LIBEL SUIT

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 123, 26 May 1914, Page 7

LIBEL SUIT

NAVAL OFFICER & EDITOR DAMAGES AWARDED RAGGED PLEA OF JUSTIFICATION. (By Telegraph.— Press A bsocuition. — Copyright.) (Received May 2C, 1 p.m.) LONDON. 25th May. lit the case in which Captain Thomas. Webster Kemp, formerly commander of the battleship London, sued Mr. Lionel Yexley, editor of the periodical Fleet, for libel, tho jury awarded £3000 damages. Stay of execution was refused. Mr. Yexley admitted that he had only investigated the men's case, and had not asked Captain Kemp for explanations?. He stated that Lord Fisher (late Fust Sea Lord) and Mr M'Kenna (ex-First Lord of tho Admiralty) had thanked him for* his services to tho Navy The Judge, in summing up, protested against the 1 increase of the pernicious habit of trial by newspaper. Mr. Yexley's was the most ragged plea of justification he had evet seen. If Captain Kemp was a strict disciplinarian the jury must say whetner he was blameworthy for discontent on the battleship London. ' LCaptain Kemp has recently been senior naval officer in the Persian Gulf. He entered the Na,vy in 1880 Mr. Yexley wasi at one time in the Navy, but resigned in, 1898 to take up journalism and to fight the vicious system of victualling the Navy and running naval canteens. He ha& published several books on naval matters. At the opening of the suit, Captain Kemp's counsel stated that the paper appealed to the lower deck and solicited from the crew criticisms of their superior officers. An article on the battleship London likened the conditions aboard to the swashbuckling at Zabern Captain Kemp, m his evidence, denied that the vessel was seething with discontent. He admitted that ho had not been reappointed to the command of the London when the vessel was recommifisioned.]