£1000 LIBEL ACTION

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 29, 27 April 1927, Page 14

£IOOO LIBEL ACTION

HARBOUR ENGINEER’S CLAIM LETTERS IN NEWSPAPER (.Special to THE SUN.) The case in which Cyrus J. R. Williams, engineer and secretary to the Lyttelton Harbour Board, is claiming £I,OOO damages for alleged libel from the Christchurch Press Company, Limited, is proceeding. ■Mr. M. J. Gresson and Mr. J. H. Upham appear for the plaintiff, and Mr. M. Myers, K.C., and Mr. W. J. Sim for the defendants. ALLEGATIONS OF MALICE The statement of claim, after setting out the qualifications of plaintiff, alleged that the defendant company falsely and maliciously printed and published in the Christchurch “Press” newspaper on July 24, 1926, a letter purporting to be signed by the Port and City Committee and containing certain words which plaintiff claimed meant that he was incompetent and was compiitted to a policy of drift and procrastination and that his recommendations to the board would retard the progress of the port and that the reclamation work carried out under him was faulty and had been carried out by primitive, expensive and haphazard methods. Another published letter from the same committee was relied upon by the plaintiff. ft appeared in the “Press” on August 5, 1926, and plaintiff claimed that it meant also that he was incompetent and his work was so ruinously faulty that it would have ruined a private contractor, that for a number of years the board had followed his recommendations without question, and that owing to the. plaintiff’s incompetence this had led to the detriment of the port and that the plaintiff was using his influence with the board in obstinately persuading it to follow an erroneous policy and was advising them to incur useless expenditure in purchasing a dredge which was not required. STATEMENT OF DEFENCE The statement of defence denied that the letters were published falsely or maliciously, or that they were of and concerning plaintiff, or in the capacity of the plaintiff as engineer of the board. It denied that the letters bore the meanings alleged by plaintiff or any such meanings. Defendant said further that neither of the letters could reasonably be interpreted to bear any other meaning or innuendo reflecting upon plaintiff either in his capacity of engineer or otherwise. Defendant denied that either of the letters contained any matter which was defamatory in any way of plaintiff in his

capacity of engineer or secretary or otherwise. Other allegations in the statement of claim were denied. Defendant set out that for many years past the policy to be adopted to provide Christchurch and Xorth Canterbury with adequate port accommodation had been a prominent public question and had been the subject of letters which had appeared in Canterbury newspapers at various times. In pursuance of its usual policy the Christchurch “Press” permitted such letter to appear in its columns as touching upon matters of very general public interest.