The Desmond defence

In 1975 when we started International Musician, you

24 know, when you start a new publication and you're 22,

25 23, it's very important -- the advertising is very


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1 important. And basically in the first issue one of our

2 major advertisers was called Marshall, Marshall

3 Amplifiers. In the first issue, Marshall had brought

4 out an amplifier which was solid state. Before that he

5 was known for valve amplifiers. The reviewer in the

6 first issue said, "This amplifier will electrocute you,

7 this amplifier should be withdrawn from the market."

8 You know, you can imagine how I felt, having sold

9 Marshall loads of advertising and, you know, a friend,

10 in inverted commas, a business friend in inverted

11 commas, but at the end of the day the article went in,

12 Marshall went berserk and we lost the advertising for

13 six months. But what happened was after six months

14 Marshall did withdraw the amplifier, yeah? And he did

15 then put his advertising back in for his valve

16 amplifiers.

17 The point of a long-winded story is that I learned

18 at the age of 22 that actually the editorial integrity

19 is the most important thing, and you -- you know, thank

20 God we did the right thing and nobody was electrocuted,

21 and back to papers, to answer your question directly,

Q. I might come back to that point in a moment, Mr Desmond,

14 but I'm dealing now with general points. Mr Ashford

15 told us that when you started in 2000 you were somewhat

16 of an outsider, culturally and geographically?

17 A. Oh, did you see the cuttings?

18 Q. Mr Desmond, it helps if you don't ask me questions.

19 A. Okay.

20 Q. Just give me an answer which makes it clear where you're

21 coming from.

22 A. We were vilified, we were pillared, we were attacked.

23 The only thing I wasn't accused of was murder. I think

24 that was the only thing I wasn't accused of. I think

25 I was accused short of murder.


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1 Q. Are you referring to all your competitors or are you

2 referring just to some of them?

3 A. Well, no, pretty much -- you know, I mean the Mail were

4 the worst, because they were upset that they hadn't

5 bought the Daily Express. In fact, you know, a day

6 after we bought the Express, they came in and said

7 aren't I lucky I made £100 million because they wanted

8 to buy it from me and I said that's not what I want to

9 do.

10 The Mail were upset. The Telegraph were upset

11 because they had this joint venture with a printing

12 company and basically they were having, you know,

13 a great time with the previous management of Express

14 running rings around them and they knew they weren't

15 going to run rings around me.

16 So they were upset because they weren't able to

17 steal the printing plant from us. Then the Guardian

18 were upset because we came from left field, so nobody

19 knew who we were and, you know, we didn't really, you

20 know -- you know, we were cutting their friends' jobs,

21 so they didn't like us. Then we had the Sunday Times,

22 I can't remember why they didn't like us, but, you know,

23 they wrote lovely things about us.

24 No, it was pretty evenly spread. The Independent.

25 The Mirror, the Sun, I can't remember them, but they


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1 probably did have a go, but compared to the others,

2 I think we were let off lightly.

3 Q. So the notional proposition that there might be some

4 sort of anti-aggression pact between you as a proprietor

5 and other proprietors is something you would laugh out

6 of court, wouldn't you?

7 A. I would. I mean, only two weeks ago, Baker vilified me

8 in his horrible rag.

12 Q. I think you made it clear that the Daily Mail is, as it

13 were, your worst enemy. Is that a fair way of

14 characterising it?

15 A. I think it's Britain's worst enemy, the Daily Mail.

MR JAY: So when you took over this business, you grabbed it


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1 by the scruff of the neck, you reduced costs where they

2 could be reduced, you sought to increase advertising and

3 were you successful in both of those objectives,

4 Mr Desmond?

5 A. Yes, we were. It was very easy, very quick. Within

6 three months we had it into a profit. You know,

7 I remember one of the things -- we were talking about

8 the private investigators, and one of the things

9 I remember is walking around the floor and there was

10 a room with a lot of scruffy geezers and I said to the

11 editor, "Who are they?" "Oh, I can't tell you who they

12 are". "What do you mean, you can't tell me?" "Oh, it's

13 the investigative department." So I said, "What is it?"

14 "I can't tell you." So Paul, who is in charge of that

15 area, found out what they did. They were special

16 investigators, you know, sort of bugle stuff, Dan Dare

17 stuff.

18 And then the final thing was I think the first week

19 they asked for £5,000 or £10,000 of cash, or the editor

20 at the time asked for that, to pay these geezers, shall

21 we call them, to do their private investigative work.

22 My reaction was the last thing we're going to do is to

23 start paying out cash to people, we don't know what

24 they're doing, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So

25 I said to Paul, "You know what? I don't like the whole


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1 thing". Paul didn't like the whole thing. "You know

2 what, cut the whole area. No one knows what it is and

3 it seems a bit dodgy."

4 What makes me laugh is a few weeks ago we're sitting

5 on the Parliamentary Committee around the table and

6 there's my friend Lord Hollick sitting there asking me

7 about newspapers, whereas he was the chief executive of

8 that company that employed these people. I do find it

9 ludicrous, frankly.

10 Q. Were these people, as you've put it, were they employees

11 of the company?

12 A. Yes. Employees of the company.

13 Q. So they weren't freelancers, they weren't independent

14 contractors?

15 A. No. It was a very important area, you know. Very

16 important, very secretive, important area. But we cut

17 it out within -- I think within a week or two weeks.

18 I think that's probably why we made so many friends in

19 the first few weeks, because we did cut a lot of these

20 type of people out. If we didn't know what they did, we

21 got rid of them.

Lillyofthevalley wrote:Desmond is no fool you could see that when he was questioned, he's a thorn in Team McCanns side (I say that because he will have tons of stories regarding the whole lot of them waiting to go to print), he is just waiting for his chance, imo he is the Man who is going to start the ball rolling, you see

Chris: I think some are forgetting the Express has been one of the worst for simply trotting out the PR stories over the past couple of years. RD is only interested in what sells his papers whether it be Fayed fed Diana stories or Clarrie inspired fairy tales from Rothley.

loopdaloop: With regard to Panda and the negative things written about him, he explains why all the other papers did that in the enquiry.
http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearing/2012-01-12pm/ - In short he was making commercial business decisions and turning around a newspaper that was making a 24million loss, He stated that the newspapers accused him of everything! short of murder

HiDeHo wrote:

Lillyofthevalley wrote:Desmond is no fool you could see that when he was questioned, he's a thorn in Team McCanns side (I say that because he will have tons of stories regarding the whole lot of them waiting to go to print), he is just waiting for his chance, imo he is the Man who is going to start the ball rolling, you see

I have always felt he is just biding his time and will retaliate big time when the time is right.

He used Carter Ruck for a 2009 libel case.....so if something WAS to happen, will CR be involved, and if so, will their choice of clients depend on who has the most money?

HiDeHo wrote:

Lillyofthevalley wrote:Desmond is no fool you could see that when he was questioned, he's a thorn in Team McCanns side (I say that because he will have tons of stories regarding the whole lot of them waiting to go to print), he is just waiting for his chance, imo he is the Man who is going to start the ball rolling, you see

I have always felt he is just biding his time and will retaliate big time when the time is right.

He used Carter Ruck for a 2009 libel case.....so if something WAS to happen, will CR be involved, and if so, will their choice of clients depend on who has the most money?