Peter Cruddas v Jonathan Calvert and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat,Mr Justice Tugendhat |
| Judgment Date | 05 June 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 1427 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ12D03024 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 05 June 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 1427 (QB)
The Honourable Mr Justice Tugendhat
Case No: HQ12D03024
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Desmond Browne QC and Matthew Nicklin QC (instructed by Slater and Gordon) for the Claimant
John Kelsey-Fry QC, Heather RogersQC andAidan Eardley (instructed by Bates Wells and Braithwaite) for the Defendants
Hearing dates: 21-22 May 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.
This action for libel and malicious falsehood is listed for 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 (ordered last November to be by judge sitting with a jury), 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 is now the principal issue before the court.
The application notice first came before Nicol J on 18 April. He made 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).
The Claimant is a businessman. 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 ("the 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, there is a comprehensive record of the meeting, some extracts from which I have viewed, and a transcript of it has been prepared and is annexed to the amended Particulars of Claim.
As a result on 25 th March 2012 the Sunday Times published four articles. The first ("the First Article") began on the front page and continued on page 2 under the headline 'Tory treasurer charges £250,000 to meet PM.' The front page 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 ("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 ("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 Website"). The Sunday Times also published an editorial ("the Editorial") in the same issue on the theme 'Sack the Treasurer and Clean Up Lobbying'. The reader of the Articles is referred to this by a direction printed at the end of the Second Article.
In addition, on page 2 there is printed an excerpt from the Claimant's letter of resignation, and on page 9 a report of a speech given in 2010 by David Cameron on lobbying.
The claim form issued on 24 th July 2012 complained of the whole of the First and Second Articles together with most of the Third Article, and their republication on the Website. It did not complain of the Fourth Article, the Editorial or the other two items. The original Particulars of Claim were served two days later on 26 th July 2012. The first three Articles 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 natural and ordinary of 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 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."
Mr Browne has referred to the Claimant's meaning in para 6(1) as "the Corruption meaning" and meanings in paras 6(2) and 6(3) as "the Breach of Electoral Law meanings".
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, and denies that the articles were false, or that they 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 stated that they are prepared to justify them if they did have those meanings. The Defendants do not raise a Reynolds defence in this case, nor any other defence of privilege (or public interest), nor do they raise a defence of honest comment. The issues on liability for defamation are (1) the meaning of the Articles, and, if the meanings are not higher than the meanings pleaded in paras 7 and 8 of the Amended Defence, then (2) whether in those meanings they are substantially true.
Two meanings which the Defendants are prepared to justify are set out in their Amended Defence at para 7 as follows:
"7(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.
7(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."
The third meaning which the Defendants say was also true (although they deny that the Articles bore this meaning) is:
8. … 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."
THE WORDS COMPLAINED OF
The First and Second Article, and the parts of the Third Article of which the Claimant complains, are as follows.
The First Article reads:
Tory treasurer charges £250,000 to meet PM
[1] A CO-TREASURER of the Conservative party was forced to resign early today after being filmed selling secret meetings with the prime minister in return for donations of £250,000 a year and boasting: "It will be awesome for your business."
[2] Peter Cruddas, the multimillionaire Tory fundraiser, offered a lobbyist and her two overseas clients direct access to David Cameron if they joined a "premier league" of donors who give six-figure sums.
[3] The offer was made even though he knew the money would come from a fund in Liechtenstein that was not eligible to make donations under election law.
[4] Options discussed included creating a British subsidiary or using UK employees as conduits for the donation.
[5] Cruddas resigned within hours of this newspaper publishing details of its investigation.
[6] The overseas clients he met were, in fact,...
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