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HIGH DAMAGES REALISTIC
— Court of Appeal
A High Court jury's award of £25,000 puni
tive damages against a wartime naval escort
historian, for libelling a wartime naval escort
commander was "a fantastic sum," counsel said
in the Appeal Court.
"In the criminal courts, if anyone
is fined
£25,000 he must have committed a very serious
criminal offence," said Mr. Colin Duncan, Q.C.,
for Mr. Irving.
Mr. Irving was challenging the amount of the
award,
plus
another
£15,000
compensatory
damages, to Captain John Broome, D.S.C., R.N.,
for libel in the book "The Destruction of P.Q.
17," in which a "scatter" order to ships was
criticised.
The publishers, Cassell and Co. Ltd., against
whom judgment was also given
in
the High
Court last February, are also challenging
the
£25,000 part of the award.
Mr. Duncan said there was no suggestion that
Captain Broome had suffered any financial or
social loss through the libel. "He has been neither
shunned nor avoided and
there has been no
suggestion that his professional reputation has
been no suggestion tha this professional reputa
tion has been damaged." he continued.
"Is it right and just that Mr. Irving should
suffer financial and professional execution for
what he did?
"The total sum
is of such a
character that no responsible appellate court could
possibly allow it to remain."
Eventually, however, David Irving, who was
called "a grasping, conceited and foolish young
man" by Lord Justice Phillimore, and Cassell and
Co., the publishers, face costs and damages of
almost £100,000 after losing their case in the
Court of Appeal yesterday.
Their appeal against
the award of £40,000
damages to Capt. John Broome, 70, was dismissed.
Leave of appeal to the House of Lords was
granted.
Mr. Irving's book blamed Capt. Broome for a
"scatter" order
to merchantmen in a Russia-
bound convoy in July, 1942, as a result of which
two-thirds of the ships were destroyed by German
U-boats.
Lord Justice Denning, Master of the Rolls, who
sat with Lord Justice Salmon and Lord Justice
Phillimore, rejected a submission on behalf of
Cassell that as Mr. Irving had written the book he
was more deserving of punishment than Cassell.
"I do not think there is much to choose be
tween them," he said. "It is like the pot calling
the kettle black. Mr. Irving wrote the book, but
there would have been little damage if Cassell had
not published it."
Many people had afterwards written of the
disaster. The official historian of the war did not
condemn Capt. Broome, neither did Winston
Churchill.
"The condemnation was made 20 years later
by an author who knew nothing about the war
because he was still a small boy at the time."
David
Irving was determined
to write "an
authentic account", but his regular publishers,
William Kimber, refused to publish it, as they
thought it was too dangerous. So he got Cassell
and Co. to publish it.
The dust cover, written by Cassell, did not
accuse Capt. Broome, but it did accuse the Royal
Navy. They asserted the merchantmen had been
"shamefully deserted" by the Navy, which lost
only a fleet oiler. Inside the book, Capt. Broome
was singled out for attack.
Lord Denning said it was plain that Mr. Irving
had been warned from most responsible quarters
that his book contained libels on Capt. Broome,
and yet he was determined to go on with it. To
make it a success, he was ready to risk libel
actions
Although Capt. Broome had issued writs on
March 5th, 1968, Cassell and Co. made the sur
prising decision to publish a hardback edition,
with the dust cover, on August 7th that year.
Then two days before the action was heard last
year, a paperback edition was published.
"Why did they do it? Presumably because they
thought that the profit from sales would outweigh
the damages in the libel action."
Lord Justice Salmon concurred. Lord Justice
Phillimore said the book contained grave libels
perpetrated quite deliberately and without regard
to their truth by a young man and a firm of pub
lishers interested solely
in whether they would
gain by the publication of the book.
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