Any libel damages to Express proprietor Richard Desmond should be limited, QC for Tom Bower tells jury in high court

The jury in the libel battle between Richard Desmond and Tom Bower were today urged to give the newspaper owner damages of no more than 40p – the price of a copy of the Daily Express – should they decide that Bower had defamed him.

In his closing speech today, Bower’s barrister Ronald Thwaites, QC, told the jury that Desmond was “too sensitive” and had brought the action simply to repair his “bruised” ego. But he told the jury that, if they did believe Bower had truly damaged Desmond’s reputation – by saying Desmond had been “ground into the dust” by Conrad Black in a biography of the Canadian tycoon – the damages they awarded should be minimal.

“You must consider giving him the cover price of one day of the Daily Express … as a reflection of your feelings about him were you to find he had been in any way defamed by this book,” said Thwaites.

But the barrister suggested there were inconsistencies in Desmond’s evidence over the past week, such as how he claimed to have only read Bower’s book about Conrad Black on holiday in August 2007, when in fact he had instructed libel solicitors to start action against Bower the previous month. He also claimed to have never exchanged more than a cursory hello with Bower, yet made a “slip-up” in the witness box when he said that Bower had been “driving me mad for years”. Thwaites suggested Desmond was unhappy to have learned Bower had written a biography of him called Rogue Trader.

The key to proving Bower’s case, said Thwaites, was the tape played to the jury yesterday in which Desmond was recorded issuing an expletive-laden threat to a business associate. In the recording Desmond promised he could be “the worst fucking enemy you’ll ever have” if the contact did not submit to his wishes. Three days later a “hatchet job” about the contact and his hedge fund appeared in the Sunday Express.

This “sinister conversation” showed Desmond’s “dark side, the side he didn’t want anyone to see”, said Thwaites, and a quite different facet to the “smiling” Desmond who stood in the witness box last week. It revealed him to be a “malevolent proprietor” who regularly interfered in editorial matters in order to settle his own grudges, said the QC.

Thwaites said Desmond had been backed up in court by Martin Townsend, the editor of the Sunday Express, who had protected his boss by claiming he never ordered articles to be printed about his enemies. Townsend was Desmond’s “yes man”, the jury were told.

“He was here to adopt whatever Mr Desmond wanted him to say. He has no independence. He has no independence as an editor,” Thwaites said.

Thwaites told the jury that the fact Bower had not been called as a witness should not “trouble” them. The barrister argued that it would be an unnecessary step, as the defence had been made without him.

Desmond’s barrister Ian Winter, QC, is due to make his closing speech this afternoon.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

• If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly “for publication”.