ACTION FOR LIBEL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 September 1938, Page 2

ACTION FOR LIBEL

MAYOR OF CHRISTCHURCH SECURES DAMAGES. \ COMMENTS BY MAGISTRATE (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, September 13. Holding that the language used by defendant “dragged political controversy into the gutter,” Mr Raymond Ferner, S.M., today gave judgment for £2O in a libel action brought by Robert Mafeking MacFarlane, mayor of Christchurch, against Berthold Ahlfeld, a political opponent. Plaintiff is La-, bour candidate for the Christchurch North seat at the coming general election and defendant Independent candidate.

Plaintiff was represented by Mr K. G. Archer, and claimed £lOO damages because of a pamphlet issued by Ahlfeld, on the ground that it was false and defamatory. Defendant, who conducted his own case, claimed in a long statement that the words complained of had been used in a political and not a personal sense, but the magistrate did not uphold that contention.

“I think plaintiff had just cause and grounds for complaint,” said the magistrate in his judgment. “What was said greatly exceeds the bounds of decent language, and was personal and abusive.” Such words as “cowardly assassinator of women” were injurious and defamatory to the standing of any public man. It had crossed his mind, the magistrate continued, that the words complained of might be mere vulgar abuse, but in his opinion it went much further than that, and the words complained of were in the form of conclusion of a direct line of argument. Defendant had claimed that his remarks had been meant only in a political and not in a personal sense, but he did not see how this ground could be taken. The phrases complained of were nothing if not personal. The real defence to the action seemed to be a sense of grievance about an advertisement published by plaintiff in the Christchurch “Sun” three years ago. Whether the words in that advertisement were capable of a defamatory meaning was doubtful and the court was not called on to decide this, but whether tney were or not was certainly no justification for the wording of the pamphlet and, in any case, until recently Ahlfeld had not told MacFarlane that he wanted an apology or withdrawal or that he was even aggrieved. The libel was premeditated, the magistrate held, because before it was made Ahlfeld had written to plaintiff threatening to use the advertisement of three years before as a means of “bashing” plaintiff in the mayoral election. If it was necessary to prove malice, the magistrate added, he would have had no hesitation in declaring that the publication was malicious. Probably the extravagant language used in the pamphlet was sufficient to damn it in the eyes of most men, said the magistrate, in discussing the damages to be awarded. * However, in all communities there was a small section prepared to believe such language, and plaintiff had undoubtedly suffered some annoyance, for which he was entitled to redress. Damages would be fixed at £2O. A request for witnesses’ expenses for plaintiff was not allowed.