ALLEGED LIBEL.

Thames Star, Volume LX, Issue 16831, 7 July 1926, Page 5

ALLEGED LIBEL.

SKELTON v. SEABROOK. HEARING IN SUPREME COURT. CLAIM FOR £SOOO DAMAGES. '(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, July 7. Mr. Justice Stringer and a special /jury were occupied at the Supremo Court in Jiehring an action involving a claim for £SOOO damages by Alfred Hall Skelton, barrister and 1 solicitor, against Henry Hastings Seabrook and Thomas Farrell, printers, for alleged libel in some printed matter during the election campaign of 1925. Sir John Findlay and Mr. Tnder are counsel for the plaintiff, and Mr. G. W. Findlay and Mr. Rogerson for the defendants. The alleged libel was contained in a circular headed “Protestant Political Association,” and was signed by Mr. Seabrook as President of the RoskiU Group, in which the Parliamentary candidates were Messrs. V. H. Potter and Hall Skelton. It was stated in the circular that Mr. Skelton’s declared ambition was to smash the P.P.A., and this declaration would no doubt secure a Roman Catholic vote. The following is quoted from the circular: —"It cannot be forgotten that Mr. Skelton acted as representative of the party seeking to disintegrate the British Empire and has publicly eulogised Michael Collins, who was leader of a gang of atrocious murderers and who was condemned to be hanged for crimes against the Empire. Thoughtful men who recall such things cannot surely choose as their representative a man who has manifested sympathy with those who, when the Empire was in the throes of a struggle for its life, were engaged within it in a policy of murder, hinder the prosecution of a great war, and to secure its overthrow.” Plaintiff contended the circular in fact meant he was disloyal and in sympathy with the murderers. The second cause of the action concerned alleged matter in the N.Z. Sentinel, which plaintiff claimed set him out as being disloyal, and that he was representative of and identified with and in sympathy with persons who held murder a sacred duty and who were engaged in treasonable practices. In the first claim the plaintiff asked for £2OOO, and on the second £3OOO damages. The defence will be a denial of the publication, and that the words complained of were not intended to mean what was alleged, nor that they did bear any defamatory meaning, and that the words complained of were not libel, that the words should be taken in their natural meaning, and so far as they state the facts were in line with substance and fact, and that the opinions or comment were fair honest criticism in the public interest without malice, and further, that the publication was privileged so that the defendant sustained no damage.