Apology

On March 5 the settlement of a libel action brought against The Spectator and Tony Palmer was announced in the High Court.

Mr Robert Alexander, for the plaintiffs, George Glenton, David St George, John Moorcroft and Cornelius Coughlin, told the Court that Mr Glenton was for many years until the closure of the News Chronicle the chief crime and courts reporter for the newspaper and has for the last fourteen years been a specialist crime reporter for the Daily Mirror. He is a journalist of distinction and was the first crime reporter ever to be honoured with the presidency of the Institute of Journalists. Mr St George is in partnership in a freelance news reporting service called The St George's News Service which reports court cases at the Central

Criminal Court and other courts and is well known within the.

journalistic profession. Mr Moorcroft was until quite recently a crime reporter for the Press

Association and Mr Coughlin has for about fourteen years been the Old Bailey correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.

Each plaintiff in the-course of his duties at the Central Criminal Court regularly covered the six

week trial of a magazine called Oz in the summer of 1971 and wrote

accounts of the trial which were published. On July 31, 1971, The Spectator published an article by Tony Palmer called 'The Trials of Oz, continued' which contained an extremely unattractive attack upon the regular crime reporters

who were covering the Oz trial. In broad terms, the article sug

gested that these reporters had spent the days of the trial drinking and had neglected their work and were 'hack' journalists. The plain tiffs took the strongest ex ception to this attack as they were quite clearly identifiab'le as amongst those criticised by Mr Palmer. It was a source of very

considerable dismay, embarrassment and distress to them since

quite apart from their reputation with the public they depend for their futures upon maintaining a high reputation for professional

standards, competence and accuracy. The suggestion that they

were for any reason unable to do their job was potentially very harmful to them and they felt it necessary to bring this action to protect.their reputation. It is right to say, said Mr Alexander, that the defendants had never contended that the words were in any way true but had consistently maintained that the plaintiffs were not included within the category of "regular crime reporters." The plaintiffs were at a loss to understand this suggestion since their careers are well known and could at any time have been verified by the defendants who now recognised that the plaintiffs were right, that their claim was justified. and that it should not have been resisted. They accor dingly agreed to pay each plaintiff

a,substantial sum by way of damages and to indemnify them

against their properly incurred legal •'. costs. They apologised unreservedly to each of the plaintiffs for the distress and embarrassment they caused them by this wholly_ unjustified slur on their reputation.