Sir Gerry Loughran v Century Newspapers Limited
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judge | Gillen J |
| Judgment Date | 25 February 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] NIQB 26 |
| Date | 25 February 2014 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Northern Ireland) |
| Year | 2014 |
1
Neutral Citation No. [2014] NIQB 26
Ref:
GIL9187
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down
Delivered:
25/02/2014
(subject to editorial corrections)*
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
________
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
________
BETWEEN:
SIR GERRY LOUGHRAN
Plaintiff;
-and-
CENTURY NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
Defendant.
________
GILLEN J
Introduction
[1] This judgment concerns applications by both the defendant and the plaintiff
in proceedings for defamation brought by Sir Gerry Loughran who was
Permanent Secretary of the Department of Economic Development in the period
1991 to April 2000 and subsequently Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service and
Secretary to the Northern Ireland Executive. The plaintiff contends that the
News Letter, a daily newspaper which is published by the defendant, on 23 May
2012 published articles on pages 8 and 9 of that edition (hereinafter called the first
and second articles), on-line at www.newsletter.co.uk and in a post on the Twitter
account (hereinafter called “the tweet”) of a journalist employed by it namely Sam
McBride containing defamatory material and comment about him. The impugned
material and comment was based on extracts from the Public Accounts Committee
of the Northern Ireland Assembly “Report on the Bioscience and Technology
Institute” (the “Report”) together with the minutes of proceedings relating to the
Report and the minutes of evidence which have been ordered to be published by the
Public Accounts Committee. The headlines in the first and second articles were
respectively “Call in PSNI over suspected fraud, say MLAs” and “Retired top civil
servants involved”. The online versions of these articles are identical to the hardcopy
equivalents. The tweet published by Mr McBride reads “Top Belfast doctors and
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2 cases
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Richard Kerr and The Department of Health, Social Services, and Public Safety and The Northern Ireland Office and The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and The Secretary of State for the Home Department and Gary Hoy and The Department of Health, Social Services, and Public Safety and The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and The Secretary of State for the Home Department
...his Statement of Claim was granted on 20 January 2023. [12] Mr Magowan submitted that the decision of Loughran v Century Newspapers Ltd [2014] NIQB 26 sets out the principles to be applied in applications governing amendment of pleadings. Three of the most important paragraphs in Gillen J’s......
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Kevin Winters, Niall Murphy, Joseph McVeigh, Gerard McNamara, Michael Crawford, Paul Pierce and KRW Law LLP and News Group Newspapers Limited
...service of the defence). Thereafter, the leave of the court for any amendment is required. [13] Gillen J in Loughran v Century Newspapers [2014] NIQB 26 set out the principles involved at [35]: “A pleading may be amended by leave at any time. The guiding principle is that it will generally ......