Memorandum submitted by Martyn Jones MP
I
understand that your Committee is looking into the effect on the media of the
Conditional Fee Arrangements and that you had evidence from Mr
Firstly,
this 'chilling effect' did not prevent them having many more cases against them
before mine, but to refer to my case there are several inaccuracies in Mr Dacre's evidence to the Committee. They did not have
witnesses to the facts of the article in question in the plural, as Mr Dacre said. They had one witness and several other hear-say
witnesses to his position. I had two material witnesses, one concerning the
actual incident itself where I was supposed to have gesticulated and shouted at
the security guard in question, and I had a witness to the fact that this was
not the case. Also other allegations were made in the article concerning the
disciplinary measures taken against me which were also incorrect. So, far from
being 'chilled' by the CFA in this case, the
All I wanted initially was a retraction and an apology to prevent this lie being used against me at election time, and it is clear that without the CFA I would not have been able to obtain redress.
Incidentally, with the same paper but on a different issue, the Press Complaints Commission were entirely useless in my opinion.
I
would be more than happy to appear before your Committee and put right the
false picture created by Mr Dacre's evidence to your
Committee. I think it is also worth pointing out that there are other papers,
for example
April 2009
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