Robert Crow v Boris Johnson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE TUGENDHAT,Mr Justice Tugendhat |
| Judgment Date | 16 July 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2012] EWHC 1982 (QB) |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 16 July 2012 |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ12D01579 |
[2012] EWHC 1982 (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: HQ12D01579
Jonathan Crystal (instructed by Thompsons Solicitors) for the Claimant
David Glen (instructed by Collyer Bristow LLP) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 16 July 2012
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.
The Claimant in this action ("Mr Crow") is the General Secretary of the RMT, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. In this libel action he sues the Defendant ("Mr Johnson"), who is now the Mayor of London, in respect of leaflets that Mr Johnson published as part of his campaign to secure re-election to that office at the election held on 3 May 2012. As every Londoner knows, Mr Johnson's predecessor in the office of Mayor of London was Mr Ken Livingstone. Mr Livingstone had been Mayor until 2008, when Mr Johnson was first elected. Mr Livingstone was also a candidate for election in May 2012. Mr Livingstone is not making any claim in this action and is not a party to it.
Mr Crow was not a candidate for election, but he is referred to as Bob Crow in the leaflets he complains of. Mr Crow is very well known to Londoners, because most of them are dependant upon railways, both mainline and underground, to get to and from work. He has been General Secretary of the RMT since February 2002. As he describes it in his witness statement, his union, and he himself, use every opportunity to drive home their positive agenda for better pay, shorter hours and safer working conditions, and members of the union can rely on them to protect and promote members' interests in the workplace.
There is no dispute between the parties that in the course of pursuing these aims, the RMT has called something of the order of twenty strikes on the London Underground since February 2002. It is a matter of common knowledge that strikes cannot be called without the support of members of the union expressed through ballots. But strikes are also controversial. Just as there are some members of the public who support the actions taken by Mr Crow and the RMT, there are other members of the public who oppose and deplore these strikes.
The leaflets in question were issued in very large numbers, and in two versions. Mr Crow initially complained of only one of the two versions. Mr Johnson drew attention to the fact that there had been another version. Mr Crow now applies for permission to amend his claim form to sue on both versions.
Mr Johnson contends that neither version is capable of bearing any meaning defamatory of Mr Crow, or at least none sufficiently serious to constitute a real and substantial tort. So Mr Johnson applied for an order that the proceedings should be struck out. If he is held to be wrong about that, Mr Johnson would not oppose the amendment, for which Mr Crow seeks permission, to enable Mr Crow to complain about both versions of the leaflet.
Copies of the front of both leaflets (the same in each case) and the back of the second are attached to this judgment. There is a difference on the backs of the leaflet only in a few of the quotations from newspapers which are set out. What Mr Crow complains of is that the leaflet includes:
"Not Again: Ken wants to come back with his … Council Tax rises, Broken promises, cronies, scandals, waste Bob Crow. NotKenAgain. com"
Mr Crystal does not submit that there is any difference between the backs of the two versions of the leaflet which is material to any decision that the court has to make at this stage of the proceedings. Both leaflets include cuttings from the Evening Standard dated 11 December 207 and 4 August 2008. The first reads "Ken and lost £500,000: the inquiry begins" and the second reads "The £1m payoff for Ken cronies". In the first leaflet three other cuttings are from the Evening Standard. The one dated 5 February 2001 reads: "I will be on the picket line next time vows Ken". The one dated 16 September 2004 reads: "Ken's U-turn on fares 'will drive people back to cars'". The one dated 4 October 2005 reads: "Ken's huge fares rise". In the second leaflet there is a cutting from The Independent dated 10 January 2001 which reads: "Livingstone promises to join Tube workers' picket".
The meanings which Mr Crow attributes to the words he complains of in the original Particulars of Claim are:
"1.The Claimant's policies, leadership of the RMT and association with Mr Livingstone: (a) seriously damages his electoral prospects and (b) has caused and will cause grave harm to the interests of Londoners.
2. The Claimant was part of and supported a culture of political immorality involving broken promises, cronyism, scandals and waste".
In the draft amended Particulars of Claim Mr Crow attributes to the words he complains of an additional third meaning:
"3. The claimant was part of a corrupt, scandalous, unaccountable and wasteful group of cronies".
The task of the court at this stage is to decide whether the words complained of are capable of bearing the meanings defamatory of Mr Crow which Mr Crow attributes to them, or any other meaning defamatory of Mr Crow: CPR Practice Direction 53 para 4.1. If I find that the words complained of are capable of bearing any meaning defamatory of Mr Crow, then the decision as to what the words actually mean, will be taken at a later stage, probably at a trial. If I find that the leaflets are not capable of bearing any meaning defamatory of Mr Crow, then the existing claim form, and the proposed amendment, will each disclose no reasonable grounds for bringing the claim, and it will be my duty to strike it out under CPR r.3.4(2)(a).
The law that I must apply at this stage is not controversial. It is the same on each of the two questions raised in relation to the words complained of in this case: are the words capable of being defamatory at all? And are the capable of being understood as referring to Mr Crow?
The law can conveniently be taken from the judgment of Thomas LJ in Modi v Clarke [2011] EWCA Civ 937 paras 10 to 12:
"10. There was no dispute as to the applicable law. Although there are a number of well-known definitions of the legal meaning of the word "defamatory", the case proceeded before the judge on the basis of the definition used by Sir Thomas Bingham, MR in Skuse v Granada Television Limited [1996] EMLR 278 at 286 where he said:
"A statement should be taken to be defamatory if it would tend to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally or would be likely to affect a person adversely in the estimation of reasonable people generally."
11. In deciding what meaning the words complained of were capable of bearing, it was again common ground that the court must have in mind the guidance given in Skuse v Granada Television, summarised most recently by Sir Anthony Clarke MR in Jeynes v News Magazines Limited [2008] EWCA Civ 130 at paragraph 14:
"The legal principles relevant to meaning … may be summarised in this way: (1) The governing principle is reasonableness. (2) The hypothetical reasonable reader is not naïve but he is not unduly suspicious. He can read between the lines. He can read in an implication more readily than a lawyer and may indulge in a certain amount of loose thinking but he must...
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