Another voice

Mr Freeman's plaint 1

Auberon Waugh

On several occasions in the last few years I have written about the operation of the libel laws in this country. My particular complaint has usually been about the tendency of my fellow journalists — people in my view perfectly able to defend themselves — to run to their lawyers whenever they claim to see a disparagement of their professional dignity or competence.

The latest example of this tendency con- cerns Mr Simon Freeman, a Sunday Times reporter. Spectator readers may decide that nothing is more boring than other people's legal squabbles, but on the principle that even the domestic arrangements of the com- mon ant can be made interesting if an ants' nest is put under glass, I have decided to provide a blow-by-blow account, so far as the law allows, so that Spectator readers can follow the developing drama for themselves all the way to the High Court verdict in several months' time.

The background is that in the issue of the Spectator dated 20 February 1982 I wrote and published an article under the heading 'The Angry Caller', quoting a Sunday Times article which purported to be by Mr Simon Freeman. The article described the scene when several thousand people simultaneously won the Daily Mail's bingo prize and contained the crucial sentence: `One angry caller: "This is the ultimate result of a bingo-barmy society. News- papers should ban bingo." ' We go on from there. The following let- ter to the Spectator's editor from Mr Antony Whitaker, Legal Manager of Times Newspapers Limited, is dated 19 February 1982: 'Dear Sir, I am writing on behalf of Mr Simon Freeman, a journalist with the Sunday Times, concerning Mr Auberon. Waugh's article on page 6 of the current issue of the Spectator.

'In the course of his piece entitled "The Angry Caller", Mr Waugh explains his scepticism about a passage in the frontpage article in last week's Sunday Times concer- ning the claims made for the Daily Mail bingo prize. Having explained the reasons for his doubts about the "alleged" angry caller mentioned by the Sunday Times reporter "called Mr Freeman", Mr Waugh continues:

"Not to put too fine a point on it, I suspect that Mr Freeman invented this angry caller. Never mind. We've all done worse things in our time. Nor does the fact that nobody actually said it invalidate the statement."

`It is quite untrue that Mr Freeman in- vented this, or indeed any other part of his report; and it is also untrue to suggest that he actually wrote it as part of the story. The reference to the angry caller was in fact added at the sub-editing stage, after he had written his story, from agency material of which Mr Freeman was then unaware.

`At the time of writing — 4 p.m. on 19 February — Mr Freeman has had a number of unsolicited calls asking him whether he is in the habit of making up stories to put in the paper, and he is also the subject of con- siderable ridicule among his colleagues. That apart, it is difficult to imagine a more serious attack on the personal and profes- sional integrity of one who earns his living in journalism .. . At no stage did Mr Waugh see fit to approach Mr Freeman to ask him whether there was any truth in the extremely defamatory suggestion he was about to make.

`I am writing to you at this stage in the hope that Mr Freeman will not have to pass this over to his solicitors. He requires the immediate publication of a correction and apology in the terms of the enclosed draft; and a sum which will adequately reflect the seriousness and gravity of this totally outrageous suggestion, as to which I invite your proposals.

'Unless I hear from you by 10 a.m. next Wednesday, Mr Freeman will be passing this over to his solicitors.

Yours faithfully, Anthony Whitaker, Legal Manager' The draft apology states that I have ac- cused Simon Freeman of having invented an angry caller. It goes on that I 'readily recognise and unreservedly accept' that he had invented no such thing — 'the informa- tion having been added to his story by others from wire copy after he had written it' — and offer Mr Freeman my sincere apologies.

On 24 February the Spectator's editor, Mr A. S. Chancellor, wrote to Whitaker in these terms: 'Dear Mr Whitaker, I am sorry if Mr Freeman has had his leg pulled by callers and by colleagues, but it seems to me that Auberon Waugh was drawing a per- missible conclusion from what appeared in the Sunday Times. I have never before now heard of a journalist who does not accept responsibility for what appears under his byline, and I consider that if Mr Freeman has a complaint it should be addressed not to the Spectator, nor to Auberon Waugh, but to the Sunday Times and its sub-editor. Yours sincerely, Alexander Chancellor.'

On the same day, Whitaker replied: 'Dear Mr Chancellor, I have your letter of yesterday. Your patronising, off-hand and sneering response to Mr Freeman's com- plaint is as degrading as it is disillusioning. Do you wish to nominate solicitors, or should proceedings served [sic] at the Spec- tator's offices? Yours sincerely, Antony Whitaker.' In the last document of this round, and in what I hope will be seen as an attempt to pour oil on troubled waters, I composed a letter to Whitaker, posted on 2 March:

`Dear Mr Whitaker, Mr Simon Freeman 'I have been shown your correspondence with Alexander Chancellor, I have the following observations to make.

`Mr Freeman is wrong in claiming that I accused him of inventing the angry caller-

I.

described my reasons for suspecting him of this behaviour — some of them facetious, others inferential, in no case adding LIP to more than opinion or fair comment. In the event, he has a complete answer — the San- day Times, in describing him as the author of the report, was misinforming its readers. He had no knowledge of the alleged tele- phone call, even though he was prepared to let it appear, in direct speech, as his own evidence.

`He could perfectly well have written a letter for publication in the Spectator ex- plaining this. If he had asked me nicely I would even have been prepared to buy hint a drink. However, neither the Spectator nor I feel that he has any claim for damages Or even, on the principle volenti non fit ill- juria, any right to a formal apology, such as you suggest. `The suit will be vigorously defended, although until I have seen his further and better particulars of claim I cannot tell the exact form of my own defence. My present inclination would be that if, on discovery of documents, he proposes to establish that the ludicrous telephone conversation did, in fact, occur, we should offer one half-penny in complete settlement and fight it on the issue of damages — de minimis non curat lex. If he proposes to leave this crucial point alone, 1 would not propose offering a half- penny but relying on the defence of fair comment as defined in section 6 of the Defamation Act 1952. `Perhaps the Spectator's lawyers will think of something quite different. This let- ter is of course written without prejudice. Whatever happens, it should prove an in- teresting and profitable case for the legal profession, if for no one else, although I will probably be conducting my own defence. Only one thing puzzles me about Mr Freeman's sufferings. He complains of unsolicited telephone calls from Spectator readers as if it were more normal for people on the Sunday Times to solicit them. In over 15 years of writing regular columns for the magazine, I do not suppose I have received more than two or three calls from readers. Are you confident in your own mind that he did not imagine these calls or that they were not added to his copY by some mischievous sub after he had left the office? The Spectator's solicitors are Messrs Simmons and Simmons of 14 Dominion Street, London EC2, where they await ser- vice of Mr Freeman's writ.

Yours sincerely, Auberon Waugh'