Neil McEvoy v Michael Costas Michael
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | H.H. Judge Keyser |
| Judgment Date | 18 March 2014 |
| Neutral Citation | [2014] EWHC 701 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Claim No: 1CF91407 |
| Date | 18 March 2014 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
[2014] EWHC 701 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
CARDIFF DISTRICT REGISTRY
Cardiff Civil Justice Centre
2 Park Street
Cardiff, CF10 1ET
His Honour Judge Keyser QC
Sitting as a Judge of the High Court
Claim No: 1CF91407
David Hughes (instructed by Glamorgan Law LLP) for the Claimant
Hugh Tomlinson QC (instructed by Hutton's Solicitors) for the Defendant
Hearing date: 3 March 2014
H.H. Judge Keyser Q.C.:
Introduction
The claimant, Mr McEvoy, is a member and former Deputy Leader of the Council of the City and County of Cardiff. He represents the Fairwater Ward for Plaid Cymru. Until 2003 he was a member of the Labour Party, for whom he represented the ward of Riverside as a councillor from 1999.
The defendant, Mr Michael, is a member of the Labour Party and from December 2009 until March 2012 was the chairman of the Fairwater branch of the Labour Party. He was formerly a councillor for the Fairwater Ward and since 2012 has represented the Trowbridge Ward. He is currently chairman of the council's Planning Committee. For at least the last ten years there has been a history of personal antagonism between the claimant and the defendant.
In these proceedings, which were commenced on 17 October 2011, the claimant alleges that he was defamed by the defendant in two issues, Issue 6 and Issue 7, of Fairwater and Pentrebane Fightback, a newsletter produced on behalf of the Fairwater branch of the Labour Party and distributed to households in the Fairwater district of Cardiff.
On 3 September 2013 I ordered that preliminary issues be tried; these related to the meaning of the words and images complained of, to whether that meaning was factual or by way of comment, to whether the meaning was defamatory of the claimant, and to whether the defendant was the publisher of the words and images complained of.
The trial of the preliminary issues took place on 3 March 2014 and this is my judgment on them. I am grateful to Mr Hughes for the claimant and to Mr Tomlinson QC for the defendant for their assistance.
In this judgment I shall first set out the larger passages of the newsletters from which the words and image complained of are taken. Then I shall consider the question whether the defendant is to be considered a publisher of the newsletters. Finally I shall consider questions of meaning, comment and defamatory nature in respect of the specific words and image of which the claimant complains.
Issue 6
Issue 6 comprised two pages; I assume that they were the front and back of a single sheet, but I have not seen an original of the newsletter. On the front there was a title at the top and, at the bottom, a statement that I shall call for convenience the Promotion Statement, which stated that the newsletter was printed and promoted by the defendant. I shall say more of the Promotion Statement later. The main part of the page contained two boxes: each took up substantially the full length of the page; the left box took up about two-thirds of the width of the page. The text in the left box was as follows:
SNOUTS IN THE TROUGH
Plaid councillors were elected in 2008, following a highly personal and negative campaign against the former Labour councillors based on the very allowances that Cllr McEvoy voted for in 2000 and accepted.
Your Plaid councillors have already pocketed more in just over two years than the three previous councillors received in FOUR years.
A MASSIVE £131,645 so far!!!
Leaving aside the jollies abroad to places like Korea and China, Cllr McEvoy has also raked in THOUSANDS of ££££s more as a landlord renting out at least two properties including one that was leased to the very Council he is Deputy Leader of! He's not the socialist he pretends to be—more of a SOCIAL LANDLORD and a HYPOCRITE.
Shockingly, Cllr McEvoy has also found room in his wallet for an EXTRA £2083.08 of child care allowance—or an EXTRA £40.06 a week on top of his HUGE earnings of £32,982 a year as a part-time councillor! Your Labour team is demanding an enquiry as the child in question lives with its mother in Aberystwyth! How many part-time workers can get their employers to fork out for 'child care' like this?
Your Local Labour Team is writing to the council to demand an end to these shameful payouts. After all, it's YOUR money!
Underneath that text there was a photograph that had been altered for comic and political effect. In the background was Cardiff City Hall. In the foreground were two figures: the one in the centre was recognisable in context as Derek (Del Boy) Trotter of the BBC comedy programme Only Fools and Horses, but his face was the claimant's face; behind his left shoulder was a character with a face recognisable as that of Mr Rodney Berman, who at the time was a Liberal Democrat councillor and, I believe, the Leader of the Council of the City and County of Cardiff. At the top of the picture in capital letters were the words: "This time next year we'll be millionaires Rodders" On the right of the picture was a vehicle recognisable as Derek Trotter's van, on which was written:
McEvoy's Independent Trading
New York, Paris, Fairwater
Free Child Care
On top of the van was a box, on which was written:
DIY
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS PARK KIT
MADE IN XIAMEN CHINA
The right box on the first page contained two articles. The lower article was in the following terms:
PLANNING CHAOS
Your Plaid councillors are busy blaming Labour for the collapse of their Local Development Plan (LDP) because we did not support their bogus 'Green Cardiff' campaign—as usual, it's everybody's fault but THEIRS! The LDP collapsed because they were too timid to honestly address the land and housing needs of a growing city. In another superb example of brass-necked hypocrisy, Cllr McEvoy wants to build a Business Park at Junction 33 on those same green fields as well as a school on Rumney Rec and hundreds of student flats on Cantonian School fields to pay for his fantasy football plans.
On the second page of the newsletter there were three boxes. Along the bottom was a box containing the Promotion Statement and details of how to support the local Labour Party. Roughly the upper 80% of the page was taken up as to two-thirds by a single article and as to one-third by two articles, of which one concerned the claimant. The passage containing the words of which the claimant complains was the article in the main box.
FAIRWATER FC FURY
The former Labour councillors worked closely with Fairwater Football Club and helped to set up the Fairwater Sports Trust and obtained about £300,000 to improve Poplar Park, Fairwater Bowling Green, Fairwater Tennis Courts and the surrounding area including £24k for drainage works to improve the football pitch and Wales League standard dressing rooms and community area. The club prospered and were promoted to the South Wales Amateur League and the Cup in 2007/8 but then Cllr McEvoy was elected and it all went horribly wrong for them as reported in the Echo:
ECHO 7 th October 2010: Fairwater FC is pursuing a lengthy complaint to the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales accusing the Plaid Cymru councillor of inventing a "poisonous and divisive pipe dream".
Because Mr McEvoy promised the club a new home and advised against developing their own ground, the club stopped pushing to turn their Poplar Park home into a Welsh League facility. They were denied promotion as a result, despite two seasons as South Wales champions, and have since lost nine top players to better equipped sides and slumped down the leagues.
Simon O' Hare […] said: "I'm just disappointed with him. He's a local boy who has fallen on his feet and become deputy leader. He's in a great position to help and instead he's just hindered us. As a direct result of what he's done we've gone from league and cup double winners to being in the bottom half of division two and having to start from scratch again."
"He has been unhelpful, he's been obstructive and he has misled us."
Following another misleading letter from Councillor McEvoy on the 9 th October, Fairwater FC has publicly challenged him (Echo 16 th October) "to produce a copy of his [Cantonian Football Academy] business plan, and to produce documentation to support his claim that his funding inquiries were at 'an advanced stage' at the next Fairwater PACT meeting (October 27 th at Plasmawr Road Day Centre, 7 pm)."
Your Fairwater Labour team hopes that Fairwater FC will recover from the meddling and misleading by Cllr McEvoy. We would like to know what the Cantonian governors were told because residents living near the school are praying that he will abandon his madcap students flats scheme!
In our opinion, his directorship of Complete Football Management Ltd has been a conflict of interest throughout this whole sorry saga.
IS MEDDLING & STUDENT FLATS WHAT YOU VOTED FOR?
Issue 7
Issue 7 again comprised two pages. The first page was headed with the title of the newsletter and at the foot of the page was the Promotion Statement. In between, two boxes each ran the length of the page. The left box, which took about two-thirds of the width of the page, looked ahead to the referendum that was shortly to be held in respect of devolved powers. The right box contained an article in which the claimant was criticised, but no complaint is made about that article.
The second page contained various articles. I shall set out only the two from which the words of which complaint is made are taken.
PACT PANEL PACKED: Plaid councillors have ensured that (nearly) every member of your local PACT panel is a Plaid Cymru member or supporter. We believe that the panel should be completely apolitical as it is supposed to be representative of the community—that's why your local Labour Party...
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