Peter Cruddas v Jonathan Calvert and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Nicol |
| Judgment Date | 01 May 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1096 (QB) |
| Docket Number | HQ12D03024 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 01 May 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 1096 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Nicol
HQ12D03024
Desmond Browne QC and Mathew Nicklin QC (instructed by Slater and Gordon) for the Claimant
Heather Rogers QC and Aidan Eardley (instructed by Bates Wells and Braithwaite) for the Defendants
Hearing dates: 18 th April 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.
In this action for libel and malicious falsehood both the Claimant and Defendants issued application notices which were listed before me on 18 th April 2013. As it happened, there was time only to consider the Claimant's application for permission to amend the Particulars of Claim. At the conclusion of the hearing I reserved my decision. One further matter, the Defendant's application for further information about the Claimant's pleading of financial loss, was dealt with by consent and while my order will incorporate the agreed terms, there is no need for me to say any more about it in this judgment.
The Claimant is a businessman and in March 2012 he was the Co-Treasurer of the Conservative Party. The Third Defendant is the publisher of the Sunday Times. The 1 st and 2 nd Defendants are journalists and part of that paper's 'Insight' team. The 1 st and 2 nd Defendants put together a plan whereby they would pretend to be agents for foreign investors who wanted to explore making donations to the Conservative Party. They hired a lobbyist called Sarah Southern and, through her, arranged to have a meeting with the Claimant on 15 th March 2012. Unknown to him, each Defendant carried a concealed camera with an audio recording facility as well. Consequently, although I am told the quality is imperfect in places, there is a comprehensive record of the meeting and a transcript of it has been prepared.
As a result on 25 th March 2012 the Sunday Times published four articles. The first began on page 1 and continued on page 2 under the headline 'Tory treasurer charges £250,000 to meet PM.' Page 1 also had a photograph of the Claimant. A sub-heading further reported that the day before 'Cameron's fundraiser [had been] forced to resign'. The second article was on pages 8 and 9 under the headline 'Cash for Cameron: cosy club buys the PM's ear'. The third article, also on page 9, had the headline, 'Pay the money this way and the party won't pry'. Page 9 carried the fourth article as well. This was written by Mark Adams under the headline 'Rotten to the Core'. These four articles in substantially the same form were also carried by the newspaper's website. The Sunday Times also published an editorial in the same issue on the theme 'Sack the Treasurer and Clean Up Lobbying.'
The claim form issued on 24 th July 2012 complained of the first three articles, their republication on the website, but not the fourth article or the editorial. The original Particulars of Claim were served two days later on 26 th July 2012. the first three articles (but not the fourth article or the editorial) were alleged to be defamatory of the Claimant. The first three articles were also said to be malicious falsehoods. Malice is an essential ingredient of malicious falsehood and it is the Claimant's case that the 1 st and 2 nd Defendants each published those first three articles maliciously and that the 3 rd Defendant is vicariously responsible for their torts. The Claimant pleads that the meanings attributed to the articles (for the purpose of his claims in both defamation and malicious falsehood) were as follows:
"(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 Lichtenstein 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."
The Defendants' defence in summary takes issue with the meanings attributed to the words by the Claimant, pleads justification in alternative meanings to the defamation claims, denies that the articles were false, were published maliciously or that they were calculated to cause him pecuniary damage in respect of his profession or business. While not accepting that the articles did have the following meanings, the Defendants are prepared to justify them if they did have those meanings:
" (1) That what the Claimant said in the course of a meeting on 15 th March 2012, as co—Treasurer and Board member of the Conservative Party, in claiming:
a) that the Conservative Party would accept large donations from persons whose sole purpose in making the donations was to advance their business interests by obtaining direct access to the Prime Minister, by lobbying on policy areas affecting their business and by moving in circles where they would pick up useful intelligence to progress their business strategy;
b) That in return for six-figure donations, such persons would be able to achieve that purpose in the ways they wanted; and
c) That in return for donations of £250,000 a year, they would obtain special access to the Prime Minister and senior governments ministers, would get noticed and be taken really seriously, would be able to operate at a higher level within the Party (and, thus, the Government) and would have things open up' for them;
was inappropriate, unacceptable and wrong and gave rise to an impression of impropriety.
"(2) That the Claimant, when faced with the prospect of donations being made to the Conservative Party from an overseas fund (which was not itself eligible to make donations under the relevant law), was prepared to contemplate ways in which donations from that source could be made to the Party, namely;
a) Through using a legal loophole that would permit a UK company, carrying on business within the jurisdiction, to make donations from such a source; or
b) By having individuals on the UK electoral register make donations in their own name;
even though the use of either route would result in the concealment of the true source of the donation, contrary to the spirit of the law which was intended to ensure that the source of any donation over £7,500 would be made public."
Alternatively, if (which the Defendants deny) the words complained of had the following meaning, the Defendants say they were also true,
"in return for cash donations to the Conservative Party, the Claimant corruptly offered for sale the opportunity to seek to influence government policy and gain unfair advantage through secret meetings with the Prime Minister and other senior ministers."
For the most part the amendments which the Claimant wishes to make to the Particulars of Claim are to the particulars of malice (in paragraph 7.8 onwards). The Claimant explains that they have been prompted by disclosure which the Defendants have provided.
The Defendants object only to some of the proposed amendments and it is therefore only those which I need to consider.
The starting position is that
"Amendments in general ought to be allowed so that the real dispute between the parties can be adjudicated upon provided that any prejudice to the other party can be compensated for in costs, and the public interest in the administration of justice is not significantly harmed." — see Cobbold v Greenwich LBC 9 August 1999 unreported, CA.
As is apparent from the date of that case it was decided very shortly after the introduction of the Civil Procedure Rules, but Ms Rogers QC, on behalf of the Defendants, did not suggest it had been overtaken in a way material to this case. Nor did she argue that the Defendants would be prejudiced in a way which could not be compensated in costs because the matters which the Claimant wished to plead were coming in by way of amendment rather than in the original pleading.
Mr Browne QC, on behalf of the Claimant, also accepted that permission to amend could be refused if the proposed pleaded case would be liable to be struck out or subject to summary judgment on that aspect in the Defendants' favour. In those circumstances, giving permission to amend would be fruitless and lead to wasteful expense.
The test for summary judgment in CPR 24.2 is that there is no realistic prospect of success for the issue in question and there is no other compelling reason why that issue should be tried. There is a complication in this case that the Defendants have exercised their rights under s.69(1) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 for trial by judge and jury. At trial, issues of malice will (largely) be ones of fact for a jury to decide. One of the other applications which the Claimant has made is for mode of trial to be changed to judge alone, but for the time being, I must assume that the trial will involve a jury. That fact does not preclude the possibility of summary judgment (or the refusal of leave to amend because the pleading would be vulnerable to an application for summary judgment) but it does mean that a more circumspect view should be taken as to whether there is or is not a realistic prospect of the issue in question being successful. In essence the question becomes whether a...
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Peter Cruddas v Jonathan Calvert and Others
...orders on the Claimant's applications for permission to amend. I gratefully adopt the summary of the dispute he gave in his judgment [2013] EWHC 1096 (QB). 3 The Claimant is a businessman. In March 2012 he was the Co-Treasurer of the Conservative Party. The Third Defendant is the publisher ......