Chris Packham emerges victorious in case about claims over rescued tigers, reports Steve Faragher
Chris Packham has won his libel case against Country Squire Magazine, with a High Court Judge in London awarding him £90,000 in damages.
Accusations published online by Country Squire Magazine suggested that Chris Packham had lied in two instances, one time to mislead the public into funding the rescue of tigers from a circus, and another to suggest that he wrote a death-threat to himself.
The second accusation concerning the death threat was withdrawn unreservedly by the defendants before the case was concluded and in the principal matter of the tiger rescue Mr Justice Saini ruled in Packham’s favour and said: “Mr Packham did not commit any acts of fraud or dishonesty.”
Two of the defendants, Dominic Wightman, the editor of Country Squire Magazine, and the writer Nigel Bean were found to have libelled Packham, and ordered to pay him damages. The claim against a third defendant, Paul Read, who had described himself as a ‘mere proofreader’ was dismissed.
Mr Justice Saini said that Mr Wightman and Mr Bean “failed to come even close to establishing the substantial truth” of the principal…
