Richard Desmond is an 'interfering proprietor', court told

Daily Express and Daily Star owner Richard Desmond faces cross-examination in libel action against Tom Bower

Richard Desmond, the owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star newspapers and OK! magazine, is an "interfering proprietor" who will tell lies "at the drop of a hat", the high court was told today.

In the second day of Desmond's libel battle with the biographer Tom Bower, the jury heard that Desmond had a reputation for making journalists do his "bidding" and settle grudges with his enemies by writing negative stories in his newspapers.

Desmond is suing Bower over a paragraph in a book that he wrote about the jailed newspaper tycoon Conrad Black, who was one of Desmond's main business rivals when he owned the Telegraph newspapers.

The jury heard that shortly after Desmond's Northern & Shell firm bought the Express Group in 2001, the editor of the Sunday Express, Michael Pilgrim, left the company, unhappy at management intervening in editorial matters.

Under cross-examination Desmond maintained he had a good relationship with Pilgrim, who once applauded him in a meeting.

Ronald Thwaites, QC, for Bower, expressed incredulity that Desmond would not know the details of the departure of such a key figure in his business. "Were editors falling like flies? You just swat them away? Another week another one?"

He added: "I suggest the reality is that Mr Pilgrim lost his job for speaking out on management interference."

But Desmond said he had never known why Pilgrim left the business, and that he never received a scathing, private memo said to have been sent to have by Pilgrim – later leaked to the Observer – in which Pilgrim complained of "constant management pressure to do things outside the ethical remit of a newspaper".

He said he did not know that Pilgrim's key card to get into the Sunday Express building was reprogrammed the day after the Observer article was published, and said he had no memory of signing a cheque for a "six-figure" sum when Pilgrim was eventually paid off.

"We were slimlining the company [at that time]," he said, adding, "I was signing for large amounts of money for people I had never met."

The court heard the memo had now been lost and was not contained in the file Desmond kept in his office on Pilgrim.

Thwaites alleged that Desmond had a "reputation as an interfering proprietor".

The QC put it to Desmond that management at his newspapers "ordered the journaliss to seek out and run damaging stories about Conrad Black", with whom he had been in a dispute about the West Ferry printing plant, which the two co-owned.

Desmond denied this and said that newspaper proprietors do not meddle in editorial matters. "It's not the way it works. You do not instruct or order your editors or journalists to write features about people you know. It does not happen."

He added: "If I ordered the editors or the reporters to write a feature they would not do it."

But Thwaites said that was Desmond's modus operandi. "That's exactly the problem you had with journalists when you bought the Express newspapers, who wouldn't do your bidding. [This] resulted in them leaving the paper," he said.

The court heard that Bower wrote a biography of Desmond, provisionally titled Rough Trader, and that in 2005 Bower wrote Desmond a number of letters asking for an interview to "avoid mistakes". But Desmond denied receiving any of these letters and suggested that Bower may have forged them to support his case.

The passage Bower wrote about Desmond in his book about Conrad Black was "incorrect, it was unresearched and it was wrong," said Desmond, and therefore he wouldn't be surprised if the letters were fake.

Thwaites called this a "monstrous allegation" and said, "It is perfectly clear, Mr Desmond, that you will tell lies at the drop of a hat, that you are prepared to say anything to support your case."

The court heard that the following year Bower's publishers received a letter from the law firm Carter-Ruck, renowned for its work on libel cases, asking for a copy of Rough Trader before publication. Was the purpose of this letter to "put the frighteners on the publisher?" asked Thwaites. Desmond did not answer.

Desmond said he wanted the libel corrected because a "reference book" such as Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge could be around for the next 100 years.

The case continues.



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