Defamation Claim Against Newspaper

Press, Volume C, Issue 29509, 10 May 1961, Page 16

Defamation Claim Against Newspaper

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, May 9. A photograph and accompanying article printed in the "Southland Daily News” of May 21, 1960, had implied that he was “one of the four biggest drunkards in Bluff” and had held himself and his family up to merciless public ridicule, Cedric Williams Goomes, aged 52, a worker, claimed in the Supreme Court at Invercargill today. Goomes is seeking £l5OO damages from the Southland News Company; Ltd., for alleged defamation of character. Mr Justice Haslam was asked to withdraw the claim from the jury on the ground that a photograph and accompanying article were not capable of the defamatory meaning given by Goomes. He decided to reserve the matter, and when told that the defence did not propose calling evidence adjourned the claim until tomorrow morning. Goomes is represented by Mr N. B. French and Messrs I. A. Arthur and C. C. Fraser appear for the company. Goomes claimed that a photograph and article appearing in the Southland Daily News on May 21, 1960, inferred that, he (1) spent too much time in a hotel, drank too much and was to effect a drunkard: and (2) was the type to be held in public redicule because of his excessive drinking habits. "Indeed why else was it published,” asked Mr French. The jury will be addressed tomorrow and Mr Justice Haslam will sum up. The photograph which forms the subject of the claim is of a couch in the Bay View Hotel, Bluff, bear, ing the names of four men. including that of “Sydney Goomes” a name by which

plaintiff said in evidence he was commonly known. The article which accompanied the photograph reads: "The licensee of the Bay View Hotel at Bluff, Mr W. E. Adams, was strolling through Todd’s' Auction Mart last week when he saw an old couch. . . . Mr Adams bought the couch and had the names of four wellknown Bluff men who are customers of his painted on the back underneath a reserved sign. . . . The couch will now sit in the bar of the Bay View Hotel, providing ‘civilised’ drinking conditions for the four stalwarts.’’