Party used a £30,000 legal threat to try to kill a big story about one of their senior figures, just two weeks before the election. This is a story that highlights how deep pockets and courtroom tactics mean that small news outlets can find themselves in a very difficult position when deciding whether to run a story …
We thought it was going to be a very straightforward news story. A senior Labour figure had been reported to Police Scotland – this was an irrefutable fact. What we planned to write wouldn’t pass judgement on the likelihood of the claims being prosecuted, because how could we, at that point, know? And there is clear precedent, in very recent history, for a similar development being both reportable and in the public interest to do so.
Now, he had been drafted in by Labour and, as you might expect, his expertise does not come cheap. Just this consultation with Dunlop would likely have run into the thousands of pounds. The consensus from us all was that there was a public interest in publishing the story but there was one big looming question – how much will or could this end up costing us?WE asked that very question – and the answer that came back after a few hastily scribbled sums was “about £30,000”.
Before making any decision, we decided to seek the advice of Senior Counsel, a KC that we could engage to fight them in court should we decide to do so. For now, though, we were simply keen to have an expert opinion on our chances of success.Over the course of an hour-long call on Tuesday afternoon, we were told that our chances of success were very strong. On the “corrupt practice” criminal charges point, they were most scathing.
And – this the key point – the Labour Party and their lawyers know that. It might have been all a bluff. Nine times out of 10, a legal threat is enough to kill the story. And there is an election coming up, of course …THE decision to publish or not was taken away from us, in the end. At around 4pm on Tuesday, Police Scotland got back to us, saying that they planned to take no further action. We were not given any reason why.