$3500 libel award

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32566, 27 March 1971, Page 2

$3500 libel award

(N.Z Press Associations WANGANUI, March 26. A Wanganui company director was today awarded $3500 damages by a jury in the Supreme Court. James Frances Coyle had claimed $5OOO from the Wanganui Chronicle Company, Ltd, for libel.

The claim arose from two reports in the newspaper covering the trial of Mr Coyle, on June 8 and 9 last year, on a charge of wilfully setting fire to a car. Mr Coyle was acquitted. He claimed that the reports on the hearing sensationalised prosecution evidence, suppressed defence evidence, and were published maliciously and falsely by the defendant < Summing up, Mr Justice Beattie told the jury the trial was an important one in that its outcome could well result in the refusal of pewspapen to report court proceedings. ' The jury awarded Mr Coyle damages of $2500 in respect of the first report on

June 9, and $lOOO in respect of the second, printed the following day. The 10 men and two women found that neither report was “fair and accurate’’ and that both defamed Mr Coyle. Counsel for the defence was Mr G. O’Sullivan, and Mr T. G. Goddard appeared for the plaintiff. His Honour ordered that

court costs for the four-day hearing be paid by the defendant, and on Mr O’Sullivan’s application he granted a 28-day arrest of judgment.