Gleaner Company Ltd and Dudley Stokes v Abrahams (Eric Anthony)

• Jurisdiction: Jamaica
• Judge: FORTE, P: , HARRISON, J.A.: , LANGRIN, J.A.:
• Judgment Date: 29 October 2000
• Neutral Citation: JM 2000 CA 25
• Judgment citation (vLex): [2000] 7 JJC 3109
• Court: Court of Appeal (Jamaica)
• Date: 29 October 2000

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL

COR:

THE HON. MR. JUSTICE FORTE, P THE HON. MR. JUSTICE HARRISON, J.A THE HON. MR. JUSTICE LANGRIN, J.A

BETWEEN

THE GLEANER COMPANY LIMITED DUDLEY STOKES

DEFENDANTS/APPELLANTS

AND

ERIC ANTHONY ABRAHAMS

PLAINTIFF/RESPONDENT

Emil George, Q.C., with Garth McBean & Yoland Whitely Richard Ashenheim of Dunn, Cox, Orrett & Ashenheim

Winston Spaulding, Q.C., Gayle Nelson, Mrs. Nancy Tulloch-Darby, Mrs. Crislyn Beecher-Bravo & Marina Sakhno Gayle Nelson & Co for Respondent

DEFAMATION - Libel - Damages

FORTE, P:

1 The respondent is a gentleman of solid background and a son of a well respected family in Jamaica. As a result, he was the beneficiary of a good education, received at two of the leading high schools in Jamaica from where he moved on to the University College of the West Indies. Taking advantage of these opportunities he excelled not only in academics, but also in sports and in other extra curricular activities, particularly that of debating in which he represented the University in international competitions. His qualifications were good enough to earn him the coveted Rhodes Scholarship, which allowed him the honour of attending the prestigious University of Oxford in England. At Oxford, he became President of the West Indies Society and President of the Oxford Union a debating Society. The respondent, however soon fell into problems at Oxford which led to his being sent down. In his evidence he gives an explanation, which suggests that the reason for this, was the stand he took in relation to the visit of a South African Ambassador to the University during the times when the Apartheid regime existed in South Africa. He had planned a massive demonstration against the Ambassador, which turned sour as the Ambassador "got a little roughed up." The demonstration it seemed, also coincided with the arrest of Nelson Mandela. He became a television reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation rising from the lowest rank as a production assistant to become a director and then a television reporter. In 1965/66 he resigned to return to his native land as Assistant to the Director of Tourism. Two years later, at the age of 28, he was appointed Chairman, and Director of Tourism. In that job, he studied "a lot about tourism". He took the opportunity to learn and understand the foreign tour operators and travel agents and to develop contacts with them. He developed a lot of friends in the tourist industry, and his background at the University College of the West Indies and in England gave him access to a lot of persons in the industry who had been his fellow students in those days. In 1974, he resigned as Director of Tourism, and entered business as a tourism consultant. He did some valuable work including consultancies with the Organization of American States (O.A.S.) the Government of El Salvador and Eastern Airlines.

2 He unsuccessfully contested the national elections in Jamaica in 1976 after which he was appointed a member of the Senate. Having served a year he went to Barbados to head the O.A.S. Regional office, and while there through the OAS he did consultancies with the Governments of Barbados, Grenada, St. Lucia, Haiti and Bolivia.

3 In 1980, he came home and contested the general elections, this time being successful. Thereafter he was appointed Minister of Tourism. In the 1983 elections, not contested by the opposition party he was returned unopposed, and thereafter continued as Minister of Tourism until 1984, when he resigned as Minister, but remained in Parliament. During this time, the respondent testified, he had the opportunity to further increase contacts, "press contacts, trade contacts, public relations contacts, government contacts both regional and international."

4 After his resignation, the respondent went back to his private consultancy business, and made available to the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association, and the government of Jamaica, his advice and contacts. The respondent at this time, if he were believed, had established himself as having vast experience in the tourism industry and considerable knowledge in respect of the same, and also a lot of contacts both regionally and internationally.

5 He was a person respected for his knowledge and experience, not only at home but internationally having done consultancies for various countries. He was at this time enjoying a good reputation, and success in his consultancy business, though, handicapped so far as international organizations were concerned, by his continuing as a Member of Parliament, as those organizations did not "favour" active politicians.

6 It was at this time that the Articles, the subject of the appeal, were published by the defendants. The respondent had had an introduction to the allegations to be made against him on the day before the first of these publications took place. On that day, he received a call from a Miss Lisa Marie Peterson, from the Associated Press in Stanford Connecticut. She read to him what appears to have been an Article which she proposed to publish. The respondent testified that the Article she read sounded exactly to the word like the Article he was to see in the Star Newspaper the following day. He got angry, threatened to sue if the Article was published in that form and gave her three reasons why the Article was not true. She agreed to amend the Article. The following day, he received a call from his Attorney who read the Article in the Star Newspaper to him. As a result he went to the Attorney's office and read the Article. He decided to rectify it, by calling the second defendant/appellant and giving him the same information he had given to Miss Peterson. When he got the second defendant/appellant on the phone, he told him of the content of the conversation with Miss Peterson and told him he would write "a (clarification) denial, and that he would be obliged if he could carry it in the following day's Star". Mr. Stokes at that time had no knowledge he said, of the Article that had been published in the Star. He wrote the denial and took it to the Gleaner Company that same evening, but it was not published in the Star of the following day. Instead, on the following morning, the same Article, with one part excluded, was published in the Daily Gleaner, without any of the denials contained in his "clarification" taken to the appellants' offices on the evening before. The respondent consequently called the second defendant/appellant, and complained "bitterly" about not publishing his correction in the Star. In answer, the second defendant/appellant stated that he had been overruled and that he knew it was going to cause trouble. The article in the Star Newspaper of the 17 ^th September, 1987 referred to above, and the subject matter of the case is as hereunder:

7 It is headlined as follows:

"Author says his diary sparked kickbacks investigation"

8 Then it reads:

"STAMFORD, Connecticut:

Author Robin Moore says his personal diary and files contributed to Federal authorities suspicions that New York business executives paid kickbacks to Jamaican officials for lucrative tourism promotion contracts.

'All I can say is I suspected the Minister of Tourism was exacting a toll,' the writer, Robin Moore of Westport, told the Advocate of Stamford in a copyright story published Tuesday.

'Call it a bribe, call it anything you want,' said Moore, the author of 'The French Connection', a novel on drug smuggling.

The Advocate reported Sunday that Federal authorities in Connecticut are investigating public relations and advertising executives suspected of paying Jamaican officials one million dollars for contracts worth $40 million from 1981–1985.

The Advocate, quoting anonymous sources close to the probe has said five or six executives of the public relations firm Ruder Finn and Rotman and the advertising firm Young and Rubicam are the focus of the investigation.

Officials of both firms have denied any wrong doing and said they are co-operating with investigators.

KEY FIGURE

Moore said Monday that his files helped lead Federal agents to suspect that Anthony Abrahams, Jamaica's former Tourism Minister was being paid by American businessmen for the multi-million dollar tourism contracts.

Sources close to the federal grand jury have said Abrahams is a key figure in the investigation, the newspaper said, Abrahams, however, has not testified before the grand jury empannelled in New Haven, The Advocate reported.

The newspaper said efforts to reach Abrahams and his successor, Hugh Hart, during the past two weeks were unsuccessful, and Hart didn't return telephone calls to his office on Monday.

Moore 61, said the notes in his diary are impressions, of what was going on between Abrahams and the United States companies. The subjects also appeared in letters between him and friends in Jamaica.

'I have no definitive proof that this ever happened — it was just a suspicion of mine,' Moore said. 'People were talking. There were certain things everybody know. There was no secret about the situation with the (former) Minister of Tourism'.

Moore said IRS agents seized his diary and other documents in June 1983, when he was being investigated for his part in phony literary tax shelters. Moore is now awaiting sentencing on his 1986 conviction of evading taxes.

Moore, who has lived in Jamaica periodically for the past 27 years, said that in 1981, he volunteered his services to the Jamaican government to find advertising and public relations companies that would help the country's tourist trade.

I was sort of a self-appointed liasion, although I asked to help. I said, 'Let's try to do something about the image here, which is very bad at the moment'. 'I did, indeed help introduce the advertising agency of Young and Rubicam to Jamaica, but I certainly had nothing to do with any...