Accord passé entre Anthony Bennett, Edward Smethurst et les MC
moyennant l'abandon, par AB, de l'appel contre sa condamnation par la High Court en février 2013 et une réduction de 93% des frais dus par AB
1. AB is required to
formally withdraw his application, made on 20 February 2012, to vary
three of the 16 Undertakings he gave to the Court and the McCanns in
November 2009 - and he has already done so by a letter to the High
Court.
2. AB appealed to the
Court of Appeal on 13 March 2013, as he had every right to, against
the judgments of Mr Justice Tugendhat in the High Court made on 21
February 2013. His appeal was accepted and registered as appeal No.
A2/2013/0684 and was due to be listed for a hearing - but AB has
been asked to withdraw that appeal and has now done so.
3. In return, the McCanns
have agreed to reduce their overall costs claim against AB by 93%.
They have reduced their claim against AB from a total of around
£370,000 to £27,500.
4. Tony has now paid an
initial £12,500 required by the McCanns and agreed to pay the
remaining balance (of £15,000) by monthly payments of at least £125
per calendar month for the next 10 years, i.e. until he is 75½.
5. In addition, AB must
pay a further £47,500 to the McCanns, should either of the following
occur:
a. he breaches any of the
16 undertakings, or
b. he fails to keep to
his monthly payment agreement.
6. Mr Justice Tugendhat’s
sentence of a 3-month prison term, suspended for one year, remains in
place, so AB can be immediately sent to Pentonville Prison if the
High Court finds he has breached any of his 16 undertakings (before
21 February 2014).
Edward Smethurst v Tony
Bennett
1. Tony had already paid
the sum of £2,500 into the Find Madeleine Fund in early 2012 in full
and final settlement of Edward Smethurst’s libel damages claim.
2. Edward Smethurst
agreed that if a settlement were to be agreed in the McCanns v
Bennett matter, he would reduce his costs claim from the original
amount claimed, namely £52,713.26, to £7,500 - a reduction of 86%.
To summarise:
In exchange for the
McCanns and Edward Smethurst reducing their combined costs claim
against him from a total of around £420,000, to £35,000 - a 92%
reduction overall - Tony has been required to:
* Withdraw his appeal
against Mr Justice Tugendhat’s judgment,
* Withdraw his
application to vary three of the 16 different undertakings he gave to
the McCanns and the High Court in November 2009,
* Agree to be bound for
life by the 16 undertakings he gave to the Court and the McCanns in
November 2009, and
* Agree to make no
further Application either to lift the stay on the McCanns’
original Libel Claim. or to vary or
discharge any of the
undertakings he gave in November 2009.
The Court Order:
The Court Order embodying
this settlement is not secret and I am able therefore to post its
full terms, which are as follows:
IN THE HIGH COURT OF
JUSTICE
Claim No. HQ 09 D 05196
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
The Honourable Mr Justice
Tugendhat
BETWEEN:
GERRY MCCANN & KATE
MCCANN Claimants
and
ANTHONY BENNETT Defendant
CONSENT ORDER
UPON the Court reading
the following correspondence:
(a) Letter of Carter-Ruck
to Tilbrooks Solicitors dated 18 March 2013
(b) Letter of Tilbrooks
Solicitors to Carter-Ruck dated 26 March 2013
(c) Letter of Carter-Ruck
to Tilbrooks Solicitors dated 27 March 2013
(d) Letter of Carter-Ruck
to the Court dated 16 April 2013, copied to Tilbrooks Solicitors.
AND UPON the Defendant:
1. Acknowledging that he
continues to be bound by the Undertakings which he gave to the Court
(“the Undertakings”) contained in the Order herein of 25 November
2009 (“the Order”), to which is attached a penal notice;
2. Agreeing to the
dismissal of his application by way of Application Notice of 20
February 2012 (“the Defendant’s Application”) to lift the stay
of these libel proceedings imposed by paragraph 2 of the Order (“the
Stay”) and/or to vary or discharge the Undertakings; and
3. Undertaking forthwith
to withdraw his appeal by Appellant’s Notice filed with the Court
of Appeal on 13 March 2013 from the Order for Committal of Tugendhat
J (“the Committal Order”) made on 21 February 2013 (“the
Appeal”)
AND UPON the CLAIMANTS:
4. Agreeing to limit
their total costs recovery pursuant to the Committal Order to £75,000
inclusive of interest (“the Claimants’ Costs”) in full and
final settlement thereof, and so long as the Defendant complies with
the following payments plan, namely:
(a) The Defendant to pay
£12,500 on account of the Claimants’ Costs within 28 days of the
date of this
Order, and
(b) The Defendant to pay
a further £15,000 on account of the Claimants’ costs by way of
monthly instalments of not less than £125 paid on or before the 25th
day of each calendar month (or if the 25thof any given month is not a
working day, the nearest working day thereafter) for a total period
of 10 years, the first such payment being made on 25 May 2013 to the
Claimants’ Solicitors’ client account, the final such payment to
be made on 25 April 2023, unless by then the Defendant has fully
discharged the balance of the £15,000.
5. Agreeing not to
enforce payment of the balance of £47,500 of the Claimants’ Costs,
save in the event of:
(a) Any future breach by
the Defendant of the Undertakings;
(b) The whole or part of
the payments provided for in 4(a) and 4(b) above remaining unpaid
upon its due date;
(c) The initiating by the
Defendant of a fresh application to lift the Stay;
(d) The initiating by the
Defendant of a fresh application to vary or discharge the
Undertakings;
(e) The failure of the
Defendant to withdraw the Appeal [made to the Court of Appeal] or the
initiating by the Defendant of a fresh appeal against the order for
Committal of 21 February 2013
BY CONSENT IT IS ORDERED
THAT:
6. The Claimant have
permission to enter judgment for the whole of the balance of the
Claimants’ Costs agreed at £75,000 then outstanding in the event
of:
(a) A further finding by
the Court or admission by the Defendant of any breach of the
Undertaking committed by him after the date of this order;
(b) The whole or any part
of the payment provided for in 4(a) and 4(b) above remaining unpaid
upon its due date;
(c) The initiating by the
Defendant of a fresh application to lift the Stay;
(d) The initiating by the
Defendant of a fresh application to vary or discharge the
Undertakings;
(e) The initiating by the
Defendant of a fresh appeal against the Order for Committal of 21
February 2013.
7. The Defendant’s
Application is hereby dismissed.
8. Each party has
permission to apply.
9. Save as already set
out above, there be no order as to costs.
Dated this seventeenth
day of April 2013
SEALED by the High Court
this eighteenth day of April 2013
STATEMENT NOTED BY THE
COURT:
I, Anthony Bennett, the
above-named Defendant, confirm that I have taken legal advice on the
terms of this Order from Tilbrooks Solicitors and that I understand
those terms and the consequences of any failure to comply with them.
Signed by: Anthony
Bennett, 8 April 2013
Signed by: Carter-Ruck,
Solicitors, 6 St. Andrew Street, LONDON, EC4A, Solicitors for the
Claimants
Signed by: Tilbrooks
Solicitors, Quires Green, Wilingale, ONGAR, Essex, CM5 0QP,
Solicitors for the Defendant
Additional Statement from AB, 3 May 2013
I start by thanking once
again the forum-owner who originally set up ‘The Complete Mystery
of Madeleine McCann’, largely to help me, and who has remained
loyal and helpful throughout all the ups and downs of the last four
years.
Today is exactly six
years since the parents of Madeleine McCann reported her missing.
For the past 5½ years I
have been intensely interested in this case and have made many public
statements on it. The legal actions against me have however forced me
to recognise that this activity must cease.
Here is a brief history
of more recent events concerning the legal actions against me by the
McCanns and Edward Smethurst:
Recent Events
On 5 & 6 February Mr
Justice Tugendhat heard evidence in relation to an application by the
McCanns to commit me to prison, restricted to the very narrow issue
of: ‘Has Mr Bennett broken any of his undertakings?’.
No other matters
whatsoever could be taken into consideration during this trial. Not
even the question of whether all the undertakings were reasonable
ones to have given in the first place.
Shortly afterwards,
Carter-Ruck told me that their total costs in the matter had now
risen to well over £300,000, including fees for barristers Adrienne
Page Q.C. and Jacob Dean of £69,270 (inc. VAT), and their own fees
which then totalled £233,299.20 (inc. VAT but excluding witness
expenses and various Court fees and other ‘disbursements’, which
amounted to several thousand pounds on top of that).
On 18 February, on my own
initiative, I told Carter-Ruck that I would be prepared to consider
an overall settlement in which I abandoned any further legal action
to vary or discharge three of my undertakings, in exchange for a very
substantial reduction in the McCanns’ costs.
The McCanns responded
swiftly by saying they were ‘interested’ in such a proposed
settlement, but would wait for Mr Justice Tugendhat’s formal
decision on 21 February.
On 21 February Mr Justice
Tugendhat found that in 13 instances (and in those 13 instances only)
I had breached one or more of my undertakings.
In passing, I should
point out for the record that:
(1) The McCanns did not
seek at the trial to prove that the publication of ‘The Madeleine
McCann Case Files Volume 1’ was a breach of any of my undertakings.
They withdrew that from an earlier list of 26 alleged breaches which
they had set out to the Court back in March 2012
(2) Similarly, the
McCanns also withdrew from that list of 26 alleged breaches the
allegation that my public reading on a YouTube video of the ‘48
questions’ put by the Portuguese Police to Dr Kate McCann was a
breach of any of my undertakings.
Thus Mr Justice Tugendhat
made no ruling as to whether the book: ‘The Madeleine McCann Case
Files Volume 1’, or the reading of the 48 questions, were breaches
of any of my undertakings.
I should also point out
in fairness that the McCanns’ position is that they only pursued 13
alleged breaches, for reasons of convenience and case management, and
they maintain that all the other 140 alleged breaches were also
breaches of my undertakings.
On 21 February Mr Justice
Tugendhat sentenced me to a suspended 3-month jail sentence and
ordered the court costs to be assessed if not agreed.
Following further
correspondence, on 6 March Carter-Ruck wrote to me, without
prejudice, saying that the McCanns would be prepared limit their
claim against me to £75,000. That sum was to be paid by an initial
lump-sum of £7,500 plus paying the remaining £67,500 over the next
37½ years at the rate of £150 a month.
This would have meant
paying the court costs until I was 103 years old. In addition, they
would take a charging order on the marital home, meaning that if I
died before 103, they would be entitled to claim the balance owing,
plus interest, from my estate.
On 13 March I lodged an
appeal to the Court of Appeal against Mr Justice Tugendhat’s
judgment. The normal fee on lodging such an appeal is £465, but I
was exempted from paying the fee on grounds of low income. I have
since agreed to withdraw that appeal as part of an overall
settlement.
At this time, I also
instructed Mr Robin Tilbrook of Tilbrooks Solicitors to conduct
negotiations with the McCanns, as a result of which a new offer was
put to me and I accepted.
The Settlement Oder above
was approved by Mr Justice Tugendhat on 17 April, was sealed by the
High Court on 18 April, and sent to me a few days ago.
I have now paid the
amounts of £12,500 costs due to the McCanns and £7,500 costs to
Edward Smethurst. In each case, by the way, these are payments direct
into the bank accounts of Carter-Ruck. I have in addition instructed
my bank to pay Carter-Ruck £125.00 per calendar month, starting on
25 May, and until 25 April 2023.
Observations
Above all else, these
proceedings were conducted in a legal framework where those with
sufficient funds are able to sue or threaten to sue for libel, and
those with insufficient funds must choose whether to give in, or
conduct their own defence - and if appropriate finance any
counter-claims, as I elected to do by defending the contempt
proceedings in person and applying to vary three undertakings.
I have agreed to withdraw
my appeal to the Court of Appeal against Mr Tugendhat’s judgment.
And this means that I am legally bound to accept its verdicts.
I will however make one
brief comment. He implied in Paragraph 148 of his judgment that there
was some element of choice in my deciding to represent myself. I can
assure him that there was not. There was no way I could have
sustained the cost of legal representation to oppose the fire-power
of Carter-Ruck, their barristers, and, of course, whoever is funding
them.
Legal Aid is simply not
available to defendants in libel proceedings, despite rulings by the
European Court of Human Rights stipulating that defendants who cannot
afford the high costs of defending themselves in defamation cases
should be entitled to state aid.
All High Court judges who
rule on libel cases are aware of this situation.
The practicalities
Mr Justice Tugendhat made
a number of comments in his judgment, none of which I can now appeal.
For example, he said that my publications were ‘a flagrant breach’
of my undertakings.
However, he also said
that my apologies both to the High Court and to the McCanns before
him on 21 February were sincere. And so they are.
I did not intend to defy
the High Court. I thought that I would have had valid defences for my
publications, but I did not. I cannot now continue with any legal
action in relation to my publications.
In his judgment
(Paragraph 108), Mr Justice Tugendhat said that even for me to repeat
facts in the case could be deemed libellous and a breach of my
undertakings. He said in relation to the contents of a certain
leaflet: “A list of factual statements can carry an inferential
meaning additional to the literal meaning of each fact…”
In other words, he said:
Facts can be libellous.
That statement by Mr
Justice Tugendhat is one reason why I really cannot continue to make
any more public statements about Madeleine’s reported
disappearance. The impact of my actions on members of my family is
another. Besides that, the process of defending yourself and pursuing
legal claims on your own is both stressful and mentally exhausting.
The possibility of being sent to prison, being made a bankrupt and
losing my home were all factors which have weighed heavily on my
mind. It is time for me to cease making any more statements on the
case - not even repeating facts.
Very many people have
helped and supported me, in all kinds of ways, great or small,
particularly during the legal proceedings. I am truly grateful to
each and every one of you who have helped me one way or another
during this period.
AB
