Following Chris Packham’s libel victory in the High Court on Thursday (see here), he’s issued a statement on his Twitter account.
You can watch it here:
UPDATE 28th May 2023: The transcript of Chris’s video message is now available, as follows:
Every day many thousands of innocent people are victims of online abuse and hate crimes. This can be racially, religiously or politically motivated. It can be generated in regard to gender politics, environmental beliefs, body shaming.
This vile part of modern life ruins lives, livelihoods, reputations, it disrupts young peoples educations, causes incalculable mental health problems and tragically causes people to take their own lives.
As it stands the criminal law is simply not there to protect us from such hate – something that must change. The current governments ‘Online Safety Bill’ is plodding along. In the meantime a tiny minority of victims are able to take civil action.
I have won my defamation case and been awarded costs and substantial damages.
Who are the defendants?
Dominic Wightman is the editor of Country Squire Magazine. His friend and business associate is a former director of the Countryside Alliance. He claims to be or have been variously an expert on Islamic extremism and terrorism, a gold dealer, the owner of a bank, to have been working for right-wing think tanks and a search engine optimisation expert.
Nigel Bean has a keen interest in fox hunting, having ridden to hounds for thirty five years. He writes the pro hunting ‘The Aldenham’ blog.
Paul Read is the proof reader for some of the defamatory articles for Country Squire Magazine and retweeted the links to them. The court dismissed the claims against him.
At the outset of this litigation the Country Squire website carried the British Association for Shooting and Conservation logo and still carries the logo of Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, The Scottish Gamekeepers Association and Baileys – the Hunting Directory.
Mr Wightman and Mr Bean are representatives of the ‘field sports’ fraternity.
In the offending articles and tweets they accused me of defrauding the public to raise money to rescue tigers from circuses, defrauding the public by promoting a crowd-funder during the COVID epidemic, lying about the burning of peat during COP26, writing a death threat letter to myself, and elsewhere of bullying, sexual misconduct and rape. They also accused me of faking an arson attack at my home and repeatedly called upon the BBC to sack me.
In a full and frank vindication of my innocence the court has found that “Mr Packham did not lie and each of his own statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth.”
Wightman and Bean had argued that publication of the allegations was in the public interest. This defence failed “by some margin.” The Court has said “rather than approaching the task with an investigative mind, these Defendants targeted Mr Packham as a person against whom they had an agenda.”
The articles published by Mr Wightman and Mr Bean “gave way… to increasingly hyperbolic and vitriolic smearing of Mr Packham, with further unsubstantiated allegations”. Several articles and tweets made offensive references to my autism.
The Court has accepted that this campaign “would have misled and agitated vocal and sometimes violent groups”, who “posted threatening and vile material about Mr Packham and his family online.”
Most egregiously all three defendants had advanced an allegation that I had forged a death threat letter to myself, an allegation that they managed to disseminate to the mainstream media, it was covered twice in The Times and widely elsewhere.
The Court has held that I did not write the death threat letter, concluding that “even a cursory examination of the handwriting in the death threat and comparison with a true sample of Mr Packham’s handwriting demonstrates obvious differences between the two.” The handwriting experts employed by the defendants were discredited and the accusation was withdrawn during the trial by their counsel.
However, the defendants stated under oath that they still believed I wrote it. Indeed when asked what they would do should they lose the case they said, and I’m paraphrasing, that they would ‘carry on’.
I would like to thank my excellent legal team, barristers Jonathan Price and Claire Overman and Carol Day and Tessa Gregory and their team from Leigh Day. They have been steadfast throughout despite often appallingly offensive abuse from the defendants. Thank you.
I would also like to thank Dr Ruth Tingay for setting up a Crowdfunder to help cover the costs of this long and expensive litigation.
And lastly, my followers. Thank you for your unswerving support and belief in my honest crusade to make the world a better place for wildlife , people and the environment.
ENDS
UPDATE 2nd June 2023: Chris has been asked to clarify some aspects of his statement of 27 May concerning his successful libel claim against Dominic Wightman and Nigel Bean, which he is of course happy to do. To be clear, the Judge found in his judgment that it was Mr Wightman who disseminated to other media organisations the allegation that he forged his own death threat, and Mr Wightman who said he’d carry on making that allegation to the police and professional bodies regardless of the outcome of the proceedings.
ENDS
Raptor Persecution UK 
Good !
A moving statement from Chris. All I can say is that we are so lucky to have such an amazing person who not only stands up for wildlife but also for what is right.
A person with such integrity and courage will always garner the support of many.
Thank you Chris.
Very well said!
Thanks Steve.
Vindicated!
So goddamn pleased for Chris. This smear campaign was ugly and dangerous. We now know all about the vile characters involved in this case and we will watch their names carefully in the future. They cannot hide behind a screen anymore. Excellent news.
Yes, well done Chris and your legal team. Thank goodness those spiteful, vindictive, entitled men have been given a bit of a bloody nose. I’ve no doubt they’ll continue their malicious vendetta but at least we know who they are now and what they’ve done. Thank you so much for everything you do for us and the natural world. I’m so sorry you have to put up with all this s*#*. Sending love & support xxx
Great news, well done Chris 👍
What a shot in the foot for the Countryside Alliance and all the vile people who hunt and shoot our wildlife for sport.
Good, good job too. Idiots, this has been going on for years I think, vindictive and pathetic, if they had such support and such a good point about everything, then they wouldn’t need to go out of their way to target anyone, would they?
I’m delighted with the case outcome. Your thorough & informative statement made me quite emotional and I can barely imagine the toll that this level of abuse, and subsequent scrutiny in court, has had on yourself and your family. Thank you for everything that you’ve done (and continue to do) for our beautiful world, thank you for not giving up; all hugely appreciated. I realise it’s not all over but I hope you manage to have a little respite from all of this.
I have’nt seen much/anything about this outcome on the mainstream news. Have I missed it was is it not there? I want to see the names of the ‘defendants’ shown up for all to see, not just those of us following relevant blogs etc.
Hi Mark,
There’s been massive coverage in mainstream media. Try googling ‘Chris Packham libel’ to find the articles.
Simply a top bloke.
What has sickened me over my long association with humane causes, and joined by many similar-minded and acting people, is the medieval hegemony certain individuals, politicians and various other sorts, exercise authority and power over the British landscape. Such people have frozen the progress of a more compassionate way of treating animals, whether in farms, laboratories, marine landscape, uplands/lowlands and whatever else can contain sentient creatures. Such a chilling way of contemptuously treating life forms has had to be challenged, and people such as Chris Packham have given campaigners a champion who has proven very worthy. If his detractors had won, then progress on various animal welfare fronts would have suffered.
Too many people from the ‘countryside community’ are keen to put Chris down at every opportunity and I have witnessed this myself on a couple of occasions. They refer to Chris as just ‘Packham’ and they say it in a very derogatory way. Chris, and his family, have endured this assault for years and I truly hope that following this case, those who have been attacking him will think twice before they say or do anything in the future. It’s sad that Chris had to go to Court but it was an absolute necessity. It’s appalling that people can say and write such untruths and I am really happy that they have got their comeuppance. I just wish that the Judge had given a higher award to Chris as this would have acted as a greater deterrent to others wishing to spread lies. Chris, you have my respect and I hope that this court case result will go a long way in making your life a lot easier in the future by deterring others from making verbal and written assaults against you.
I have over a good few years long admired Chris on many levels. This case however has shown to what lengths these people will stoop with their lies, deceit and xxxxx to defend their ” country sports” I like many others can only imagine the utter hell it has been for Chris and his family and what they have endured.
There comes a time when enough is enough and I along with many many others in this country believe it is now. The media in all it’s forms is out of control people like these two xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx xxxxx. it’s time they were stopped, but until we have a government with less of the land owning gentry and who is prepared to stand up and be counted and curb them this sorry state of affairs will continue causing the fear misery and sometimes tragic consequences that are reported from time to time.
Chris I wish you and your family well with the peace and privacy you so richly deserve, keep doing what you do there are thousands of people who support and are right behind you.
A good day for Packham & the truth. & for Ruth too!
Not vindicated as no vindication was needed. These odious individuals should be treated as pariahs by all right-minded people and society in general.
[Ed: thanks, Dave but I can’t publish that just yet as legal proceedings continue in relation to what you posted]