A libel claim brought against local news publisher Mill Media has been thrown out as deputy prime minister David Lammy promised action against such groundless lawsuits intended to silence public interest reporting.
The publisher has nonetheless been left with costs of around £40,000 which it may not be able to recoup from the businessman whose activities it exposed.
A County Court judgment for £10,000 made against Cormac Kehoe, a freelance reporter for Mill Media, was thrown out last week after a judge ruled it was an “abuse of process”.
The same High Court judge also brought an end to a wider libel claim brought against Kehoe, Mill Media founder Joshi Herrmann and Mill Media itself in relation to the same story about entrepreneur Claudio De Giovanni’s alleged business activities, published by The Londoner in August last year.
The court action was condemned by Mill Media as a SLAPP (a strategic lawsuit against public participation).
And yesterday, in response to a question in Parliament, deputy prime minister David Lammy promised new defences for publishers against such claims in law (after such legislation was left out of the King’s Speech).
Lammy said: “We cannot allow the rich and powerful to use their resources to stop proper investigation and I will be bringing forward legislation as soon as time allows.”
County Court claim brought against journalist to ‘impose pressure’
High Court judge Mrs Justice Steyn said De Giovanni had brought the individual County Court case against Kehoe “for the express purpose of imposing pressure” ahead of the High Court libel claim and that pursuing both claims was “plainly an abuse of process”.
De Giovanni, of Green Lanes in London, had objected to an article headlined “Claudio is Scamming” which he said falsely “accuses me of repeated criminal and dishonest conduct, alleging that I unlawfully sublet properties, earn ‘tens of thousands of pounds a month’ through deception and leave landlords with ‘electrocution, filth and broken furniture’.”
Representing himself at a High Court hearing, he said the story had “a real and ongoing impact on his ability to work as an entrepreneur in the UK. He wishes to clear his name and has brought defamation proceedings for that purpose,” according to a court judgment.
Within days of publication De Giovanni brought a County Court defamation claim against Kehoe claiming damages of £5,000 and the court fee. Kehoe was then served with a default judgment at Bromley County Court requiring him to pay £10,000.
Mrs Justice Steyn set aside the County Court judgment and struck out the claim.
She said in a judgment that as well as bringing the defamation claim in the wrong court, it had not been served on Kehoe properly as it did not follow the correct pre-action protocol and it was served to an old address.
She also said that adding a further £5,000 to the default judgment beyond the initial £5,000 damages sought had “no justification” and was “an abuse”.
Parallel Mill Media libel claims ‘plainly an abuse of process’
Mrs Justice Steyn found that bringing “parallel defamation claims” against Kehoe in both the County Court and High Court in relation to the same story was “plainly an abuse of process”.
She said a claim for defamation should not have been brought in the County Court and that De Giovanni had done so “for the express purpose of imposing pressure in respect of the (then threatened) High Court claim.
“Bringing duplicate proceedings in parallel and for such a purpose is plainly an abuse of process. Moreover, having parallel proceedings running in tandem would be obstructive of justice.”
Kehoe told Press Gazette: “Thank God that’s over. I’m beyond grateful to Mill Media – if they didn’t stand behind me, I would’ve been under ten times the pressure.
“My case highlights the absurdity of the system and the desperate need for the Government to stop talking about it and just press ahead with desperately needed reforms. The system, as is, serves only those it shouldn’t.”
[Read more: Top libel lawyers ‘killed off’ legislation to protect public interest reporting]
In her judgment Mrs Justice Steyn also granted several applications from the Mill Media team fighting the case, resulting in it being thrown out as it had not been served properly.
Herrmann told Press Gazette: “Our first goal was to get rid of the County Court judgment against Cormac which had happened despite him not being served properly. We thought it was incredibly abusive and predatory to sue a journalist personally in a County Court.
“It was incredibly stressful for Cormac so we are really glad that that’s been struck out and we are also really glad that the judge put a stop to the High Court claim because he [De Giovanni] didn’t do it properly.”
Herrmann said the result was a “huge relief and it’s a big victory for standing by your journalism”.
“I think the message of this case is don’t abuse the British justice system to get stories taken down when they are based on valid journalism,” he added. “We will always stand up and fight it… It’s really good to see that this attempt to misuse the system to suppress good journalism has failed.”
[Read more: Joshi Herrmann says legal threats are ‘big drain on our time and resources’]
Mill Media continues to fight one ongoing court case relating to Liverpool Post reporting that questioned why former TV historian Laurence Westgaph was hired by a major cultural institution.
That case has been brought in the County Court as a data protection claim, rather than libel. A trial is due to be held next month.
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