Home > Preston County Court ’Out Of Its Depth’ In Newspaper Harassment Claim
Preston County Court ’Out Of Its Depth’ In Newspaper Harassment Claim
by WireNews Limited - Open-Publishing - Friday 16 January 2015District Judge Rouine admits Preston District Registry (High Court) unable to deal with ’complexity’ of case
In the matter of Greg Smith, Another -v- Express Newspapers, Others (Claim #A59YM735) at Preston County Court; a claim alleging an ongoing campaign of harassment by a national newspaper, District Judge Augustine Patrick Rouine today kowtowed to Express Newspapers group and the request by Richard Desmond’s media group, when he denied the claimants’ request that the case remain at Preston, even if it should rightly be elevated to the High Court by way of the Preston District Registry.
DJ Rouine was appointed to be a District Judge in 2012 and was assigned to the Northern Circuit, based at Preston Combined Court Centre with effect from 1 March 2012. He was admitted as a Solicitor in 1991.
The claim against Express Newspapers began at Preston County Court in June 2014 but in August 2014 the defendant wrote to the court and requested that the case be transferred to The Registry of the Queen’s Bench Division (London). District Judge Anson, on 23 September 2014, dutifully and without a hearing complied with Express Newspaper’s request despite the claimants’ previous letter that sought to pre-empt the defendants’ request. A hearing was requested by the claimants and after a further four months Preston County Court listed the application for hearing, 7 full months after the claim was issued.
At today’s hearing DJ Rouine accepted that ’out of fairness’ and even with the claimants’ ’financial and domestic circumstances’ taken into consideration and when weighed against the other legal submissions advanced by the solicitor acting for Desmond’s porn-rooted empire, which DJ Rouine said had no merit, he still felt London was better-suited to hear the case.
Preston District Registry, DJ Rouine said, was simply not up to the job or able to deal with the ’complex’ nature of such a long-standing animosity, existing between the parties.
High Court judges at Preston District Registry will rightly feel slighted by the decision and may seek a quiet word with DJ Rouine following his damning assessment of their abilities. In essence, DJ Rouine declared these other Senior judges not up to job of hearing a straight-forward newspaper harassment case.
The case will now transfer to London Registry, Queen’s Bench Division.
The defendants’ previous application to strike was not heard today and may not proceed in future after Counsel for the defendant (Christina Michalos) admitted that even if a future judge felt there was no harassment, a claim of defamation might survive against her client.
More to follow.
