Tessa Anna Verrall (Plaintiff) Appellant) v Guardian Newspapers and Others Respondents)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE PURCHAS,LORD JUSTICE STOCKER |
| Judgment Date | 26 June 1986 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1986] EWCA Civ J0626-3 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Docket Number | 86/0624 |
| Date | 26 June 1986 |
[1986] EWCA Civ J0626-3
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
(MR. JUSTICE STAUGHTON)
Royal Courts of Justice.
Lord Justice Purchas
and
Lord Justice Stocker
86/0624
1984 V. No. 713
THE APPELLANT appeared in person.
MR. GEOFFREY SHAW (instructed by Messrs. Lovell White & King) appeared on behalf of the (Defendants) Respondents.
This is an appeal by the plaintiff, Tessa Anna Verrall, against an order made by Mr. Justice Staughton on the 31st January, 1986 in proceedings in which she, as plaintiff, seeks damages for defamation arising out of an article published by the defendants, the Guardian Newspapers, the Guardian & Manchester Evening News and Alan Rusbridger. (I shall refer to them comprehensively as "the defendants" hereafter).
The order of Mr. Justice Staughton was an interlocutory order dealing with pleadings in a defamation action. The appeal of course raises technical questions of pleading, and in the approach to the problems sight must not be lost of that position in this case.
Very shortly, the history of the matter is as follows. In 1984 there was an action brought by a Mr. Harrington in relation to activities on thepart of students of the North London Polytechnic who prevented Mr. Harrington, to whose political standing and views they objected, from attending lectures. The matter came before, inter alia, Mr. Justice Mars-Jones, who had to deal with the question of the picketing. It is not necessary in this judgment for me to go into any detail of that action, save to say that a point arose when photographs had been taken of young men and young women being in breach of orders of the court by interfering with Mr. Harrington's right to attend the lectures. A photograph had been taken showing persons' behaving in this way who would be vulnerable to an action for contempt of court if identified, and the relevant issue being considered was the identification by lecturers or others who were employed at polytechnic and whether or not their identification would expose them to retaliatory action on the part of the political body with which Mr. Harrington sympathised and of which he was still then a member, namely the National Front.
In the course of the Harrington action the application for identification of such persons was being dealt with in chambers by Mr. Justice Mars-Jones. It was in fact the subject of a number of articles published by the defendants—one on the 12th May, 1984, another on the 16th May, a second article on the 16th May, and another on the 18th May, to which Mrs. Verrall has drawn our attention. One of these confirmed that she was being careful not to be in breach of an undertaking—to which I must refer in a moment—not to disclose any information as to the identity of students which might come into her possession as a result of the judge's order to identify persons in the photograph.
The particular article about which Mrs. Verrall makes complaint in her action was published on the 18th May under the heading "Diary". The part of the article of which complaint is made I shall set out in this judgment for the sake of convenience, and I am reading from paragraph 4 of the statement of claim:
"The North London Polytechnic is in an especially awkward position in respect of Mr Justice Mars-Jones order that they should identify students photographed picketing Mr Harrington. The judge has declared that the students will not come to harm from the [National Front] because their names and addresses should only be given to the lawyers involved.
This is fine as far as it goes. But Mr. H's solicitor is one Tessa Sempik, who has acted for Martin Webster in the past"—I assume that he was a notorious member of the National Front—"and who is married to Richard Verrall, once a leading [National Front] light and pseudonymous author of Did Six Million Really Die?"—again, I interpolate, which is a reference to the holocaust.
Tessa Sempik practises under that name and is a solicitor on her own, and she has appeared before us as a litigant in person. I would take this opportunity at once to pay tribute to the skilful and attractive manner in which she has presented her case as well as to acknowledge the assistance that we have had from Mr. Shaw, who has appeared for the defendants.
The statement of claim, apart from setting out that extract, pleads as follows:
"5. The said words in their natural and ordinary meaning meant and were understood to mean that the Plaintiff could not be relied upon to act with professional integrity but on the contrary would act improperly, dishonourably and in breach of her duty as an officer of the Supreme Court of Judicature and namely that the Plaintiff would pass on the names and addresses of students photographed picketing disclosed to her to the political organisation known as the National Front."
In paragraph 6 there is an alternative meaning pleaded, namely:
"The said words in their natural and ordinary meaning further meant and were understood to mean that the Plaintiff was a member of the said National Front political party or alternatively that she was a sympathiser of it."
That statement of claim was originally served on the 15th June, 1984—that is, within a month of the publication of the article—and amended in a minor manner, which is not relevant, and re-served some 14 days later.
The defence, originally served on the 2nd August, 1984, denied that the words bore or were understood to bear the meanings alleged in paragraphs 5 and 6, and then, in paragraph 4, set up a defence of fair comment, to the details of which I do not propose to refer for the moment except to say that under the particulars there were no less than eight paragraphs and some sub-paragraphs to paragraphs 6 and 8. They were extensive particulars. Then in paragraph 5 a defence of justification was pleaded, and the particulars pleaded under paragraph 4 were repeated in general but not seriatim. There were then general details of other paragraphs of the amended statement of claim, which are not relevant.
So at that early stage—August 1984—the battle lines were drawn; the two alternative meanings pleaded, and the defences, first of all, of denial of either of the meanings as pleaded and then the defences of fair comment and justification.
In February 1985 the plaintiff issued a summons under Order 18, rule 19(1), in which she sought to strike out paragraph 3 of the defence (which is the denial of the meanings alleged in the statement of claim),paragraphs 4 and and 5 (the two defences to which I have already referred), and also paragraphs 7 and 8 (which, generally speaking, put in issue the question of damage).
Not surprisingly, the learned master gave an early indication that to seek to strike out paragraph 3 was opening one's mouth far too wide. Very properly the plaintiff did not pursue that allegation, but she pursued her application to strike out paragraphs 4, 5 and 6 as an abuse of the process of the court. The master dismissed her applications.
In the meanwhile she had filed an affidavit, sworn on the 23rd March, 1985. Exhibited thereto were a number of documents, all of which were important but some are relevant to this appeal; in particular, some of the records of judgments and an affidavit sworn by her husband, Mr. Verrall, in which he admitted that he had been at the material time a member of the National Front, but alleging that he no longer was and that he disassociated himself from that organisation.
The master dismissed the applications on the 27th June, 1985. The plaintiff then appealed. The appeal was heard by Mr. Justice Staughton on the 15th January, 1986. The learned judge has made available to us a note of his judgment both on that occasion and on the subsequent occasion, in relation to which this appeal has formally been brought. Mr. Shaw, however, acknowledges that there are matters which were really dealt with on the first occasion, the 15th January, as appears from the notice of appeal, and, notwithstanding the formal position,he does not object to the court having regard to both occasions upon which the plaintiff appeared by way of appeal before Mr. Justice Staughton. I now read from the learned judge's note about what happened on the first occasion:
"On that occasion I considered that the Defence was objectionable on two grounds:-
(i) It did not say which of the matters pleaded as Particulars of Fair Comment were known to the Defendants when the article was written, it having been accepted by both Counsel that only facts which were so known could be relied upon in support of the Defence of fair comment. It seemed to me to be very likely in issue whether the facts pleaded were known to the author of the article. I therefore ordered that Further and Better Particulars be served by the Defendants, stating which facts were within their knowledge at the time they had published the article.
(ii) That the particulars under paragraph 4(viii)"—and I must refer to that in a moment—"of the Defence, as it then stood, were stated to be in support of an allegation that Richard Verrall was a leading member of the National Front. It appeared quite probable that the Plaintiff would admit that Verrall was a leading member of the National Front; and, upon inquiry, I was told that this was admitted. This part of the pleading was, in these circumstances, wholly unnecessary; and it widened the area of inquiry. I therefore...
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