The case of
Jacqui Thompson, from Llanwrda, Carmarthenshire, who was sued by Mark James over five posts she made on her blog is very interesting. At first sight it seems as though this is the County Council being extremely heavy-handed with a local blogger, but there's clearly more to it.
Carmarthenshire council indemnified their Chief Executive Mark James in his libel counter-claim against Mrs Thompson, a move found to be "Illegal" by the Welsh Audit Office, which also hinted that the Council might not have been entirely forthcoming.
Carmarthenshire paid out more than £26,000 in external legal costs since 2012 under the decision to indemnify Mark James, and although it might seem odd for a county council to indemnify an employee in this way, the council clearly thought otherwise, and blamed the WAO.
They said:
For almost two years the Wales Audit Office gave the council every indication that it was quite satisfied that the authority was within its rights to indemnify a council officer to bring a counterclaim in response to being sued for libel and was fully aware of the legal advice that the council had received supporting its action.
"In fact, some six months after the indemnity was granted, the auditors - responding to questions raised by a local resident - repeatedly confirmed that they were satisfied that the council was acting within their powers.
The WAO stood by their finding, however, and further claimed the council, who had said it would "publish the correspondence between ourselves and the auditors so that everyone can see for themselves what has taken place" had not in fact published all of the correspondence. So, once again, the observer is left to wonder what is going on and why vast amounts of taxpayers money is being spent by Councils who seem to thrive on secrecy...
Mark James won his case, but the detailed verdict bears study, more because of what the bogger didn't do and because of a serious mistake:
In 2006 she (sometimes with her husband) wrote a number of letters accusing both the Head of Planning for the Council (Mr Bowen) and Mr James of corruption, although Mr James had no involvement in the planning decisions complained of by Mrs Thompson. Mr Bowen sued Mr and Mrs Thompson for libel. The Thompsons did not seek to prove the allegations of corruption and their defence of honest comment was struck out. The action was in due course settled by a public retraction and apology in October 2007, as well as by an agreement to pay £7500 towards Mr Bowen’s costs.
3. Notwithstanding this defeat, Mrs Thompson started a blog in March 2009 under the title “Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more”. Her postings were highly critical of the Council. She made repeated false statements of fact for which the judge held that there was no foundation and made various allegations of corruption, lying, perjury and misappropriation of public money.
4. Mrs Thompson also started to film proceedings of the Council and posted the resultant clips on YouTube. On the 3rd occasion of doing this on 13th April 2011 a Council Officer, a Mr Davies, was sent up to the public gallery to ask her to stop. She did stop, left the public gallery and then made an allegation that, while they were in the public gallery, Mr Davies had assaulted her and attempted to steal her mobile phone. The judge found that this allegation was false and known by Mrs Thompson to be false. He also held that it was an attempt to pervert the course of justice.
It's a complex case, but one which resonates with everyone in the Three Towns, partly because of marked similarities between the behaviour of Carmarthenshire council and our own CCBC. The same fondness for secrecy seems apparent in both and planning issues can cause major headaches for everyone involved.
But this lady lost (although the final sentence of the verdict almost certainly didn't help) and might have to sell her house.
There are many who believe it's too easy to sue for Libel in the UK, but the other side of the coin is whether people are entitled to free speech, and how far that entitlement extends.
