Peter Cruddas v (1) Jonathan Calvert (2) Heidi Blake (3) Times Newspapers Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat,Mr Justice Tugendhat |
| Judgment Date | 26 June 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1791 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ12D03024 |
| Date | 26 June 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 1791 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat
Case No: HQ12D03024
Desmond Browne QC and Matthew Nicklin QC and Victoria Joliffe (instructed by Slater and Gordon) for the Claimant
Heather Rogers QC and Aidan Eardley (instructed by Bates Wells and Braithwaite) for the Defendants
Hearing date: 24 June 2013
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
By letter dated 21 June 2013 the Defendants suggested that I should consider recusing myself from hearing the trial of this action. They also object to my hearing the application which the Defendants will make (if there is no agreement between the parties) to re-amend their Defence pursuant to para 6 of the Order of the Court of Appeal dated 21 June 2013 (that is last Friday). In addition to the matter of recusal, I have also to set a timetable for the further hearings in this case (the Defendants do not object to my setting a timetable).
THE PROCEEDINGS
This is a claim for libel and malicious falsehood. Pursuant to the order of the Master dated 1 November 2012 it was ordered to be tried by a Judge with a jury with an estimate of 7–10 days, and thereafter listed for a trial to start on 17 June. By application notice dated 27 March 2013 the Claimant sought a number of orders, including that the mode of trial be varied to trial by judge alone. On Friday 17 May the Defendants agreed that the trial be by judge alone. That made possible the trial of a preliminary issue to determine the actual meaning of the words complained of. And the determination of meaning was the principal issue when the case came before me on 21–22 May. I circulated my decision in draft on 24 May (the last day of term). I heard further submissions on 5 June and then handed down my judgment [2013] EWHC 1427 (QB).
Mr Cruddas had pleaded (in para 6 of his Amended Particulars of Claim) that the natural and ordinary meaning of the words complained of was:
"(1) In return for cash donations to the Conservative Party, the claimant corruptly offered for sale the opportunity to influence government policy and gain unfair advantage through secret meetings with the Prime Minister and other senior ministers.
(2) The claimant made the offer, even though he knew that the money offered for secret meetings was to come, in breach of the ban under UK electoral law, from Middle Eastern investors in a Liechtenstein fund; and
(3) further, in order to circumvent and thereby evade the law, the claimant was happy that the foreign donors should use deceptive devices, such as creating an artificial UK company to donate the money or using UK employees as conduits, so that the true source of the donation would be concealed."
In my judgment I decided the actual meaning of the words complained of, both for the claim in libel and for the claim in malicious falsehood. I held that for libel Mr Cruddas' meanings were the relevant single meanings, and I held that for malicious falsehood they were possible meanings (together with the less serious meaning contended for by the Defendants, which did not impute criminal corruption). I explained that I considered "corruptly" in the first meaning to mean (inter alia) that Mr Cruddas was guilty of a criminal offence and that that was what the Defendants were alleging.
I also made a decision (para 111), accepting a submission of the Defendants, namely that:
"If I had not reached the decision which I have reached on the meaning in defamation, I would not admit the evidence the Claimant seeks to rely on in support of my finding that meaning as one of a range of permissible meanings for the purposes of malicious falsehood."
On the hand down of that judgment I struck out paras 7 and 8 of the Amended Defence. The Defendants pleaded justification to Lucas-Box meanings which were less serious than the meanings attributed to the words by the Claimant (and found by me to the actual meanings), and they had not pleaded justification to the actual meanings which I had found the words complained of did bear. Accordingly, I entered judgment for the Claimant with damages to be assessed.
Before I decided to enter judgment for the Claimant, Ms Rogers asked me for time to formulate a draft re-amendment to the Defence. The re-amendments she contemplated were to put in what is called a Burstein plea (to rely in mitigation of damage on the conduct of the Claimant), and to formulate a new plea of justification. As to the proposed (but as yet unformulated) new plea of justification I said (transcript p43 lines 20–28):
"I am not going to give an opportunity, which I would undoubtedly have given at an earlier stage of the proceedings, that the entry of judgment be suspended for a specific time in order to enable the defendants, if so advised, to advance a new case on justification. I am not going to give that opportunity because, for case management reasons, I consider that at this stage it would be inconsistent with the overriding objective to do so. It is 5 th June. The trial date is 17 th June. The claimant is entitled to know the case he has to meet from the defendant and, in my judgement, it is too late".
The Defendants sought permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal against my decisions on the actual meanings of the words complained of in relation both to libel and to malicious falsehood and my decision to strike out their pleas of justification in paras 7 and 8 of the Amended Defence. It is clear from the order of the Court of Appeal that no draft re-amendment was submitted to the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal directed that the oral hearing of the Defendants' renewed application for permission to appeal be expedited and heard on Friday 14 June, when, if permission were granted, the appeal would also be heard. At the end of the argument on 14 June, the Court of Appeal granted permission to appeal against my decisions on meaning, and reserved judgment.
On Wednesday 19 June the Claimant's solicitors wrote to my clerk stating that the Court of Appeal had circulated their judgment in draft. I did not understand from that letter what that draft judgment contained. They asked that the trial commence on Monday 24 June. I requested that by 2pm on 20 June the Defendants give their response to the Claimant's letter. The Defendants' solicitors wrote on 20 June that they could not give a response until the Court of Appeal had handed down their judgment and made an order.
On 21 June the Court of Appeal handed down their judgment. They allowed the appeal in part.
In relation to paragraph 6 of the Amended Particulars of Claim and paragraph 7 of the Amended Defence the Court of Appeal said, in the words of Longmore LJ:
"15. For my part I have no difficulty in agreeing with the judge that the meaning of the words in the articles is the meaning attributed to them by Mr Cruddas but I do have difficulty in agreeing that the word "corruptly" necessarily (or on the facts of this case) connotes that a criminal offence has been committed….
16. … I would conclude that the defendants are not asserting that Mr Cruddas was criminally corrupt in offering access to Minister for cash. They are asserting that Mr Cruddas' conduct was "inappropriate", "unacceptable" and "wrong". To some people that may indicate "corruption" but it is not explicitly or implicitly an assertion of any criminal offence. It overeggs the pudding to say that the natural and ordinary meaning of the words used is that offering access to Ministers for cash is to commit a criminal offence and I do not think (particularly in the light of the second of Sir Thomas [Bingham MR]'s principles [set out in Skuse v Granada Television Ltd [1996] E.M.L.R 279, 285]) that the ordinary reader would so understand it, even if he thought that the conduct was morally unacceptable because it tended to impropriety."
In relation to paragraph 8 of the Amended Defence Longmore LJ said:
"24 If the defendants are not alleging criminality in the first of the meanings on which Mr Cruddas relies, must the defence of justification in paragraph 8 of the amended defence nevertheless be struck out?
25 In my view the answer is No. The case should go to trial so that the defendants have the opportunity to justify the lesser meaning which they attribute to their articles.
26 Part of the difficulty is, of course, that the natural and ordinary meaning of the words used on which Mr Cruddas relies which the judge has upheld and with which I agree (subject to the qualification that they do not connote a criminal offence) itself carries an ambiguity in its use of the word "corruptly". Mr Browne in a somewhat over-elaborate submission said that the articles emphasised that there would be secret meetings with the Prime Minister, that such secret meetings would produce awesome advantages for the donors and that such advantages provided a secret opportunity to exert influence over government policy which other less advantaged people would not have. He then submitted that that constituted "corruption" on any view and that the defendants had no defence to the claim that the articles were defamatory. But if Mr Cruddas chooses to interpret "corruptly" in that sense, the defendants should be allowed to say not only that they have accurately reported his statement and that the report does not amount to an allegation of corruption but also that, if it does, they can justify that allegation.
27 The judge thought that because the...
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