PROMPT CHALLENGE TO JURY’S £200 AWARD ON £3500 LIBEL SUIT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22952, 21 May 1949, Page 6

PROMPT CHALLENGE TO JURY’S £2OO AWARD ON £3500 LIBEL SUIT

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, May 21. The jury awarded Leslie Edwards a Wellington journalist, £2OO damages for libel in the Supreme Court. Edwards had proceeded against the New Zealand Press Association Limited for £3500 damages on the ground that a message distributed by the association and published by nine New Zealand dailies was defamatory of him.

The jury retired for 3hrs. 55min. Senior counsel for the Press Association, Mr. G. G. G. Watson, moved for judgment for the defendant, notwithstanding the jury’s verdict, or alternatively for a new trial on the ground that the jury’s answer . to the second question put to it by the Chief Justice, Sir Humphrey O’Leary was contrary to the weight of evidence.

Mr. Watson’s motion and one moved by the plaintiff’s senior counsel, Mr. T'revor Henry, for judgment were stood down for argument later.

Answers By Jury

To question whether the words in the statement complained of in their plain meaning were defamatory of the plaintiff, the jury answered: “No.”

The second question put to them dealt ‘ with innuendo. It asked whether the words in the statement meant what the plaintiff alleged in paragraph. 7 of his statement of claim, or whether they meant any part of what was alleged and, if so, whether it was defamatory of the plaintiff. To this question the jury asnwered: “Yes.”

Paragraph 7 of the plaintiff’s statement of claim alleged that the defendant and the newspapers meant that the plaintiff was a person who did not bear true allegiance to the Government and people of New Zealand, or of the British Commonwealth, who did not respect the constitution, who was actively working by every means in his power to bring about the downfall of the constitution and society, who had allegiance to a foreign power, who would be a traitor to his own country, who was an enemy of economic stability and a fomenter of industrial unrest, who was a principal member of an international organisation with objects as aforesaid and who used his journalistic skill for the propagation and furtherance of the said objects.