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Daily Mail chief slams judge

Daily Mail Chief slams judge As the “Canadian folk singer” mentioned in Mr Dacre’s speech I would offer the follow observations. The fallacy Mr Dacre would like to propagate is that I did not challenge the contents of Ms Ash’s book. Like many, (but not all) of his media colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic , it is clear he has not spent much time reading Eady J’s judgment of this trial. Of the many matters which were challenged in Ms Ash’s book , the most interesting was with respect to a property dispute. Central to Ms Ash’s “story” and her public interest defense, it was discovered that Ms Ash had “beefed up” 8 witness statements in order to establish a false case against me upon which she would breach my privacy and leverage my reputation through media interest. (A fact yet to be reported by any media ). Needless to say, her public interest defense failed. Eady J speaks to this in para 106 to 128 of his judgment. The trial and appeal judgments can be viewed at: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2005/3003.html http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2006/778.html As the editor of the Daily Mail and editor- in -chief of the Mail group and, if I am correct in understanding, now chairman of the Press Complaints Commission’s Editor’s Code of Practice Committee, one can only hope Mr Dacre will employ greater veracity of fact and balanced reporting than illustrated in his speech, clearly intended to inform or influence other editors. As for Eady J, it is worrisome that the commercial media would embark upon such a proactive attack with the intentions to chill those serving in our justice systems without having done more responsible homework. A careful read of Eady’s J judgments of recent cases will reveal he has taken great care not to compromise the media’s ability to pursue matters serving the true public’s interest. He has simply separated them from the public’s prurient interests. As I mentioned in Mr. Greenslade’s blog a year and half ago, http://www.quinlanroad.com/newsandviews/privacy-introduction.asp although our judicial systems may not be perfect, ‘trial by media’ is greatly worse. I hope this assists in a better understanding of McKennitt v Ash, and more importantly adds light to the much bigger issue of media accountability in our democratic societies.

11-Nov-2008

3:13 am