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relation to any aspect of the plaintiff's allegations. How the plaintiff's complaint came to be investigated by the General Investigation Office
rder than the A.C.D. is not something which this court can be concerned with. The plaintiff's contention is. that this was done at the defendant's instance and that this demonstrates further a desire to remove the
complaint from proper scrutiny. He would say, I suppose, that if that be the case, it is an evidentiary link binding the defendant to the
dishonest behaviour of his subordinates and therefore opening the door to a critical examination by the jury of the defendant's motives in making these reports. It is unnecessary to comment upon the rather
recipitate sequence of those propositions for the plain fact revealed by documents which the plaintiff's own untiring efforts have made
available to him is that the defendant did not initiate this move to have the inquiry removed to the Ceneral Investigation Office but parted with the Aberdeen inquiry file at the request of an officer of the Criminal Investigation Department (see Minute 6 dated 4.12.69 in ATB/11947): Arashes on EL
I do not propose to engage any further in an examination of the reasons advanced for any of the plaintiff's wider suspicions. It is eviderk- that his initial conviction that the defendant was implicated in c. conspiracy to extort money in return for commissions has widened to embrace several other conspiracies, all linked, in which not only is the defendo nt said to be involved but also a considerable proportion of the highest ranking officers in the Far ce, not excluding the present Commissioner, and in some degree also the Executive, Legal and Judicial establishments. The origin of his prolonged campaign into the
territories of these establishments is, as he candidly admits, the fact that ne was, in his opinion, injustly rejected in 1950. But the farther out one travels from the focus of his complaint, the more diffuse becomes the quality of his assertions. I will not, therefore, refer to what he has said of his disappointment with the several Commissioners of Police, the Colonial Secretary, the Attorney-General and the rest.. That, at
best, is the background against which must be tested the worth of the immediate contention at issue here- the alleged malice of the defendant
in the matters published by him of the plaintiff.
It should be said of course that unless an indirect motive can be shown : external to the alleged libels themselves, there is nothing in the
voids used in those documents, more especially when read in the context ast of the reports in which they appear, and in the wider context of the
circumstances of publication (including the prior confidential reports
the doremiant D.ll, 13 and 14 upon which, as is concedea,/phed reliance in raking his reparts) – there is, as I say, nothing in them to suggest malice on the face of it. On the contrary they bear every sign of a serious and judicial attempt to make a full and fair assessment of a difficult subject and the adverse criticism they contain is plainly directed at what are
The plaintiff regarded to be defects of personality and character.
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Exh.D.11,
D.13
& D.14.
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• has, I think, conceded that if they amounted to a just and honest evaluation of him and weie ettered on occasions of privilege, he would not say they were defamatory. The malice of the second libel, in his contention,
lies in the fact that it does not express an honest opinion of him and that the defendant, in publishing it, very well knew that the plaintiff was not a man of the kind described, and; as regards both allged libels, that the defendant knew that there was no question of the plaintiff's having cheated in an examination. The plaintiff does not of course
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S.C. 224
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