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Two rival press barons, an author and a question of pornography
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent15 Jul 2009
Newspaper boss Richard Desmond today told a libel jury that he objected to being called a pornographer.
Mr Desmond, owner of Express newspapers, was being cross-examined for a second day in his libel action against Tom Bower over the author's biography of Conrad Black.
Mr Desmond was confronted in the witness box with a 2002 article in the Sunday Telegraph, then owned by Mr Black's group Hollinger, headlined “Desmond laid bare”.
Asked if there was anything offensive in the article, Mr Desmond initially said it was “a bit tabloidy but the financial information would seem correct”.
Asked by Ronald Thwaites QC, representing Mr Bower, if it referred to him as a “pornographer”, Mr Desmond replied: “No.”
But it was then pointed out that the sub headline stated “Express owner relies on pornography”.
“Is the association with the label of pornographer' something you find offensive or not?” asked Mr Thwaites.
Mr Desmond said: “Yes.” But he then denied that the article had added “a twist to the vendetta with Conrad Black and Hollinger”.
Mr Thwaites, who yesterday accused Mr Desmond of being prepared to tell lies “at the drop of a hat” in order to promote his case, asked: “Did you order that there had to be an article against Black that Sunday as part of a tit-for-tat?”
Mr Desmond replied: “No, I didn't order that article or any other article.”
He had already told the court it would be “unacceptable” for a newspaper owner to use his paper to act out his grudges, and he did not believe any owner did that.
Mr Desmond is suing Mr Bower over allegations in his book Conrad And Lady Black: Dancing On The Edge which he claims are defamatory and false.
He says that Mr Bower claimed Mr Desmond abused his position to pursue a personal vendetta against Black and was then forced into a humiliating climbdown. Mr Bower denies libel and says that what he wrote was substantially true and was not, in any event, defamatory.
Yesterday Mr Desmond told the jury that he had never read any of Mr Bower's books — but today he was shown an article in the Sunday Times in 2006 in which he named Tom Bower as his favourite author. Mr Desmond said yesterday that he first read the Black biography on holiday in Majorca in August 2007.
He branded the passage about himself inaccurate and “a terrible thing to say about somebody” in a reference book which would be read for many years. He said: “I read books about Beaverbrook and Rothermere today. I read these books, I believe these books and I quote these books.”
Mr Desmond said that he had flown to Florida by private jet last week to try to see Lord Black, who is serving a prison sentence for fraud.
He said that he had been told by Barbara Amiel, Black's wife, that “you can try but I don't think you will get in”.
Mr Desmond was turned away and told the court: “Maybe I had seen too many films and thought Mr Black was like Fletcher in Porridge — but the US prison is very different to what we see on TV and Porridge.”
Mr Desmond said that he believed that Conrad Black's evidence would be “crucial” to his case.
But Mr Thwaites told him: “You wanted the truth from a man you had called a crook and has since been convicted of being a crook?”
The case at the High Court continues.
