CSM case:

Yesterday, Chris published a video message on Twitter following his libel victory in the High Court. The transcript of that video is now available, as follows:

Every day many thousands of innocent people are victims of online abuse and hate crimes. This can be racially, religiously or politically motivated. It can be generated in regard to gender politics, environmental beliefs, body shaming.

This vile part of modern life ruins lives, livelihoods, reputations, it disrupts young peoples educations, causes incalculable mental health problems and tragically causes people to take their own lives.

As it stands the criminal law is simply not there to protect us from such hate – something that must change. The current governments ‘Online Safety Bill’ is plodding along. In the meantime a tiny minority of victims are able to take civil action.

I have won my defamation case and been awarded costs and substantial damages.

Who are the defendants?

Dominic Wightman is the editor of Country Squire Magazine. His friend and business associate is a former director of the Countryside Alliance. He claims to be or have been variously an expert on Islamic extremism and terrorism, a gold dealer, the owner of a bank, to have been working for right-wing think tanks and a search engine optimisation expert.

Nigel Bean has a keen interest in fox hunting, having ridden to hounds for thirty five years. He writes the pro hunting ‘The Aldenham’ blog.

Paul Read is the proof reader for some of the defamatory articles for Country Squire Magazine and retweeted the links to them. The court dismissed the claims against him.

At the outset of this litigation the Country Squire website carried the British Association for Shooting and Conservation logo and still carries the logo of Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, The Scottish Gamekeepers Association and Baileys – the Hunting Directory.

Mr Wightman and Mr Bean are representatives of the ‘field sports’ fraternity.

In the offending articles and tweets they accused me of defrauding the public to raise money to rescue tigers from circuses, defrauding the public by promoting a crowd-funder during the COVID epidemic, lying about the burning of peat during COP26, writing a death threat letter to myself, and elsewhere of bullying, sexual misconduct and rape. They also accused me of faking an arson attack at my home and repeatedly called upon the BBC to sack me.

In a full and frank vindication of my innocence the court has found that “Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth.”

Wightman and Bean had argued that publication of the allegations was in the public interest. This defence failed “by some margin.” The Court has said “rather than approaching the task with an investigative mind, these Defendants targeted Mr Packham as a person against whom they had an agenda.”

The articles published by Mr Wightman and Mr Bean “gave way… to increasingly hyperbolic and vitriolic smearing of Mr Packham, with further unsubstantiated allegations”. Several articles and tweets made offensive references to my autism.

The Court has accepted that this campaign “would have misled and agitated vocal and sometimes violent groups”, who “posted threatening and vile material about Mr Packham and his family online.”

Most egregiously all three defendants had advanced an allegation that I had forged a death threat letter to myself, an allegation that they managed to disseminate to the mainstream media, it was covered twice in The Times and widely elsewhere.

The Court has held that I did not write the death threat letter, concluding that “even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two.” The handwriting experts employed by the defendants were discredited and the accusation was withdrawn during the trial by their counsel.

However, the defendants stated under oath that they still believed I wrote it. Indeed when asked what they would do should they lose the case they said, and I’m paraphrasing, that they would ‘carry on’.

I would like to thank my excellent legal team, barristers Jonathan Price and Claire Overman and Carol Day and Tessa Gregory and their team from Leigh Day. They have been steadfast throughout despite often appallingly offensive abuse from the defendants. Thank you.

I would also like to thank Dr Ruth Tingay for setting up a Crowdfunder to help cover the costs of this long and expensive litigation.

And lastly, my followers. Thank you for your unswerving support and belief in my honest crusade to make the world a better place for wildlife, people and the environment.

ENDS

CSM case

Following Chris Packham's libel victory in the High Court on Thursday, he's issued a statement via video on his Twitter account.

I'm not able to post it directly on this website but you can watch it on my blog here.

CSM case:

Press release from Chris Packham's lawyers, Leigh Day (25th May 2023):

Chris Packham wins High Court defamation trial & is awarded £90K damages

The High Court has today ruled in favour of environmental campaigner and naturalist Chris Packham CBE in his defamation case brought against Dominic Wightman, editor of Country Squire Magazine, and one of the magazine’s contributors, Nigel Bean. The court accepted the account of a third defendant, Paul Read, who claimed he was a mere proof reader.

The Court has awarded Mr Packham £90,000 in damages against Mr Wightman and Mr Bean.

The case, heard between 2 and 11 May 2023 related to nine articles, ten social media posts and two videos. The court ruled that the allegations made in these materials were defamatory and untrue. The allegations included that:

• Mr Packham dishonestly raised funds for The Wildheart Sanctuary in relation to rescued tigers, which he falsely said had been mistreated
• Mr Packham lied about peat burning on Scottish game estates during COP26.
• Mr Packham dishonestly raised funds for the sanctuary during the covid pandemic while concealing that it would receive an insurance pay-out

During the trial, Mr Wightman and Mr Bean withdrew their truth defence in relation to the second and third of these allegations. They maintained a truth defence in relation to the first allegation, but the court determined that they “fail[ed] to come even close to establishing the substantial truth” of that allegation.

The Court concluded that: “Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth. There was no fraud of any type committed by him in making the fundraising statements.”

Mr Wightman and Mr Bean also argued that they had a reasonable belief that publication of the allegations was in the public interest. The court ruled that this defence also failed “by some margin.”

The judgment states that, “rather than approaching the task with an investigative mind, these defendants targeted Mr Packham as a person against whom they had an agenda”. In particular, following receipt of Mr Packham’s initial legal complaint, the articles published by Mr Wightman and Mr Bean “gave way… to increasingly hyperbolic and vitriolic smearing of Mr Packham, with further unsubstantiated allegations of dishonesty regarding peat-burning and the Trust’s insurance gratuitously thrown in”. One of the articles complained of mocked Mr Packham’s manner of speaking, and several made offensive references to his autism.

During the trial the court heard that Country Squire Magazine published 16 articles mentioning Mr Packham in the four years before the first article complained of in the legal case, and a further 93 articles were published in the three years following. Mr Packham had not been approached for comment before the publication of any of the articles containing allegations about him, as is journalistic best practice. Furthermore, there was sparse documentary evidence that any of the allegations had been properly researched to ensure their veracity.

Mr Read withdrew his reliance on the defences of truth and public interest when he instructed separate legal representation shortly before trial, and his case (which the Court accepted) was solely that: (i) as a mere proof-reader, he had insufficient involvement in the articles; and (ii) his retweets of the defamatory allegations had not circulated sufficiently widely to have caused serious reputational harm to Mr Packham.

In awarding Mr Packham substantial damages against Mr Wightman and Mr Bean, the High Court accepted that their campaign “would have misled and agitated vocal and sometimes violent groups”, who “posted threatening and vile material about Mr Packham and his family online”.

The Court also held that the men had used this case as a way of introducing offensive and wholly unsubstantiated allegations to smear Mr Packham, and to “scare [him] off… from seeking recourse in a public hearing for the libels”.

In addition to the articles, social media posts and video complained of the in the legal case the defendants had also claimed that a death threat received by Mr Packham had been written by himself. This caused particular anguish to Mr Packham as it implied that he had lied to his family and friends, as well as wasting police time. The court held that Mr Packham did not write the death threat letter, concluding that “even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two.”

The court had also expected the handwriting expert instructed by Mr Wightman, Mr Bean and Mr Read to have been “horrified… and to have unequivocally withdrawn their evidence” when it emerged in November 2022 that their report, which concluded with certainty that Mr Packham wrote the death threat, had in fact analysed samples of his accountant’s handwriting. However, Mr Wightman, Mr Bean and Mr Read did not withdraw the allegation when this error was pointed out to them. Moreover, the court held that Mr Wightman was instrumental in procuring ostensibly third-party statements repeating the serious allegation, in “The Packham Papers” and in an article by Fieldsports TV. The death threat allegation was only formally withdrawn by Mr Read shortly before trial, and by the other defendants only on the third day of trial.

Chris Packham said:

“Every day many thousands of innocent people are victims of online abuse and hate crimes. This can be racially, religiously or politically motivated. It can be generated in regard to gender politics, environmental beliefs, body shaming. This vile part of modern life ruins lives, livelihoods, reputations, it disrupts young peoples’ educations, causes incalculable mental health problems and tragically causes people to take their own lives.

“As it stands the criminal law is simply not there to protect us from such hate – something that must change. The current governments ‘Online Safety Bill’ is plodding along. In the meantime a tiny minority of victims are able to take civil action.

“In the offending articles and tweets Mr Wightman and Mr Bean accused me of defrauding the public to raise money to rescue tigers from circuses, defrauding the public by promoting a crowd-funder during the COVID epidemic, lying about the burning of peat during COP26, writing a death threat letter to myself, and elsewhere of bullying, sexual misconduct and rape. They also accused me of faking an arson attack at my home and repeatedly called upon the BBC to sack me.

“In a full and frank vindication of my innocence the court has found that “Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth”.  

“Most egregiously all three defendants had advanced an allegation that I had forged a death threat letter to myself, an allegation that they managed to disseminate to the mainstream media. 

“The Court has held that I did not write the death threat letter, concluding that “even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two”.

“Thank you to my followers for your unswerving support and belief in my honest crusade to make the world a better place for wildlife, people and the environment.”

Carol Day, Solicitor at law firm Leigh Day said:

“Mr Packham is grateful to the judge for his careful deliberation of the issues and is delighted with the judgment, which completely vindicates him of any fraudulent motivation in raising funds to rescue the ex-circus tigers, alongside further unsubstantiated allegations of dishonesty regarding peat-burning and insurance fraud. This case should provide a strong deterrent to anyone who sets out to gratuitously smear someone’s character simply because they don’t agree with their views.”

Mr Packham is represented by partner Tessa Gregory and solicitor Carol Day of Leigh Day and barristers Jonathan Price and Claire Overman of Doughty Street Chambers. Leigh Day instructed specialist costs counsel Benjamin Williams KC of 4 New Square Chambers for the hearing on costs and consequential matters on 25 May 2023.

ENDS

The 58-page judgement of The Honourable Mr Justice Saini can be read here.

CSM CASE

During the second week of this libel trial at the Royal Courts of Justice, the three defendants from Country Squire Magazine were cross-examined by Jonathan Price, the barrister acting for the claimant, Chris Packham.

Defendant 1 (Dominic Wightman) was on the stand for all of Tuesday and a small part of Wednesday morning. Defendant 2 (Nigel Bean) and Defendant 3 (Paul Read) took up the rest of Wednesday.

For clarity, Defendants 1 & 2 were claiming dual defences of ‘truth’ and ‘public interest’ in relation to the alleged libellous material that was published by CSM. I understand that until recently, Defendant 3 was also pursuing these defences. However, he took separate legal representation in March 2023 and subsequently amended his defence to claim that he wasn’t an author or editor of the alleged libellous material, and that his re-tweeting of the articles didn’t amount to serious harm to Chris’s reputation.

During the trial, Defendants 1 & 2 withdrew a number of their defences as it became apparent that they didn’t have the evidence to support their claims. The Honourable Mr Justice Saini described events as “a moving feast” and took time to clarify the changeable positions. It was hard to follow but my understanding of what was withdrawn and what remained is as follows:

• The allegation that Chris wrote a fake death threat letter to himself was “unequivocally withdrawn”.
• The allegation that Chris dishonestly took part in writing a press release relating to the death of a tiger called ‘Simi’ – the ‘truth’ defence was withdrawn but the ‘public interest’ defence remained.
• The allegation that Chris was dishonest when fundraising for the Wildheart Trust to support the rescue of five tigers from a Spanish circus – the ‘truth’ defence and the ‘public interest’ defence remained.
• The allegation that Chris was dishonest when he re-tweeted an article relating to the burning of peat on two grouse moors during COP26 – the ‘truth’ defence was withdrawn but the ‘public interest’ defence remained.
• The allegation that Chris was dishonest when fundraising for the Wildheart Trust during Covid (alleged insurance fraud) - the ‘truth’ defence was withdrawn but the ‘public interest’ defence remained.

Closing arguments were heard on Thursday from the legal representatives of Defendants 1 & 2 (Nicholas O’Brien) and of Defendant 3 (David Price), as well as from Jonathan Price. Mr Justice Saini reserved judgement and told the parties that he anticipated handing down judgement in writing before the end of this month.

Once the judgement has been announced, it is expected there will be a further hearing to determine costs.

FIELDSPORTS CHANNEL LTD CASE

The second defamation case that Chris is bringing, against Fieldsports Channel Ltd and one of its journalists, Ben O’Rourke, is ongoing. In June 2022, Fieldsports Channel Ltd published an article and an accompanying video, accusing Chris of dishonest and unethical behaviour. They claimed that Chris wrote a fake death threat letter to himself and that he dishonestly claimed that it was sent to his home by an anonymous member of the shooting and farming community.

There should be an update on the status of this case shortly, given the “unequivocal withdrawal” of a similar allegation by Defendants 1 & 2 in the CSM case.

CSM case:

The libel trial is underway at the Royal Courts of Justice and Chris spent all of day two in the witness box giving evidence and responding to cross-examination.

As part of that process, his personal witness statement was referred to in court and so can now be considered a public document.

I'm unable to post it directly on to this site but it is available to read/download on my blog, here.

Press release:

Environmental campaigner and naturalist Chris Packham CBE will have his defamation case against the editor and two contributors to Country Squire Magazine heard in the High Court in London from Tuesday 2 May at 10.30am. The case is listed for eight days.

Mr Packham vigorously denies all the allegations made against him by the magazine and its contributors and will argue in his legal case that they have embarked on a campaign of online hatred and abuse which has caused him anguish, anxiety and distress.

The defamation trial relates to nine articles, ten social media posts and two videos which it is argued the defendants are responsible for. The defendants are: the editor of Country Squire Magazine Dominic Wightman and contributors Nigel Bean and Paul Read.

The key allegations made in these materials are wholly refuted by Mr Packham and he argues that they are all defamatory, designed to damage his financial interests, credibility, integrity and his personal well-being. The allegations made include:

• That Mr Packham dishonestly raised funds from the general public for The Wildheart Trust Sanctuary stating that it had rescued tigers from a circus where they had been mis-treated, when he knew the tigers had been well-treated and had been donated by the circus.
• At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic Mr Packham dishonestly sought to raise funds for The Wildheart Trust Sanctuary by appealing for donations whilst concealing that it was due to receive a £500,000 pay-out under its insurance.
• That Mr Packham lied when he said that gamekeepers on two Scottish estates were burning peat during the 2021 UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow, when he knew that no peat was being burnt.

Mr Packham’s case is that the tigers he assisted rehoming from a rescue centre (operated by a leading European animal welfare organisation Animal Advocacy and Protection (AAP)) to The Wildheart Trust Sanctuary had been born into the circus before being moved to an unsuitable holding facility by the circus owners.  He had been shown the conditions they suffered and the mistreatment they had been subjected to. The fact that they had been handed over to Animal Advocacy and Protection by the circus and not forcibly seized made no difference to his opinion that they had been rescued and were ultimately rehomed at The Wildheart Sanctuary where they would be properly looked after.  

In relation to the allegations of further dishonest fundraising and insurance fraud against The Wildheart Trust Sanctuary Mr Packham‘s case is that in the early stages of the pandemic it was unclear whether the insurance policy would cover loss suffered during the lock-down and it was vital for the sanctuary, as with many other charities, to fundraise to ensure they could keep going. It was only much later that cover was confirmed and the money paid some months after that. However, without the initial fundraising the sanctuary would have likely had to close down and the tigers been returned to AAP.

Mr Packham’s case on muirburning (the burning of heather, gorse and other vegetation to facilitate grouse shooting) is that it cannot be guaranteed that the underlying peat will not be burned, releasing a large amount of carbon into the atmosphere and destroying important habitats for wildlife.

Throughout the course of the litigation the defendants have continued to repeat the initial defamatory allegations, sometimes under the guise of raising money for their own legal costs.

On top of this, the Defendants have continued to generate unpleasant material, including an allegation that Mr Packham wrote a death threat letter to himself, therefore deceiving his family and friends, and wasting police time. The defendants’ case is that a handwriting expert has confirmed that the handwriting from the death threat and a sample from documents taken from Companies House were written by the same person – however, the writing on the Companies House documents was written by Mr Packham’s accountant. Despite this being pointed out to them last year, Mr Wightman and Mr Bean maintain this allegation.

Mr Wightman and Mr Bean have indicated that they intend to rely on the defences to defamation of truth and publishing information in the public interest.

Mr Read is separately represented and his case is that he is not responsible for the publications attributed to him and his retweeting of the articles did not cause Mr Packham serious harm.

Chris Packham said:

“On a daily basis I endure an enormous amount of trolling from the field sports community and I’ve reconciled that this has to become part and parcel of my campaigning life. Occasionally the trolling is about other environmental issues and occasionally it’s about mental health, including my autism. However, in relation to the material at issue in this legal case I felt the defendants had clearly overstepped the mark and printed defamatory statements which were designed to damage my financial interests, my credibility, integrity and my personal well-being. I had no choice but to take civil litigation against these people.

“The actions of the defendants in making and repeating unfounded allegations, and their conduct throughout the course of this litigation, has been draining, exhausting and entirely counterproductive to living what could be described as a typical decent life. Ultimately this is about accountability, in a world where there is an increasing lack of accountability for those that cause harm to others, and this is not acceptable. In addition to their personal attacks about me, it is deeply concerning that in 2023 they still seek to protect and thereby encourage the keeping of big cats in circuses and protect those who want to damage our environment through burning our uplands for grouse shooting.

“Unfortunately, online abuse and hatred is commonplace in our society. People receive this for racial, religious, political, sexual and many other personal reasons. It damages their businesses, their education, their mental health and ultimately and tragically we have seen it can on occasion lead to people taking their own lives. Many people don’t have the financial capacity to go through the process of taking civil action or do not feel invested with the mental stoicism to fight their abusers in court, and I believe it’s important that this case focusses attention on this type of abuse. I believe we need reforms in the law to protect people from this kind of online harm and regardless of the outcome, I will be working closely with support groups addressing the heinous effects of online harm to try to tackle this issue.

“I go to court expecting to be fully vindicated that none of the defendants’ accusations have any truth.”

Carol Day, said:

“Our client feels that the defendants have behaved woefully throughout this litigation, incessantly repeating serious allegations and using the court process to make further damaging and hurtful statements about him. Mr Packham hopes that by taking this legal action the defendants will be held accountable for their actions and that others will realise they cannot make seriously damaging unfounded allegations against people, just because they don’t share their point of view.”

Mr Packham is represented by solicitor Carol Day and partner Tessa Gregory of law firm Leigh Day with Jonathan Price and Claire Overman of Doughty Street Chambers.

Dr Ruth Tingay, a friend and colleague of Mr Packham's from Wild Justice, a not for profit that campaigns for legal reforms in environmental cases in the UK has set up a Crowd Justice account to support the case financially . Details here https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/support-chris-packhams-libel-action/

CSM case:

At a hearing in the High Court of Justice King’s Bench Division on 30 March 2023, the Honourable Mrs Justice Heather Williams DBE heard an application from Defendants 1 & 2 (Dominic Wightman & Nigel Bean, acting as litigants-in-person) who were seeking specific disclosure and/or inspection of a Schedule of 42 categories of documents.

In response, Chris’s lawyers argued that Chris had provided all disclosable documents not covered by legal professional privilege and that the further documents requested were either irrelevant to the defendant’s case as pleaded, had already been provided, or were not in his control.

The Honourable Mrs Justice Williams DBE considered the application in a two and a half hour hearing and in a lengthy and detailed judgment delivered afterwards she dealt with each of the requests in turn, refusing permission for all 42 of them after deeming the requests speculative and irrelevant.

Here is a copy of her judgement:

The Honourable Mrs Justice Williams DBE further ordered that the First and Second Defendants are to pay the Claimant’s costs of the Specific Disclosure Application within 14 days. These costs were assessed at £17,500 plus VAT. For clarity, the Third Defendant (Paul Read) took no part in the Specific Disclosure Application or the hearing.