Top London QC leads newspaper's '˜Scrooge' libel appeal

London-based Gavin Millar QC appeared before the Court of Appeal today to head up the Sunday World’s challenge to the finding in favour of Gordon Coulter.

Earlier this year Mr Coulter, 84, won his action over a report published after his hotel went into administration in December 2014.

He sued the Sunday World, claiming it had portrayed him as callously discharging staff during a temporary closure of the Kilmorey Arms in Kilkeel.

In August a High Court judge awarded him £50,000 in damages.

Mr Justice Stephens held it was a serious libel of a businessman who had no other option but to put the company into administration.

The newspaper was also left facing a six-figure bill for the costs of the original trial.

Proceedings were issued over an article that claimed sacked workers at the 175-year-old hotel were left with no pay.

It stated that Mr Coulter, a former shareholder in the Kilmorey Arms, “has been branded a Scrooge for putting his staff on the street a week before Christmas”.

His lawyers argued the newspaper description meant he had money but out of meanness was not prepared to spend it to save the jobs at the hotel - which has since reopened under new ownership.

As part of its defence the Sunday World denied it was libelous to refer to someone as a Scrooge.

Launching the newspaper’s appeal, Mr Millar argued that the plaintiff must identify a single defamatory meaning.

Instead, he submitted, a “multi-faceted and shifting” list was presented, with the trial judge also advancing another three potential meanings.

Other grounds of appeal centred on responsible journalism and the reportage of comment made by a hotel cleaner.

“Both the crying cleaner and the words ‘a Scrooge’ which took such a centre stage in this trial are in quotes attributed to the distraught employee,” Mr Millar told the three-judge panel.

Pressed by Lord Justice Gillen on any gratuitous likening of someone to the fictional Dickens’ character, the barrister insisted it was comment with context.

“The reason why a member of staff is saying people in the town are calling him a Scrooge is apparent from the article,” he added.

Mr Coulter, a former president of Kilkeel Chamber of Commerce, once ran companies employing up to 500 people in the area

Awarded an MBE for his services, he has also been heavily involved in economic and environmental regeneration of the fishing port town.

In 2000 the businessman was part of a group that took over the Kilmorey Arms, Kilkeel’s only hotel, in a bid to aid the area’s economic growth.

For the next 14 years none of the shareholders received any financial benefits.

During evidence at the original trial, Mr Coulter said he was “gutted” by the article he described as heartbreaking and unjustified given his lifetime of work in the local community.

He claimed it had been the worst day of his life when he read it, leaving him reluctant to leave his home and being reclusive for months.

The court heard the story was especially hurtful because he believed it indicated his MBE was undeserved and should be taken off him.

The appeal continues.