Significant Win for Dinah Rose KC
This morning the important and influential barrister, Dinah Rose KC, was able to report that she had secured a major victory against The Times newspaper because of a libellous story published about her in November last year.
The story itself had wrongly suggested that the Bar Standards Board had ruled against Rose because of recklessness. In fact there had been no evidence of recklessness and the Board made no ruling against her whatsoever.
Furthermore the article had wrongly suggested that the cab rank rule did not apply and that she did have the option to refuse a brief from the Cayman Island’s government and their position against same-sex marriage.
As Rose tweeted, the legal editor of the newspaper will apologise in open court and they will pay her legal costs on top of substantial damages.
This is most certainly an embarrassment for The Times, a newspaper that not so long ago was held in high regard amongst lawyers and legal academics. Nowadays it is always important to remember that both The Times and The Sun are owned by News UK, a Rupert Murdoch property. In other words the lies and dishonesty that are common in The Sun are often repeated in The Times.
Journalists at the paper are often careless when it comes to how they talk about individuals and editors either do not or will not pick it up because they know that it is more likely to sell copy or get clicks online that way.
For many who do not have the skills or resources that Rose has at her fingertips this is just something that has to be endured. Even for Rose though, while her day in court counts as a success, The Times is only apologising in a small section of the newspaper six months after the article had already been published.
There is no real punishment for such shoddy journalism when the financial penalty is mere pennies to Murdoch.