replace the name 'Butterfield & Swire' with the name of a fictional
company in future editions of the book in any form.