History lessons Peter Carter Ruck. He is contemplating stealing the book from his public library/Blacksmith

Friday, 12 February 2010
History lessons
Peter Carter Ruck. He is contemplating stealing the book from his public library

JB writes: Never sue for libel - a history lesson.

At the highbrow end, Nicholas Tolstoy, an English writer and historian, was sued in 1989 by the ex-soldier Lord Aldington, regarding events at the end of WW2 when, under a deal with Stalin, British troops effected the transport east of Cossacks and their families who were deemed to have supported the Nazis by serving as auxiliaries in the German armed forces.

The troops used their weapons to force the pleading victims onto trains from Austria to the socialist utopia. Peasants living near the railway bridges and viaducts en route paused with their sickles in their hands to watch victims throwing themselves to their death all along the journey, to avoid the firing squads waiting at the end of the line.

Aldington won his case by being the first British officer to dishonour his commission by saying, “I was only obeying orders.” He was right, in a way, since the real originator of the policy – apart from Churchill – was the beaver-toothed intriguer, weakling, cuckold and eventual prime minister, Harold Macmillan, who gave the orders to the army while his wife was groaning under the sheets, and more important under the weight, of the obese Lord Boothby (see below) back in England.

Slimy Uncle Mac, whose career ended when his prostate went wrong through underuse

Aldington was awarded £1.5 million [McCannites:"yes!] but the English middle classes - the proper ones, not the McCanns and the Mitchells - know their way very well round both the legal and the financial worlds, Carter Ruck take note, including the world of bankruptcies and trust funds. They sensed injustice so Tolstoy remained in his beautiful Oxford manor house and Aldington was stalled for eleven years until he died skint. [(McCannites:"boo!"]

Then David Irving’s attempt to sue Deborah Lipstadt over being called a Holocaust denier blew up in his face when a battery of historians added to our knowledge of the Final Solution while systematically dismantling his claims. Ouch!

So much for great matters of principle. Most of the other cases, naturally, have involved those worms the politicians, and their attempts to stay out of trouble. Robert Hoch, an East European black marketeer who renamed himself Maxwell and became a Labour MP was the most colourful.

Robert Maxwell - not as nice as he looks

Maxwell began his career while still in the British army in 1945 with a “borrowed” three ton truck full of cigarettes and food stolen from army kitchens; off-duty he then drove this from Schloss to Schloss offering these goodies, on a very small scale, to the literally starving German owners - in return for their entire family libraries and archives. Thus was founded the publishing empire which made him a multi-millionaire. You won't find that in Wikipedia, by the way, because it comes from an uncle of mine who, for his own reasons, had him under surveillance.

He was the injunction specialist who bluffed and terrified the media into silence whenever they questioned his businesses, reaching his peak when he took over the Daily Mirror and its employees as though they were just objects. They were – he stole three hundred million out of their pensions, making him the UK’s greatest ever thief.

When the truth about his career was about to come out his bloated figure either slipped or jumped off the yacht which the pensioners had so generously paid for. He had a good run with those injunctions, though, and he still has his defenders, like that influential expert on Iraq and good judge of character, Alastair Campbell - who once punched someone for being pleased at the monster's death.

Then we have the founders of Carter Ruck’s fortune. Now they definitely did all right in court. These were three very senior Labour politicians who were described, rather harmlessly, by a newspaperman as being drunk in a restaurant during an important convention. Gosh, the pain, the hurt! It was Peter Carter Ruck’s first big test and he passed it with flying colours as his clients got together, planned a contrived and dishonest version of events and then lied from beginning to end about what had happened in a restaurant, winning big damages. Sound familiar? Times don’t change much, do they?

The fantasist Lord Archer, erstwhile deputy chairman of the Tory Party, kept up the winning streak: following the claim that he’d paid off a blackmailing hooker he sued, he won and he got the money! [McCannites: prolonged and loud applause] But, alas, years later he had to give it back [McCannites: sudden gloom] and go to prison [McCannites: Oh no!] because, guess what, he’d fibbed.

Lord Boothby, ex-government minister, a hyperactive bisexual who was screwing prime minister Macmillan’s wife for over twenty years, never came to court because he got away with the McCanns’ trick of injunction and legal intimidation. He shared hospitality and rent boys with that hero of the London East End Ronnie Kray, who once stabbed an unarmed man to death so violently that his liver tumbled out onto the floor. Ah, celebrities!

Lord Boothby and useful friend. Note the ties and note the eyes.

Boothby stayed out of court, confining himself to saying what good chaps the Krays were from a bench in the House of Lords. Then, as now, the top lawyers were more than willing to sup with the devil. While one of the rent boys was being hidden in the Blacksmith home so that Ronnie’s Scotland Yard friends couldn’t find him for Ronnie to “keep quiet” – ie murder - the top lawyers were out in force saying that Boothby’s conduct was impeccable – or was it “in line with best practice?" - and keeping the media silent as the grave, or the coffin.


And another two!

We conclude with the latest in this long line of injured and totally innocent parties, our friends Kate and Gerry McCann.

Interested watchers should hope for a full version of the court proceedings to savour their defence lawyer’s final contribution. Team Bureau was in there, as it has been since the start of the case, and had the highly satisfactory experience of watching Duarte summing up the McCanns’ claims on the last day.

Those who awaited a calm refutation of Amaral’s accusations were disappointed: she went off on a semi-crazed rant reminiscent of a circus dwarf in the first stages of a fit. She insulted everyone and everything – police, audience, the internet, oh, and opposing lawyers. Goncalo Amaral, of course, virtually brought the foam to her lips. The earring! For some reason she even attacked his f*****g earring. At one point she was interrupted in her tirade by one of her listeners shouting that she had insulted him!

Like her clients, no class. There was, said our representative, with something approaching understatement, “rather a shortage of objective argument”.

But spare any false hopes. The McCanns may very well win the hearing, not because of Duarte's efforts - hardly! - but for a much more fundamental reason. Years ago a then acquaintance of mine walked out of court after being tried for refusing to take a breath test. He hadn’t refused, his very expensive lawyer had argued to the consternation and amazement of everyone present, no, he had never refused – he had simply been too drunk to take it and had then passed out in the road: an unconscious man cannot refuse.

“You know,” said his barrister as they departed to celebrate their victory, “the law is a funny thing.”
Posted by john blacksmith at 09:26

another marvellous piece from blacksmith

Wow, amazing piece of writing.

Its the sort of piece that you want to read several times, so that you can digest it as it makes so many good points.

I'd heard of Lord Boothby, but didn't know quite what a shit he really was (had an idea he was dodgy as he was very good friends with fascist leader Oswald Mosley, who incidentally was the father of Max Mosley the Formula One guy who didn't get away with his injunction against the paper who dared to expose his nazi orgies!) However, it looks like that was a one off, because this piece shows how many friggin liars have got away with injunctions to cover up appalling things.

I was sad to see that Mr Blacksmith thinks that the McCanns will get the injunction to stay though. However, as he has so rightly pointed out, its happened again and again and again that the barstewards in history have always been able to wriggle out of the reckoning. But as he (again) so rightly points out, us TRUE middle classes know the truth has been distorted beyond belief.

Can I have some more , please sir .

MORE, it's Charles Dickens rewrote. Gordy Brown has a history degree, I believe, he's also a liar and a sociapath.

You've got to start wondering, why he's brought the "tears of a clown" up this week, is he been Blackmailed by gerry McCann and his medical associates ? It need asking.