I am,personally, deeply puzzled about the Lord McAlpine defamation case. I wish someone could explain to me the following:
1. Old not hot gossip
As online gossip about Lord McAlpine in connection with children’s homes and child abuse circles has been around since the 1990′s; some of them blatantly casting his involvement in child abuse as fact, far worse that what has transpired since; why didn’t he act on those responsible back then?
There were insinuations about his relative “Jimmie” McAlpine who lived near one of the North Wales children’s homes. He is dead now, but as Lord McAlpine wants to clear his family name – why wasn’t action taken?
The key to this is that had Lord McAlpine taken action earlier, this gossip would not have implicated him or his family when the public were looking for “Senior Tory Paedophiles” following Tom Watson’s initial parliament question on further investigation of “A Paedophile ring with links to 10 Downing Street”.
As there were lots of stories, including an in-depth article from “Scallywag” magazine, now defunct, naming Lord McAlpine and his cousin; we can see this is how his name got into the frame as a “key suspect”.
It also puzzles me that people were twittering about Lord McAlpine before the initial Newsnight programme was actually aired. I expect it was due to the material referred to above.
2. Newsnight
For the sake of clarity, I downloaded the programme that had been fined £185,000 for defaming Lord McAlpine. I watched it very carefully and Lord McAlpine was not named. Nor were heavy hints dropped that could lead to Lord McAlpine being wrongly identified with the accusations.
Why did the BBC settle with Lord McAlpine out of court when they HAD NOT defamed him nor contributed to the material already in existence on the web for many years?
3. ITV
Philip Scofield passed a card to David Cameron on TV, containing names of Tory Party members who had been named on the Internet. No names were mentioned. You could not see the names on the card. I have no doubt that Lord McAlpine or simply the McAlpine name was on that list, as anyone who did a quick search online would come across the old material above. But why is only Lord McAlpine filing for defamation as there were clearly others on the (UNSEEN) list. Again, I don’t understand why ITV was fined £125,000 without going to court to defend the fact that they had NOT PUBLICLY named Lord McAlpine or any of the others on the list.
4. Twitter
The gossip from the large amount of online material that implicated Lord McAlpine and other members of the McAlpine family, obviously informed those that mentioned his name on Twitter.
THIS IS THE MATERIAL THAT IS AT FAULT – NOT ITV OR BBC. Why isn’t Lord McAlpine taking action against the originators of the defamation, not those that were merely repeating it.
Why are Twitter users being expected to settle out of court?
I’m no lawyer, but even a layperson like myself can find information on UK Defamation Law and I would like to draw people’s attention to the following clauses:
(6) Fair Comment and statements made in good faith
Fair comment on a matter of public interest, arguments made with an honest belief in their soundness on a matter of public interest (such as regarding official acts) are defendable against a defamation claim, even if such arguments are logically unsound; if a reasonable person could honestly entertain such an opinion, the statement is protected.
Statements made in a good faith and reasonable belief that they were true are generally treated the same as true statements; however, the court may inquire into the reasonableness of the belief. The degree of care expected will vary with the nature of the defendant: an ordinary person might safely rely on a single newspaper report, while the newspaper would be expected to carefully check multiple sources.
Could those that named McAlpine on Twitter be said to be making:
A) A fair comment on a matter of public interest?
B) A statement made in good faith and reasonable belief that it was true?
This would have to be tested in a court of law, but it seems that those Twitterer’s may be able to prove a case.
5. Damage to personal reputation
Of course, Lord McAlpine wants to defend his name as he states he is entirely innocent. He also fears that “mud sticks” and that he will always suffer from the distasteful allegations made about him.
May I venture to suggest that MORE damage is being done to Lord McAlpine’s personal reputation in the way his lawyers are going about extracting money from people who HAVE NOT MENTIONED HIS NAME and for threatening to muzzle free comment on social network sites like Twitter.
If I had speculated about Lord McAlpine on Twitter about this case, I would want to go to court because it seems there is more to this than meets the eye and I smell a rat. Free Speech on social networks is important, particularly as our mainstream media owners have both political and business biases that colour their version of the news. We cannot rely on them to give us an even-handed version of the truth or to act in the public interest.
Paradoxically, the Levenson enquiry may muzzle them further so that they would not go near a controversial case like the North Wales Children Home abuse because they might offend people in high places and get sued. I don’t condone phone hacking or paying off corrupt policemen, but I do support gutsy investigative journalism.
I wonder if there is a journalist man or woman enough to investigate WHY the BBC and ITV paid out without a murmur, when the charges were unwarranted and who is responsible for dragging the McAlpine name into the mire originally and why?
I’d like to know. Bet many of you reading this do too.
There is a lot more to come out
If I may, I would like to offer up some answers to your questions.
2.Newsnight: Before the programme was aired the news agency with whom they compiled the programme began tweeting that on the next day’s newsnight a senior Tory would be named in the children’s homes sex abuse scandle. I also think this news agency leaked somewhere that the victim interviewed Steve had named McAlpine.
The thrust of Newsnight’s guilt in libel was to point people to twitter and the internet where they could easily find the name of the Tory big wig.
If someone unknown to either of us were to write and put up a poster in your local high street accusing you of being a Pedo and I stood there saying to everyone who passed “hey read that, that’s interesting” Under Uk law I would be guilty of desseminating the fasle statement about you.
That was the basis underwhich the BBC were compelled to fess up and settle out of court. They could have taken it all the way and win or loose, it would have cost the license payers upwards of a million pounds in protracted legal fees.
It was a shoddy piece of journalism. They didn’t check their facts; they didn’t establish who it was that the Victiom was talking about. Apart from his word; they were unable to present any other evidence about the alledged perpetrator.
When Woodood and Bernsteine were investigating Watergate, Ben Bradly the editor of the Washington Post would publish a single allegatuion of their’s without three confirming souirces of bits of evidence. They still managed to bring down the President and most of his men.
3. ITV: When the programme went out – the names could be clearly seen. All subsequent showings of that clip have been blurded because by showing the names, with McApline’s at the top, they had propogated the libel as well drawing attention to it on the internet and twitter.
There’s no way that the BBC or ITV would have paid out tens of thousands of pounds without talking very seriously with their lawyers. Had they any evidence against mcAlpine then they would have stuck to their guns and fought the case. But the lawyers must have known that they had none.
4: Twitter: we are back to the poster in your High street. By Tweeting and re tweeting you are drawing people’s attention to the original libel. Hey – look at this! Most of the internet traffic on this subject is merely repeating something already published. I had a good look round on the internet on McAlpine and I soon found that 99% of the material was the same material, mostly word for word. So – from somwhere came the original accusation about McAlpine and now it is being repeated ad infinitum.
You ask why McAlpine didn’t threaten legal action when the same rumours about him were circulating in the 1990′s. Well, I think that then the internet was fairly new and no one thought you could apply a nation’s law to such an international medium. He may well not even have been aware of these accusations in the 1990′s. Things have moved on a pretty pace and the legislators and lawyers have now caught up. Something does have to be done because anyone can smear anyone else at whim.
McAlpine himself said he could have just shrugged it all off and ignored the accusations, but people will always say – “There’s no smoke without fire” But when it comes to the Internet – plenty of smoke can be created without so much as a spark. Look at some of the horrible materioal published about the McCanns after Maddie went missing. They were accussed of every sin under the Sun. I read plenty of blogs by people convinced they had eaten, raped, killed, sold, lost their child. Nothing you said would convince these people otherwise.
Ofcourse we all think we are not like that – but we are.
“Look at some of the horrible materioal published about the McCanns after Maddie went missing. They were accussed of every sin under the Sun. I read plenty of blogs by people convinced they had eaten, raped, killed, sold, lost their child. Nothing you said would convince these people otherwise.”
What did happen to little Maddie? I don’t believe she has been eaten – but Im sure we can all agree that she has disappeared and nothing else. Who is right or wrong? Lets hope the truth about Maddie does come out.
Yes, a lot of strange theories were featured in the press and in talk in pubs, bars, offices and blogs.
No-one knows what really happened. It’s very sad.
But I still feel her parents should not have left such young children alone…although they are certainly not to blame if a paedophile ring snatched her.
They weren’t just rumours in the 1990s. If you google Scallwag magazine you can find a long article giving very detailed allegations against McAlpine. I have no idea if the allegations were well founded or not because McAlpine did not sue the magazine. One of the editors died in a car crash in Cyprus in 1996 and the other in 2000. A letter written by Simon Regan, the editor who died last, in the wake of the Waterhouse report, is published here:
http://google-law.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/scallywag-magazine-how-torys-cover-up.html
Again, it makes specific allegations against various Tories but it does not name McAlpine.
So, with respect, I’m not sure that your opinions about the soundness of McAlpine’s case are correct. The allegations against him were already in the public prints and were firm allegations, not just rumours. He could have sued the magazine which originally published them but did not.
I have seen legal opinion quoted which says that McAlpine’s case against Twitter users is hopeless and is all a bluff. But perhaps you are a libel lawyer and can correct me.
I agree, if people don’t pay up, he has an ice-cream’s chance in hell of getting anywhere. It will be interesting to see where this goes. I don’t think he has a sound case (did it read that way? sorry!). Thank you for the link as well.
Only fear I have is certain parties using this as an excuse to try and create restrictions online.
Just read all the links. All I can say WOW! This is quite damning material if true. I will no further comment about it.
I am not trained in legal matters and was merely expressing my opinion and trying to clarify the positions of the BBC and ITV with respect to the settlement last week to McAlpine for Scarlet.
Bob It’s as Alice says: curiouser and curiouser…
Yes, the payments made by the BBC and ITV are very puzzling. In the case of the BBC, extremely irritating, as it’s our money. So far as I can see, there are two possibilities in view of what appears to be the weakness of McAlpine’s position. Either the Beeb and ITV have simply caved in to bullying or there is a hidden agenda. The details published by Scallwag go right to the heart of the Tory Party and the Establishment. Some of the people who were alleged to have been part of a paedophile ring and were close to Thatcher were convicted of paedophilia and went to prison. This seems to lend credence to the allegations made against McAlpine and others by Scallywag. The Police and Waterhouse do seem to have buried evidence, like the photographs given to the Police by Steve Messham and on and on. We know from Hillsborough that the Police are not entirely trustworthy, to say the least and it is alleged that a senior police officer was involved in the ring.
There is a huge amount of detail available on the net if one cares to look for it. I know “one should not believe everything one reads on the internet” but there is a lot of smoke involving very powerful people and “We had no idea”, involving Jimmy Saville is a bit like the entire German population having no idea about the Nazi’s concentration camps after the war.
One thing we can be certain of is that the nasty party seems to be even nastier than we realised.
This is also really interesting
MCALPINE TO SUE GOOGLE OVER SCALLYWAG BUT THERE I… http://google-law.blogspot.com/2012/11/mcalpine-to-sue-google-over-scallywag.html?spref=tw
and details of why Scallywag published
MCALPINE DID NOT SUE SCALLYWAG WHY? http://google-law.blogspot.com/2012/11/mcalpine-did-not-sue-scallywag-why.html?spref=tw
There really is something very fishy about this whole McLibel scandal
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Again, well done A: for actually writing about it and B: For asking the important questions surrounding it. It is my opinion that Lord McA was always kept on the Back Burner for a situation such as this. The rumours about him were always out there, but as the original authors of Scallywag were firstly put out of business by John Major over accusations of him of having an affair. He was by the way, they just got the name Wrong. (Take a bow Edwina Currie). Said Scallywag authors were later dealt with in a more permanent fashion by persons unknown. Lord McA was then brought out to throw his considerable weight and cash around to bury the emerging Jimmy Savile story that was threatening to lead all the way to the heart of the Tory Government Lord McA had served in, as well as maybe further up the food chain… Just my Two Pennysworth….
Do you think they will succeed in burying the Savile scandal? I fear you may be right that the enquiries Cameron has set up are intended to do that, in the way the Waterhouse enquiry did. On the other hand, the Internet was then in its infancy. I wonder …
There’s a big clue in the name of the new NW Wales enquiry – Operation Pallial : pallia is Latin for cloak and we all know that a palliative is a drug used to cloak the symptoms but not effect a cure. But I might be giving them too much credit!
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Good lord! Well spotted indeed! Pallia is actually the plural of pallium, a cloak, is it not?
But, then, the Tories have appointed two enquiries instead of one over-arching one, a classic means of obscuring the truth, so the name may well be deliberately chosen. I have no doubt Latin is still taught at Eton and the toffs may well be giggling thinking we plebs will not spot the significance of the name. Pallial is such a strange name for an enquiry that I think you are probably spot on.
I stumbled across this interesting interview last night. There’s too much talk but I think there are nuggets in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydKHMORokNw
I also made a note of this film about the Jersey child abuse. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq6lJsBz9UY Haven’t watched it yet but it is by an abuse victim.