No Comebacks

'What is it you want to speak to Mr Buxton about?' she asked.

'I would like an appointment to see him personally,' said Chadwick.

There was a pause on the line and he heard an internal telephone being used. She came back on the line.

'In what connection did you wish to see Mr Buxton?' she asked.

Chadwick explained briefly that he wanted to see the editor to explain his side of the suggestion that had been made about him in Gaylord Brent's article of two weeks earlier.

' I'm afraid Mr Buxton is not able to see people in his office,' said the secretary. 'Perhaps if you'd be kind enough to write a letter, it will be given consideration.'

She put the phone down. The following morning Chadwick took the underground into Central London and presented himself at the front desk of Courier House.

In front of a large uniformed commissionaire he filled out a form, stating his name, address, the person he wished to see and the nature of his business. It was taken away and he sat and waited.

After half an hour the lift doors opened to emit an elegant and slim young man shrouded in an aura of aftershave. He raised an eyebrow at the commissionaire, who nodded towards Bill Chadwick. The young man came over. Chadwick rose.

'I'm Adrian St Clair,' said the young man, pronouncing it Sinclair, 'Mr Buxton's personal assistant. Can I help you?'

Chadwick explained about the article under the by-line of Gaylord Brent and said that he wished to explain to Mr Buxton personally that what had been said about him was not only untrue but threatened him with ruin in his business. St Clair was regretful but unimpressed.

'Yes, of course, one sees your concern, Mr Chadwick. But I'm afraid a personal interview with Mr Buxton is simply not possible. A very busy man, don't you see. I... ah... understand a solicitor representing you has already communicated with the editor.'

'A letter was written,' said Chadwick. 'The reply was from a secretary. It said a letter to the correspondence column might be considered. Now I am asking for him at least to hear my side of it.'

St Clair smiled briefly. 'I have already explained that that is impossible,' he said. 'The letter on behalf of the editor is as far as we are prepared to go.'

'Could I see Mr Gaylord Brent himself, then?' asked Chadwick.

'I don't think that would be very helpful,' said St Clair. 'Of course, if you or your solicitor wished to write again, I am sure the letter would be considered by our legal branch in the usual way. Other than that, I'm afraid I cannot help you.'

The commissionaire showed Chadwick out through the swing doors.

He had a sandwich lunch in a coffee bar just off Fleet Street and spent the time it took to eat it lost in thought. In the early afternoon he was seated in one of those reference libraries to be found in Central London which specialize in contemporary archives and newspaper cuttings. His perusal of the file of re

cent libel cases showed him his solicitor had not been exaggerating.

One case appalled him. A middle-aged man had been badly libelled in a book by a fashionable author. He had sued and won, being awarded £30,000 damages and costs against the publisher. But the publisher had appealed, and the Appeal Court had quashed the damages, making each party pay their own costs. Facing utter financial ruin after four years of litigation, the plaintiff had taken the case to the Lords. Their Lordships had reversed the Appeal Court decision, re-awarding him his damages, but making no order as to costs. He had won his £30,000 damages, but after five years had a legal bill of £45,000. The publishers, with a similar legal bill, had lost £75,000, but were insured for the great bulk of that sum. The plaintiff had won, but was ruined for life. Photographs showed him in the first year of litigation as a sprightly man of sixty. Five years later he was a broken wreck, made haggard by the endless strain and the mounting debts. He had died bankrupt, his reputation restored.

Bill Chadwick determined no such thing was going to happen to him, and took himself to the Westminster Public Library. There he retired to the reading room with a copy of Halsbury's Laws of England.

As his solicitor had said, there was no statute law on libel in the same way there was a Road Traffic Act, but there was the Law of Libel Amendment Act of 1888, which gave the generally accepted definition of a libel or defamation as:

A defamatory statement is a statement which tends to lower a person in the estimation of right-thinking members of society generally, or cause him to be shunned or avoided, or to expose him to hatred, contempt or ridicule, or to convey an imputation on him disparaging or injurious to him in his office, profession, calling, trade or business.

Well, that last part applies to me at least, thought Chadwick.

Something his solicitor had said in his homily about the courts nagged at his mind. 'In court all allegations can be printed publicly and do not have to be substantiated.' Surely not?

But the lawyer was right. The same Act of 1888 made that clear. Anything said during the sitting of the court can be reported and published without reporter or editor, printer or pub-Usher fearing a suit of libel, provided only that the report be 'fair, contemporaneous and accurate'.

That, thought Chadwick, must be to protect the judges, magistrates, witnesses, police officers, counsel and even the defendant from fearing to state what they believe to be true, regardless of the outcome of the case.

This exemption from any reaction by any person, however insulted, slandered, defamed or libelled, providing only that the allegation v/as made in the body of the court during the sitting of the court, and the exemption for anyone accurately reporting, printing and publishing what was said, was called 'absolute privilege'.

On the underground back to the outer suburbs, the germ of an idea began to grow in Bill Chadwick's mind.

Gaylord Brent, when Chadwick finally traced him after four days of searching, lived in a trendy little street in Hampstead, and it was there that Chadwick presented himself the following Sunday morning. He estimated that no Sunday-paper journalist would be at work on a Sunday, and took pot luck on the Brent family not being away in the country for the weekend. He mounted the steps and rang the bell.