High court jury rejects Express owner Richard Desmond’s libel case against author Tom Bower by majority verdict

The Express Newspapers proprietor, Richard Desmond, today lost his libel battle against the author and journalist Tom Bower.

A jury at the high court in London returned a majority verdict rejecting Desmond’s claim that he was defamed by Bower in a biography of the former Telegraph boss Conrad Black.

Bower’s book said that Desmond had been “ground into the dust” by Black when he published apologies for articles in the Sunday Express detailing the Canadian tycoon’s business woes in 2002.

Desmond argued that the allegation was defamatory because it damaged his business reputation.

Speaking immediately after the verdict, Bower said he was “absolutely delighted”. “I have always believed in jury service,” he said. “I think I have been a victim of a very rich man trying to suppress the truth. I’m very grateful to the jury.”

Asked if his book about Desmond, provisionally titled Rough Trader, would now be published, he replied: “I do hope so.”

Desmond issued a defiant statement after the verdict. “I sued Mr Bower for defamation because he made inaccurate and damaging allegations about me, yet he refused to apologise and publish a correction,” he said.

“Bower made a series of errors about events and timings and even got the name of one of my newspapers wrong. His biggest mistake was in thinking I would not go to court to uphold my reputation and the resulting action has cost many hundreds of thousands of pounds to defend a few ill-thought-out remarks that were not even essential to his book. It was worth it to stand up in court and set the record straight.”

The total legal bill for the trial is believed to be £1.25m.

When the verdict was announced, Desmond’s wife Janet, who has sat alongside him during the trial, said: “Oh well” and shrugged her shoulders. The couple then walked out of court.

The trial centred on a passing reference to Desmond in Bower’s 2006 book, Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge.

Desmond objected to the claim that he had told Sunday Express journalists to run a string of stories that were critical of Black, with whom he was then locked in a business dispute over their West Ferry print joint venture, and then authorised the paper to apologise for the stories.

“If people believe that despite having this tough reputation he is actually a wimp and can be ground into the dust very easily, and can be made to say sorry for publishing things which are actually true … it’s very defamatory,” Desmond’s barrister, Ian Winter QC, told the court.

It was also defamatory, the jury heard, for Bower to suggest that Desmond used his position as proprietor to pursue a “personal vendetta” against Black.

Desmond himself denied influencing his editors: “I give no orders on the editorial. The editor decides what goes in the papers.”

This picture of Desmond as a hands-off proprietor was backed up by the Sunday Express editor, Martin Townsend, who rejected Bower’s barrister’s characterisation of him as a “puppet”.

“[Desmond] does not walk around ordering things,” Townsend said. “He does walk around the newsroom from time to time, as it happens, but he does not get involved.”

However, the jury heard evidence that contradicted this picture, for instance that Townsend’s predecessor, Michael Pilgrim, left the Sunday Express shortly after Desmond bought the title, apparently unhappy at management intervening in editorial matters.

And the former media editor of the Sunday Express, David Hellier, told the court that Desmond was seen in the newsroom “virtually every day between five and seven o’clock” and would regularly demand editorial changes. “My impression was that he effectively edited the paper,” said Hellier.

Hellier added that he was so “sickened by the interference” that he went to the National Union of Journalists to lodge an official complaint.

He claimed that, at the Sunday Express, Townsend once showed him an exercise book containing the names of “all of the companies Richard is interested in”, and that shortly afterwards he was asked to write a negative piece about Black.

He said it was well known Desmond did not like Black. “The general view was as far as Richard was concerned, he was an adversary,” added Hellier.

Black, now detained at a US prison after his conviction for fraud two years ago, gave his support to Desmond in the form of a witness statement dictated from his cell.

Desmond had chartered a private jet to the US the week before the trial to garner Black’s support.

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