Sir Kevin Barron MP and Others v Jane Collins MEP

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
JudgeMr Justice Warby
Judgment Date29 April 2015
Neutral Citation[2015] EWHC 1125 (QB)
Docket NumberCase No: IHJ/15/0034
CourtQueen's Bench Division
Date29 April 2015
Between:
(1) Sir Kevin Barron MP
(2) RT Hon John Healey MP
(3) Sarah Champion MP
Claimants
and
Jane Collins MEP
Defendant

[2015] EWHC 1125 (QB)

Before:

The Honourable Mr Justice Warby

Case No: IHJ/15/0034

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

Royal Courts of Justice

Strand, London, WC2A 2LL

Gavin Millar QC (instructed by Steel & Shamash Solicitors) for the Claimants

Kate Wilson (instructed by RMPI LLP) for the Defendant

Hearing date: 20 April 2015

Mr Justice Warby
1

This is the trial of preliminary issues in this action for defamation. The Claimants are all Labour Party MPs for constituencies in the Rotherham area. The first Claimant has been the MP for Rother Valley since 1983. The second Claimant has represented Wentworth and Dearne since 1997. The third Claimant is the MP for the constituency of Rotherham, having won a by-election in November 2012, as successor to Denis MacShane. All three are standing again at the forthcoming election. The Defendant is the MEP for Rotherham, a member of the UK Independence Party, and is the UKIP candidate for the Rotherham constituency.

2

The Claimants' claims for slander and libel arise from a speech given by the Defendant at the UKIP Conference on 26 September 2014, which was broadcast live on the BBC Parliament channel, and republished in whole or in part on the UKIP website, Twitter, and the Press Association Mediapoint wire service. The speech took as its main theme the sexual exploitation of children in the Rotherham area, which had become a national scandal following a report by Professor Alexis Jay, published in August 2014. The Defendant focused on the role of the Labour Party, including that of Rotherham Council and made reference to "the three Labour MPs for the Rotherham area".

3

The Claimants allege that the words I have just quoted will have been understood as a reference to each of them. Their case is that the speech meant, of each of them, that they "knew of the horrific sexual abuse of around 1,400 children in Rotherham over sixteen years but failed to act, keeping quiet and allowing the abuse to continue because it suited their political purposes." It is the Claimants' case that this is an allegation of fact.

4

The Defendant does not dispute that her speech referred to the first and second Claimants but, for reasons that I will come to, she denies that a reasonable person would have understood it to refer to the third Claimant. The Defendant disputes the Claimants' pleaded meaning which fails, she submits, to capture what her speech said about Rotherham MPs. Her case is that this was a political speech and that the words complained of, properly assessed, do not contain any allegation of fact about the Claimants. Rather, they expressed an opinion to the effect that the Labour MPs in Rotherham at the time the sexual exploitation was rife "are likely to have known that sexual exploitation was a serious problem in the area."

5

The Defendant says that if, contrary to her primary case, the words are factual they mean that "in light of the widespread knowledge amongst members of the Labour Party in Rotherham, which had been running the council for years, that child sexual exploitation was rife in the town, there are reasons to believe that the Claimants, as members of the same political party and MPs at the time, knew that sexual exploitation was a serious problem."

6

The preliminary issues for trial are, therefore: (1) the meaning of the words; (2) whether the words are fact or comment; (3) whether the words referred to the third Claimant. Those issues are tried as preliminary issues by the agreement of the parties, pursuant to a consent order covering issues (1) and (2), and a subsequent agreement to encompass the issue of reference.

7

Each of the three preliminary issues requires me to consider the words complained of, in their context.

The Defendant's speech

8

I shall set out the whole of the speech. The Claimants complain of certain specific words, which I shall underline, but they rely on the whole speech as relevant context for determining the meaning and effect of those words. It is, as ever, necessary in any event to consider the whole of a statement of which only parts are complained of.

9

The Defendant was introduced as "Our MEP for Yorkshire, and the next MP for Rotherham, Jane Collins". She then walked to the lectern and said this:

1. "Well, good morning Doncaster, and wow, I'm speechless. It's, it's amazing to see so many people here today and it's wonderful, it's absolutely wonderful.

2. The conference today is very much about a celebration of our party's bright future, about setting out our agenda for government with a raft of policies that will put the Great – they will put the Great — back into Great Britain.

3. But there's a great deal to do in order to repair our broken and unfortunately divided society, and my speech today will deal with an issue that highlights just how social engineering and political correctness has failed the most vulnerable people in our society today.

4. This issue highlights all the classic signs of failure that is in British politics at the moment. And the lack of backbone and the lack of moral courage of those individuals involved.

5. Earlier this year I was selected as the prospective Parliamentary candidate for the Rotherham Central constituency.

6. I knew it was going to be a hard fight. It has been in the grip of the Labour mafia for 80 years so I knew I had some work to do. But I didn't expect to be suddenly embroiled in a scandal that absolutely outraged the whole of the country.

7. At 12 o'clock on August 26th, Tuesday, I received a call giving me the first scant details of Professor Alexis Jay's report on child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. I sat at my desk listening as the call went on to outline the report. An estimated 1,400 children had been groomed, raped, trafficked for sex, over a period of 16 years. Mainly by Pakistani and Kashmiri men. I sat there totally dumbfounded and I thought to myself, well, surely there has been some mistake in the reporting of this issue. But there wasn't a mistake.

8. White girls had been targeted and abused by men of Asian origin, with little or no intervention from any of the town authorities.

9. Ladies and gentlemen, the details of the report are horrific, but the abuse had included children as young as 11 being trafficked, gang-raped, beaten, plied with alcohol or drugs, threatened with knives and guns, and one small child had petrol poured over them and said if they did not conform to what the gang wanted them to do they were going to be burned alive. Can you imagine the fear in a small child being told that?

10. Nearly every agency in Rotherham had grossly failed its duty to protect these children and this is despite the pleas from the victims and, please note, the frontline workers, who met a brick wall.

11. The report listed a catalogue of political, policing, and procedural failures in Rotherham that led to the police almost spending their time trying to disprove the victims' claims instead of actually trying to find the perpetrators and prosecute them for their crimes. It detailed how fathers tried to protect their children had actually been arrested in doing so.

12. Yet the abusers time and time again walked away, and why? It was because of their Asian origin.

13. It also explained that the Labour-run council and its officials had actually been given three separate reports on this over a period of time, but in 2005 had been sat down and given graphic details of what this abuse had actually been about — I wouldn't like to go into them because they are horrific — and still, and still there was no real positive action.

14. The report reiterated throughout warning after warning went unheeded in the town. And much of this was due, ladies and gentlemen, to political cowardness [sic] and worrying about keeping their vote.

15. My outrage as a mother, I can't explain today. It's beyond words stood here on this stage. The protection of children should never be about race, of the victim or of the offender. But it should instead be focused on stamping out these horrific crimes wherever and whatever community they are found in.

16. I am angry, very angry, with the perpetrators for treating the children in this way, but I am equally angry with those people in the position of power who could have intervened but chose not to through political correctness or, as shamed ex-Labour MP Denis MacShane — or MacShame as we call him — put it: 'because they are a bunch of liberal, lefties', too afraid to act through their own political selfishness.

17. But there is a great deal of work to be done in helping and supporting the victims of Rotherham. Something I am personally committed to getting involved with.

18. These young children and young adults deserve better, and I will do my best to provide what I can personally, but I am asking everybody here today: if you feel you can help me in any way, please, please, contact me after this conference because your help will be more than welcome.

19. From the outset of this scandal I called, and the party called, for resignations of all those directly involved. And we managed to bag a few, including that of Shaun Wright who was – pause for the boos — the Police Crime Commissioner who had served as a Council cabinet member for children's services. And Joyce Thacker the children's service director who led the persecution – and it was persecution – of the UKIP foster parents in 2012, while at the same time she allowed these horrific sex attacks to go on underneath her nose.

20. However there are many others that still have questions to answer, and possibly charges to face.

21. This includes the three Labour MPs for the Rotherham area. I am convinced that they knew many of the details of what was happening.

22. I am now calling for...

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