The Gazette 1967/71

Lord Justice Denning, Master of the Rolls, who sat with Lord Justice Salmon and Lord Justice Phillimore, rejected a submission on behalf of Cassell that as Mr. Irving had written the book he was more deserving of punishment than Cassell. "I do not think there is much to choose be tween them," he said. "It is like the pot calling the kettle black. Mr. Irving wrote the book, but there would have been little damage if Cassell had not published it." Many people had afterwards written of the disaster. The official historian of the war did not condemn Capt. Broome, neither did Winston Churchill. "The condemnation was made 20 years later by an author who knew nothing about the war because he was still a small boy at the time." David Irving was determined to write "an authentic account", but his regular publishers, William Kimber, refused to publish it, as they thought it was too dangerous. So he got Cassell and Co. to publish it. The dust cover, written by Cassell, did not accuse Capt. Broome, but it did accuse the Royal Navy. They asserted the merchantmen had been "shamefully deserted" by the Navy, which lost only a fleet oiler. Inside the book, Capt. Broome was singled out for attack. Lord Denning said it was plain that Mr. Irving had been warned from most responsible quarters that his book contained libels on Capt. Broome, and yet he was determined to go on with it. To make it a success, he was ready to risk libel actions Although Capt. Broome had issued writs on March 5th, 1968, Cassell and Co. made the sur prising decision to publish a hardback edition, with the dust cover, on August 7th that year. Then two days before the action was heard last year, a paperback edition was published. "Why did they do it? Presumably because they thought that the profit from sales would outweigh the damages in the libel action." Lord Justice Salmon concurred. Lord Justice Phillimore said the book contained grave libels perpetrated quite deliberately and without regard to their truth by a young man and a firm of pub lishers interested solely in whether they would gain by the publication of the book. 252

HIGH DAMAGES REALISTIC — Court of Appeal

A High Court jury's award of £25,000 puni tive damages against a wartime naval escort historian, for libelling a wartime naval escort commander was "a fantastic sum," counsel said in the Appeal Court. "In the criminal courts, if anyone is fined £25,000 he must have committed a very serious criminal offence," said Mr. Colin Duncan, Q.C., for Mr. Irving. Mr. Irving was challenging the amount of the award, plus another £15,000 compensatory damages, to Captain John Broome, D.S.C., R.N., for libel in the book "The Destruction of P.Q. 17," in which a "scatter" order to ships was criticised. The publishers, Cassell and Co. Ltd., against whom judgment was also given in the High Court last February, are also challenging the £25,000 part of the award. Mr. Duncan said there was no suggestion that Captain Broome had suffered any financial or social loss through the libel. "He has been neither shunned nor avoided and there has been no suggestion that his professional reputation has been no suggestion tha this professional reputa tion has been damaged." he continued. "Is it right and just that Mr. Irving should suffer financial and professional execution for what he did? "The total sum is of such a character that no responsible appellate court could possibly allow it to remain." Eventually, however, David Irving, who was called "a grasping, conceited and foolish young man" by Lord Justice Phillimore, and Cassell and Co., the publishers, face costs and damages of almost £100,000 after losing their case in the Court of Appeal yesterday. Their appeal against the award of £40,000 damages to Capt. John Broome, 70, was dismissed. Leave of appeal to the House of Lords was granted. Mr. Irving's book blamed Capt. Broome for a "scatter" order to merchantmen in a Russia- bound convoy in July, 1942, as a result of which two-thirds of the ships were destroyed by German U-boats.