'Yes, I think so,' said Chadwick. 'But surely, I don't have to prove my innocence?'
'In effect, yes,' said the solicitor. 'You see, you would be the plaintiff; the paper, the editor and Mr Gaylord Brent, the defendants. You would have to prove that you were innocent of any awareness of the unreliability of the now-liquidated company when you were associated with them; only then would it be shown you had been libelled by the suggestion that you were implicated.'
'Are you advising me not to Sue?' asked Chadwick. 'Are you seriously suggesting I should accept being treated to a bunch of lies from a man who never bothered to check his facts before publishing; that I should even accept ruin in my business, and not complain?'
'Mr Chadwick, let me be frank with you. It is sometimes suggested of us lawyers that we encourage our clients to sue right, left and centre, because such action obviously enables us to earn large fees. Actually, the reverse is usually the case. It is usually the litigant's friends, wife, colleagues and so forth who urge him to go ahead and sue. They, of course, do not have to bear the costs. For the outsider a good court case is all bread and circuses. We in the legal profession are only too well aware of the costs of litigation.'
Chadwick thought over the question of the cost of justice, something he had seldom considered before.
'How high could they run?' he asked quietly.
'They could ruin you,' said the solicitor.
'I thought in this country all men had equal recourse to the law,' said Chadwick.
'In theory, yes. In practice it is often quite different,' said the lawyer. 'Are you a rich man, Mr Chadwick?'
'No. I run a small business. In these days that means I have to run on a knife edge of liquidity.
I have worked hard all my life, and I get by. I own my own house, my own car, my clothes. A self-employed person's pension scheme, a life-assurance policy, a few thousand of savings. I'm just an ordinary man, obscure.'
'That's my point,' said the solicitor. 'Nowadays only the rich can sue the rich, and never more so than in the field of libel, where a man may win his case but have to pay his own costs. After a long case, not to mention an appeal, these may be ten times the awarded damages.
'Big newspapers, like big publishing houses and others, all carry heavy insurance policies for libel damages awarded against them. They can employ the blue-chip lawyers of the West End, the costliest of Queen's Counsel. So, when faced with — if you will excuse me — a little man, they tend to face him down. With a little dexterity a case can be delayed from coming to court for up to five years, during which the legal costs to both sides mount and mount. The preparation of the case alone can cost thousands and thousands. If it gets to court, the costs rocket as the barristers take a fee and a daily "refresher". Then the barrister will have a junior tagging along as well.'
'How high could the costs go?' asked Chadwick.
'For a lengthy case, with years of preparation, even excluding a possible appeal, several tens of thousands of pounds,' said the lawyer. 'Even that's not the end of it.'
'What else should I know?' asked Chadwick.
'If you won, got damages and costs awarded against the defendants, that is, the newspaper, you would get the damages clear. But if the judge made no order as to costs, which they only tend to do in the worst of cases, you would have to carry your own costs. If you lost, the judge could even award the defendants' costs against you, in addition to your own. Even if you won, the newspaper could take the case to appeal. For that you could double the costs involved. Even if you won the appeal, without an order as to costs, you would be ruined.
'Then there is the mud-slinging. After two years people have long forgotten the original article in the paper anyway. The court case repeats it all again, with a mass of further material and allegations. Although you would be suing, the paper's counsel would have the task of destroying your reputation as an honest businessman, in the interests of his clients. Sling enough mud, and some will stick. There have been men, too numerous to mention, who have won their cases and emerged with very smeared reputations. In court all allegations can be printed publicly and do not have to be substantiated.'
'What about legal aid?' asked Chadwick. Like most people he had heard of it, but never investigated it.
'Probably not what you think,' said the solicitor. 'To get it you have to show you have no assets. That doesn't apply to you. In any case, legal aid is not available for cases of defamation.'
'So it looks like ruin either way,' said Chadwick.
'I'm sorry, truly sorry. I could encourage you to begin a lengthy and costly lawsuit, but I honestly feel the best favour I can do for you is to point out the hazards and pitfalls as they really are. There are many people who hotly entered into litigation and lived to regret it bitterly. Some never even recovered from the years of strain and the financial worry of it all.'
Chadwick rose. 'You have been .very honest and I thank you,' he said.
From his office desk later that day he rang the Sunday Courier and asked to speak to the editor. A secretary came on the line. In answer to her query he gave his name.
'What is it you want to speak to Mr Buxton about?' she asked.
'I would like an appointment to see him personally,' said Chadwick.
There was a pause on the line and he heard an internal telephone being used. She came back on the line.
'In what connection did you wish to see Mr Buxton?' she asked.
Chadwick explained briefly that he wanted to see the editor to explain his side of the suggestion that had been made about him in Gaylord Brent's article of two weeks earlier.
' I'm afraid Mr Buxton is not able to see people in his office,' said the secretary. 'Perhaps if you'd be kind enough to write a letter, it will be given consideration.'
She put the phone down. The following morning Chadwick took the underground into Central London and presented himself at the front desk of Courier House.
In front of a large uniformed commissionaire he filled out a form, stating his name, address, the person he wished to see and the nature of his business. It was taken away and he sat and waited.
After half an hour the lift doors opened to emit an elegant and slim young man shrouded in an aura of aftershave. He raised an eyebrow at the commissionaire, who nodded towards Bill Chadwick. The young man came over. Chadwick rose.
'I'm Adrian St Clair,' said the young man, pronouncing it Sinclair, 'Mr Buxton's personal assistant. Can I help you?'
Chadwick explained about the article under the by-line of Gaylord Brent and said that he wished to explain to Mr Buxton personally that what had been said about him was not only untrue but threatened him with ruin in his business. St Clair was regretful but unimpressed.
'Yes, of course, one sees your concern, Mr Chadwick. But I'm afraid a personal interview with Mr Buxton is simply not possible. A very busy man, don't you see. I... ah... understand a solicitor representing you has already communicated with the editor.'
'A letter was written,' said Chadwick. 'The reply was from a secretary. It said a letter to the correspondence column might be considered. Now I am asking for him at least to hear my side of it.'
St Clair smiled briefly. 'I have already explained that that is impossible,' he said. 'The letter on behalf of the editor is as far as we are prepared to go.'
'Could I see Mr Gaylord Brent himself, then?' asked Chadwick.
'I don't think that would be very helpful,' said St Clair. 'Of course, if you or your solicitor wished to write again, I am sure the letter would be considered by our legal branch in the usual way. Other than that, I'm afraid I cannot help you.'
The commissionaire showed Chadwick out through the swing doors.
He had a sandwich lunch in a coffee bar just off Fleet Street and spent the time it took to eat it lost in thought. In the early afternoon he was seated in one of those reference libraries to be found in Central London which specialize in contemporary archives and newspaper cuttings. His perusal of the file of re
cent libel cases showed him his solicitor had not been exaggerating.
One case appalled him. A middle-aged man had been badly libelled in a book by a fashionable author. He had sued and won, being awarded £30,000 damages and costs against the publisher. But the publisher had appealed, and the Appeal Court had quashed the damages, making each party pay their own costs. Facing utter financial ruin after four years of litigation, the plaintiff had taken the case to the Lords. Their Lordships had reversed the Appeal Court decision, re-awarding him his damages, but making no order as to costs. He had won his £30,000 damages, but after five years had a legal bill of £45,000. The publishers, with a similar legal bill, had lost £75,000, but were insured for the great bulk of that sum. The plaintiff had won, but was ruined for life. Photographs showed him in the first year of litigation as a sprightly man of sixty. Five years later he was a broken wreck, made haggard by the endless strain and the mounting debts. He had died bankrupt, his reputation restored.
Bill Chadwick determined no such thing was going to happen to him, and took himself to the Westminster Public Library. There he retired to the reading room with a copy of Halsbury's Laws of England.
As his solicitor had said, there was no statute law on libel in the same way there was a Road Traffic Act, but there was the Law of Libel Amendment Act of 1888, which gave the generally accepted definition of a libel or defamation as:
A defamatory statement is a statement which tends to lower a person in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, or cause him to be shunned or avoided, or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or to convey an imputation on him disparaging or injurious to him in his office, profession, calling, trade or business.
Well, that last part applies to me at least, thought Chadwick.
Something his solicitor had said in his homily about the courts nagged at his mind. 'In court all allegations can be printed publicly and do not have to be substantiated.' Surely not?
But the lawyer was right. The same Act of 1888 made that clear. Anything said during the sitting of the court can be reported and published without reporter or editor, printer or pub-Usher fearing a suit of libel, provided only that the report be 'fair, contemporaneous and accurate'.
That, thought Chadwick, must be to protect the judges, magistrates, witnesses, police officers, counsel and even the defendant from fearing to state what they believe to be true, regardless of the outcome of the case.
This exemption from any reaction by any person, however insulted, slandered, defamed or libelled, providing only that the allegation v/as made in the body of the court during the sitting of the court, and the exemption for anyone accurately reporting, printing and publishing what was said, was called 'absolute privilege'.
On the underground back to the outer suburbs, the germ of an idea began to grow in Bill Chadwick's mind.
Gaylord Brent, when Chadwick finally traced him after four days of searching, lived in a trendy little street in Hampstead, and it was there that Chadwick presented himself the following Sunday morning. He estimated that no Sunday-paper journalist would be at work on a Sunday, and took pot luck on the Brent family not being away in the country for the weekend. He mounted the steps and rang the bell.
After two minutes the door was answered by a pleasant-looking woman in her mid-thirties.
'Is Mr Brent in?' asked Chadwick, and added without pause, 'It's about his article in the Courier.'
It was no lie, but enough to persuade Mrs Brent that the caller was from the office in Fleet Street. She smiled, turned, called 'Gaylord' down the hallway and turned back to Chadwick.
'He'll be here in a minute,' she said, and withdrew towards the sounds of small children somewhere in the house, leaving the door open. Chadwick waited.
A minute later Gaylord Brent himself appeared at the door in pastel linen slacks and pink shirt, an elegant man in his mid-forties.
'Yes?' he inquired.
'Mr Gaylord Brent?' asked Chadwick.
'Yes.'
Chadwick opened the cutting he carried in his hand and held it out.
'It's about this article you wrote in the Sunday Courier.'
Gaylord Brent studied the cutting for several seconds without touching it. His expression was of perplexity touched with petulance.
'This is about four weeks old,' he said. 'What about it?'
'I'm sorry to disturb you on a Sunday morning,' said Chadwick, 'but it's a risk it seems we must all take. You see, in this article you libelled me, and did so rather badly. It has hurt me considerably in my business and social life.'
The perplexity remained on Brent's face, but shifted to give way to an increased level of irritation.
'Who on earth are you?' he demanded.
'Oh, my apologies. The name is William Chadwick.'
Enlightenment came at last to Gaylord Brent on hearing the name, and the irritation took over completely.
'Now look here,' he said, 'you can't just come round to my house to complain. There are proper channels. You'll have to ask your lawyer to write ...'
'I did,' said Chadwick, 'but it did no good at all. I also tried to see the editor, but he wouldn't receive me. So I have come to you.'
'This is outrageous,' protested Gaylord Brent, making to close the door.
'You see, I have something for you,' said Chadwick mildly. Brent's hand on the door jamb paused.
'What?' he asked.
'This,' said Chadwick.
On the word, he raised his right hand, fist closed, and dotted Gaylord Brent firmly but not viciously on the tip of his nose. It was not the sort of blow to break the bone, or even damage the septum cartilage, but it caused Gaylord Brent to retreat a pace, emit a loud 'Ooooooh' and clap his hand to his nose. Water welled into his eyes and he began to sniff back the first trickle of blood. He stared at Chadwick for a second as if confronting a madman, then slammed the door. Chadwick heard steps running down the hallway.
He found his police constable at the corner of Heath Street, a young man enjoying the peace of the crisp morning, but otherwise somewhat bored.
'Officer,' said Chadwick as he came up to him, 'you had better come with me. An assault has been committed on a local resident.'
The young policeman perked up. 'Assault, sir?' he asked. 'Whereabouts?'
'Only two streets away,' said Chadwick. 'Please follow me.'
Without waiting to be asked more questions he beckoned the policeman with his forefinger, turned and set off at a brisk walk back the way he had come. Behind him he heard the policeman talking into his lapel radio and the thud of official boots.
The officer of the law caught up with Chadwick at the corner of the street in which the Brent family lived. To forestall more questions, Chadwick kept up his brisk pace, telling the policeman, 'Here it is, officer, at Number Thirty-Two.'
The door, when they reached it, was still closed. Chadwick gestured to it.
'In there,' he said.
After a pause and with a suspicious glance at Chadwick, the constable mounted the steps and rang the bell. Chadwick joined him on the top step. The door opened, carefully. Mrs Brent appeared. Her eyes widened at the sight of Chadwick. Before the policeman could say anything Chadwick chipped in.
'Mrs Brent? I wonder if this officer could have a word with your husband?'
Mrs Brent nodded and fled back into the house. From inside, both callers heard a whispered conversation. The words 'police' and 'that man' were discernible. After a minute Gaylord Brent appeared at the door. With his left hand he clutched a cold, wet dishcloth to his nose. Behind it he sniffed repeatedly.
'Yed?' he said.
'This is Mr Gaylord Brent,' said Chadwick.
'Are you Mr Gaylord Brent?' asked the officer.
'Yed,' replied Gaylord Brent.
'A few minutes ago,' said Chadwick, 'Mr Brent was deliberately punched on the nose.'
'Is that true?' the policeman asked Brent.
'Yed,' Brent nodded, glaring over his dishcloth
at Chadwick.
'I see,' said the officer, who plainly did not. 'And who did this?'
'I did,' said Chadwick at his side.
The policeman turned in disbelief. 'I beg your pardon?' he asked.
'I did. I hit him on the nose. That's a common assault, isn't it?'
'Is that true?' the policeman asked Brent.
The face behind the towel nodded.
'May I ask why?' inquired the policeman of Chadwick.
'As to that,' said Chadwick, 'I'm only prepared to explain it all in a statement at the police station.'
The policeman looked nonplussed. At last he said, 'Very well, sir, then I must ask you to accompany me to the station.'
There was a panda car on Heath Street by this time, summoned by the constable five minutes earlier. He had a brief conversation with the two uniformed policemen inside, and he and Chadwick both climbed into the rear. The car brought them to the local police station inside two minutes. Chadwick was led up to the duty sergeant. He stood silent while the young constable explained to the sergeant what had happened. The sergeant, a middle-aged veteran of world-weary patience, contemplated Chadwick with some interest.
'Who is this man you hit?' he asked at length.
'Mr Gaylord Brent,' said Chadwick.
'Don't like him, do you?' asked the sergeant.
'Not much,' said Chadwick.
'Why come up to this officer and tell him you've done it?' asked the sergeant.
Chadwick shrugged. 'It's the law, isn't it? An offence in law has been committed; the police should be informed.'
'Nice thought,' conceded the sergeant. He turned to the constable. 'Much damage done to Mr Brent?'
'Didn't look like it,' said the young man. 'More like a gentle thump on the hooter.'
The sergeant sighed. 'Address,' he said. The constable gave it to him. 'Wait here,' said the sergeant.
He withdrew to a back room. Gaylord Brent had an unlisted number, but the sergeant obtained it from Directory Inquiries. Then he rang it. After a while he came back.
'Mr Gaylord Brent doesn't seem very eager to press charges,' he said.
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