Desmond in the witness box: I had no vendetta against Black

Newspaper owner suing investigative reporter denies interfering in coverage

(UPPA)

He is the owner of four national newspapers and has a reputation as one of the toughest negotiators in the business but Richard Desmond did not like it one bit when a freelance writer suggested that there could be a chink in his armour.

He is suing the biographer Tom Bower over a paragraph in a book that Mr Bower wrote about someone else – because Mr Desmond does not want it said that he is a wimp.

Mr Desmond denies claims in Mr Bower's book, Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge, that he was "ground into the dust" in a confrontation with Lord Black. He maintains that he won the argument. Black will not be giving evidence because he is serving a six-and-a-half year prison sentence in the US for fraud.

Mr Desmond also denies an allegation that he ordered a journalist to write an "explosive" article in the Sunday Express as part of a vendetta against Black. He told a jury in the High Court yesterday that he leaves it to his editors to decide what goes into his newspapers.

Mr Bower's counsel, Ronald Thwaites QC, suggested to the jury that they might be puzzled why an "immensely wealthy, powerful and influential" individual – the sort of man who could ring the Prime Minister and expect to be put through – should want to sue over an "obscure passage" on page 337 of a 413-page book that was not even about him.

"For a newspaper proprietor, he has got a wafer-thin skin," he said. "In the rough and tumble world of journalism, you have got to give it, and you've got to take it."

He went on: "Mr Desmond is here because he wants to tell the world that he is not a wimp. Have you got that? 'I am Richard Desmond, owner of four newspapers'.

"I suggest the truth is he was bested by Lord Black. Lord Black got the better of him – as he did lots of people – until justice eventually caught up with him, and Mr Desmond can't take it, and that's why we've got all this convoluted performance into what these words mean. If this man wants to come here and complain about his reputation, we say firstly that this passage does not damage your reputation – it's much ado about nothing. But, if you want to scratch the surface and take us on – whether we can prove the underlying truth – I tell you that we can."

In the witness stand, Mr Desmond said he had had a court battle with Black over the management of a large and very profitable printing press in London's Docklands, jointly owned by the Express newspaper group, which Mr Desmond bought in 2000, and the Telegraph group, then owned by Black. But Mr Desmond said he was "very happy" with the outcome, which resulted in his becoming chairman of the board of the company that runs the printing press. He denied that he had a "vendetta" against Black.

Black threatened to sue the Sunday Express over an article that appeared in 2002, headed "Bankers pull the plug on Black". In Mr Bower's book, it is alleged Mr Desmond "ordered" the newspaper to print it. Mr Desmond said the first he knew about it was he was shown it by the editor, Martin Townsend, on the Friday evening before publication. He added: "I asked him 'Is this true, is this right?' He said 'Yes', and I said 'Well, you're the editor, so put it in – or don't put it in'."

After Black had threatened to sue, and they had met in the presence of a mediator, Mr Desmond agreed to apologise but only after Black had agreed to retract a false allegation made in the Daily Telegraph that Express Newspapers was run by "ex-convicts", the court heard. Earlier, his counsel, Ian Winter QC said: "If anyone climbed down, it was Lord Black. Mr Desmond, as a businessman, has to deal with people and if they believe that, despite having this tough reputation, he is a wimp and can be made to say sorry for things that are true, it can be very damaging for him." The hearing continues.