Category: News

Yesterday a judge finally threw out a defamation claim against Andy Wightman MSP and a ludicrous claim for £750,000 damages against him, made by Dr Paul O’Donoghue of Wildcat Haven Enterprises [and Wilder Britain and Lynx UK Trust], who had argued that Andy had published, with malice, defamatory material on his blog, on Twitter and on Facebook in 2015 and 2016.

Lord Clark ruled that none of Andy’s comments were defamatory and dismissed O’Donoghue’s assertion of financial loss as no evidence was provided to support the claim. This means Andy doesn’t have to pay any damages to O’Donoghue. An expenses hearing will take place in due course to establish whether O’Donoghue will have to cover Andy’s costs.

You can read the full ruling here: Opinion of Lord Clark_WHE v Wightman 2020

[Andy Wightman at a golden eagle nest site in Scotland in his role as Golden Eagle Species Champion. Photo by Ruth Tingay]

This case has been running for several years, putting Andy under enormous stress as he faced bankruptcy and thus the loss of his job had he and his legal team not been able to defend the accusations. If he hadn’t been held in such high regard by thousands of people who helped to crowdfund approx £170,000 to launch a defence, the outcome of this case would have been swift and unjust.

Here’s how Andy broke the news on Twitter after Lord Clark published his verdict:

“I’m delighted with this judgement from Lord Clark. I would like to thank my legal team of Campbell Deane and Roddy Dunlop QC for their support, diligence and hard work over the past three years. I’d also like to thank my family and colleagues at work for their support and understanding over this period.

I want to pay particular thanks to the thousands of people who generously contributed to my crowdfunder, without whom I would simply have been unable to defend myself. I have been hugely encouraged by their ongoing support.

The National Union of Journalists and Scottish PEN have also been very supportive as part of their wider campaign for defamation reform. I have maintained throughout that I did not defame the pursuer and that this action should never have been brought against me.

It is vital that Parliament modernises the law of defamation to ensure that the law provides the right balance between freedom of expression and the rights of people not to have their reputations tarnished. It is also important that the law is clear, so that writers and journalists can write confidently and provide the freedom of expression that is so important in any democracy.”

This case has attracted a lot of media attention, of course. Here are a few articles:

Holyrood Magazine: Andy Wightman wins defamation case

Times: Andy Wightman wants law reform after defamation victory

BBC: Scottish Green MSP Andy Wightman wins defamation case

Guardian: Scottish Green MSP successfully defends defamation case

STV: Green MSP Andy Wightman cleared in defamation case

Press & Journal: Green MSP Andy Wightman wins £750,000 defamation case brought against him

Scotsman: Greens MSP Andy Wightman wins £750,000 defamation case

National: Green MSP Andy Wightman wins in £750,000 defamation case

And what of Paul O’Donoghue? Well he’s featured in the current edition of Private Eye, although this time not about this case:

UPDATE 5th February 2022: Andy Wightman awarded over £170K expenses in defamation case (here)

Just before Christmas we wrote a blog about a hilarious GWCT video in which Scottish gamekeeper Ronnie Kippen (of Garrows Estate, Strathbraan) claimed, with a straight face, that “Rewilding is deadlier to a mountain hare than a 12 bore shotgun“.

Here’s the video again for those that missed it – it’s well worth a few minutes of your day:

But that ridiculous statement wasn’t the only thing to catch our attention. In this video Ronnie Kippen also let on that last year SNH had issued a licence to gamekeepers in Strathbraan to use jackdaws as decoys in Larsen traps (to attract other jackdaws that would then be killed to protect waders).

This was really interesting on a number of points, not least because this was Strathbraan, an area identified in a Government-commissioned report as a raptor persecution hotspot and also the location of the controversial raven cull in 2018 which was successfully challenged by the Scottish Raptor Study Group after it emerged the GWCT’s scientific proposal was “completely inadequate” and “seriously flawed“.

Gamekeepers are permitted to kill jackdaws under the General Licences, but this species cannot be used as a decoy bird inside a Larsen trap in Scotland – only inside crow cage traps. We wanted to know the evidential basis that SNH had used to agree to issuing this licence (i.e. what evidence was provided by the gamekeepers to SNH of the purported damage to waders by jackdaws?) so we submitted an FoI to ask for the licence application and associated documents, as well as the actual licence itself.

SNH has responded with the following letter:

Hmm. Ok, so according to this letter the decision to issue the licence was apparently based on a “site visit“. Hold that in mind and also hold in mind the statement, “We have not yet received a return for this licence“.

Now let’s look at the supporting documentation that SNH released as part of this FoI:

We don’t know who the licence applicant is because the name has been redacted so let’s just call him Mr Gammon. On 27 March 2019 Mr Gammon emailed SNH and asked for a licence. The ‘evidence’ provided by Mr Gammon appears to be that during an undisclosed meeting someone from the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) said he’d seen jackdaws predating wader eggs and Mr Gammon had agreed with him. That’s it!

Mr Gammon’s ‘evidence’ was apparently sufficient, according to this internal email between SNH’s Robbie Kernahan and an unnamed SNH employee, presumably someone in the licensing dept:

Later that day, an unidentified SNH employee sent an email to SNH licensing asking them to contact Mr Gammon to ask for a licensing application:

The next morning SNH licensing contacted Mr Gammon and asked for some basic details (note, no request for actual evidence):

A couple of days later Mr Gammon responds with the basic information requested, and a map (which has been redacted):

A couple of weeks later, SNH issued the licence to Mr Gammon. Take note that one of the licence conditions has been highlighted – Mr Gammon must submit a return within one month of the licence’s expiry date (31 July 2019):

So, according to all this documentation there was no ‘site visit’ as described in SNH’s letter to us, or if there was, SNH has forgotten to include it in this bundle of associated documents. What actually happened, according to these documents, is that Mr Gammon asked for a licence because some bloke from the BTO had once mentioned jackdaws predating waders and SNH decided to issue one without asking for any supportive evidence.

The second big issue here is that it appears Mr Gammon has breached the licence. A clear condition (#5) of the licence, as highlighted to Mr Gammon by SNH’s cover letter to him, was that ‘the licence holder must provide SNH licensing team with a return within one month of the expiry of this licence [so by 31 August 2019]. The return must summarise all works carried out under the terms of this licence. Please send this information by email’.

According to the FoI cover letter we received from SNH on 31 January 2020, ‘We have not received a return for this licence’.

We’ll be seeking further clarification on this from SNH and seeking assurances that if Mr Gammon is applying for any further licences this year that due consideration is given to this apparent breach of last year’s licence.

Watch this space.

UPDATE 12 March 2020: This morning we received an email from an SNH licensing officer which included the following:

“In my letter about the Jackdaw licence dated 31 March  I include a paragraph which said that no licence return had been received.  This paragraph was included in error.  The licence return was recorded in database and the information is provided in the paragraph above. A corrected version of our response is attached.  I apologise for any confusion this has caused“.

It’s good to receive a swift response from SNH – although it still doesn’t clarify when the licence return was received, nor why a copy of the return wasn’t included in the FoI response docs. Is there a written return, as stipulated by the licence, or was the ‘return’ just a hasty phone call after the deadline?

It also doesn’t address the issue of SNH’s apparent failure to seek evidential support for the licence application. We will be following up on these points.

Six months after Wild Justice’s petition calling for a ban on driven grouse shooting passed the requisite 100,000 signatures, a decision has finally been made to have a parliamentary debate in Westminster.

The date has not yet been decided but is expected to be within the next month.

Of course, this won’t be the first time this subject has been debated at Westminster. The first time was back in 2016, and what a sham that was, but many of those dishonourable members, some with clear vested interests, have since left the building.

Will it be any better, four years on? Wild Justice has some thoughts on that here.

Earlier this week this blog passed its ten year anniversary.

I’m not sure how that happened but as the number of blog views approaches 6 million it’s rewarding to see that the blog stats reflect a growing awareness of the illegal killing of birds of prey in the UK.

Massive thanks to all those who contribute – many of whom can’t be named but you know who you are – and thanks also to all those who comment and who share the blog through their own networks. To those who help fund my time, I’m indebted.

To maintain a blog like this requires significant effort. It can take its toll on some other aspects of life, and indeed it has, but it’s also brought great benefits, not least the opportunity to work with and get to know some pretty special people whose own efforts in this field and on related topics continue to inspire.

Foremost of these has to be Chris Packham and Mark Avery – our paths crossed as a direct result of this blog and led to the formation of Wild Justice. Two others of significance are Ian Thomson (Head of Investigations, RSPB Scotland) and Andy Wightman MSP, both of whom have been staunch supporters and providers of excellent advice – pictured here at last week’s Scottish Raptor Study Group conference:

[Ian Thomson, Ruth Tingay, Andy Wightman, photo by Andrea Goddard]

Back in 2010 I was pretty naive and didn’t expect to still be writing about this stuff ten years on. Fortunately these days, especially with the help of social media, it’s much more of a movement and there’ll be no turning back and shoving it all under a rug anymore.

Thanks to Andy Wightman MSP for lodging this motion of support at the Scottish Parliament earlier this week – it’ll be interesting to see who signs it and who doesn’t!