'Express' re-examines Currie libel papers

Lawyers for Express Newspapers are re-examining legal documents relating to a two-year-old libel case in which Edwina Currie was paid £30,000 after being described as "the vilest lady in Britain".

Executives at the newspapers, now owned by Richard Desmond, want to know if there is anything in Mrs Currie's recently published diaries which would allow them to re-open the case and recover their losses.

In March 2000 the former Tory minister won a public apology and £30,000 in libel damages plus her legal costs from the title then known as The Express. The article, written by the experienced political columnist Peter Oborne in September 1997, had made a number of "offensive" allegations about the former Conservative MP.

But it was the headline, "How Edwina is now the vilest lady in Britain" which had particularly upset Mrs Currie, the High Court was told by her barrister, Edward Garnier QC, a former Conservative shadow attorney general.

Other allegations in the article had later been put to Mrs Currie in television and radio interviews as though they were established facts, Mr Garnier told the judge, Mr Justice Morland.

But yesterday Express Newspapers confirmed that their lawyers are now "looking over the papers" of the Currie libel action to see if there are any "avenues" it might wish to explore in respect of recouping its damages.

Mr Desmond's lawyers will be studying very carefully exactly what she said in her pleadings to see if publication of her diaries and the public opprobrium in which she is now held have changed anything.