Summer of Libel

The summer is usually pitifully short of news and this year is no exception. Yes, there is war in the Middle East, but that isn't really news in the same sense that 'Dog Bites Man' is not news. Peace in the Middle East, on the other hand, would be very big news indeed.

With not much going on and the football season only just creeping into view, I often fall back onto libel trials for my entertainment, and they are very entertaining indeed. I don't know whether comic libel trials are more common at this time of year, or whether they simply get more attention, but there always seem to be plenty around.

The first case didn't quite make it to the courtroom after the Sun and the News of the World apologised to Ashley Cole and paid damages for aspersions of homosexuality. Cole wasn't offended to be called gay, of course - he simply disliked the suggestion of dishonesty (hmm). The case turned on what is known in legal circles as an 'innuendo', a word whose technical definition, in this instance, turned out to be uncannily close to the popular meaning. The Sun printed a photo of Cole buying an engagement ring for Cheryl Tweedy with the caption 'Ashley's got a good taste in rings'. Along with several stories in the News of the World, linking an anonymous Premiership footballer with 'gay romps', this was enough to persuade the defendants to settle. Personally, I think it's a shame that the case never came to trial because Cole's lawyer was denied the chance to explain the innuendo to a judge.

Another classic was the successful suit by the hypnotist Paul McKenna against the Daily Mirror, whose TV critic Victor Lewis-Smith had accused him of deceiving the public, with a Mickey Mouse degree obtained on the internet. The judge summarised the case by saying that the degree was indeed of dubious origin but that McKenna had not deceived anyone because he genuinely believed it was meaningful!

And finally, the best of all came last Friday when Tommy Sheridan, a Scottish politician virtually unknown in England until last week, won a claim against the News of the World over reports of adultery, orgies, and drug taking. In a particularly salacious trial, which probably did more to damage his reputation than the original allegations, there were descriptions of three, four and five-in-a-bed, and Sheridan even offered to strip to show that certain statements about his physical appearance were untrue. One of the leading defence witnesses turned out to have worked for the News of the World while Sheridan sacked his legal team to conduct his own case, only to constantly refer to himself in the third person. It is probably fair to say that he won despite, and not because, of this generally unwise decision. There were wildly contradictory claims made by the two sets of witnesses and police are considering the possibility of prosecutions for perjury.

These cases, and others like them, are often used to argue that the libel laws in England and Scotland are unfair. I agree that the burden of proof is probably too strictly weighted against the media, but it is my view that intruding upon the personal lives of individuals, rather than investigating the more serious business of government activity, is something of an abuse of free speech. Newspapers are sadly under no obligation to report the truth about anything of importance and so there is some small comfort from the fact that they at least have an incentive to do so when it comes to ridiculous celebrity gossip.