Gregory Clarence Bowen Claimant v Grenada Broadcasting Network Ltd Defendant [ECSC]

• Jurisdiction: Grenada
• Judge: Price Findlay, J.
• Judgment Date: 24 October 2013
• Judgment citation (vLex): [2013] ECSC J1024-1
• Date: 24 October 2013
• Court: High Court (Grenada)
• Docket Number: CLAIM NO. GDAHCV2009/0014

[2013] ECSC J1024-1

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF GRENADA

AND THE WEST INDIES ASSOCIATED STATES

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

CLAIM NO. GDAHCV2009/0014

Between:

Gregory Clarence Bowen

Claimant

and

Grenada Broadcasting Network Limited

Defendant

Price Findlay, J.

1 The Claimant in this matter on the 16^th of January, 2009 filed a claim form against the Defendant accompanied by a statement of claim of the same date seeking the following relief:

• 1. Damages for libel, including aggravated damages

• 2. Exemplary damages

• 3. An injunction restraining the Defendant whether by themselves, their servants, agents or howsoever or otherwise from further broadcasting and publishing or causing to be broadcast or published in any way the said statements or any similarly defamatory statements concerning the Claimant.

• 4. Interest, cost or such further and/or other relief as to the court shall appear just.

2 The Claimant in this matter is an electro-chemical engineer by profession and a politician, and at the time of the filing of his witness statement was the chairman of the New National Party which was the Official Opposition in the Parliament of Grenada.

3 From 1995 to 2003 the Claimant was Minister for Communication with Public Utilities, Transport and Energy and so the Defendant Company fell within this purview as it related to telecommunications.

4 After 2003, the Claimant served as Minister for Agriculture, Lands, Forestry, Fisheries and Public Utilities and Energy. He also served as Deputy Prime Minister from 2003–2008.

5 At the time of the broadcast in which the alleged defamatory statements were made, he was not in fact a Member of Parliament nor was he a Minister of Government. The words complained of were uttered on or about the night of the 17^th of October, 2008 during the course of the news broadcast on the 7 p.m. news carried by the Defendant network.

6 The words were read by a news reporter, an employee of the Defendant, one Tricia Reuben, and the news report was broadcast to a wide and substantial audience in the nation.

7 These are the words which the Claimant claims were defamatory of him:

"GRENLEC and Petro-Caribbean Grenadian officials are denying reports that the former Government Minister may have been involved in secret trading deals. On Friday GBN were informed by a reliable source that a former Government Minister had been receiving direct financial benefits from Petrocribe Grenada Limited. However, we were reliably informed that an expected increase in the price of fuel is as a result of undercover trading by the former Government Minister, whereby oil dealers were not getting their due allowance on the hand and GRENLEC allegedly received its Petrocaribe order through a disguised Government agent other than direct trading with Petrocribe Grenada Ltd. The source has maintained that Government's investigation is based on solid facts that the former Government Minister may have been receiving direct financial benefit resulting in a higher price to consumers. As to how the alleged fraud is conducted is what was currently left under investigations."

8 The Claimant claims that the said words referred and were understood to refer to himself, or otherwise were capable of referring to and were understood to be referring to him. In their natural and ordinary meaning, the words meant and were understood to mean the Claimant was a dishonest person and a fraudster, that he was corrupt and guilty of fraud or fraudulent practices, that he was guilty of a serious criminal offence, namely fraud, whilst in public office and was unfit to hold public office.

9 The Claimant further pleaded that it was generally and widely known by Grenadians that the Claimant was the only Minister for Energy in the former Government and that he was the Minister who negotiated the Petrocaribe agreement and the attendant arrangements for the Government and people of Grenada.

10 The Claimant further claims that he was the only Government Minister who was ever involved in that matter at all. Further, that a substantial number of ordinary,sensible persons in Grenada who know the Claimant and who were listening to the said news report complained of would believed that it referred to him and to no other Government Minister or person being a member of the former Government.

11 The Claimant further claimed that the words used were widely understood to mean or signify that the imputation of fraud against the Claimant is true and that there was an investigation by the present Government into this alleged fraud committed by the Claimant and that the Government has confirmed both the existence and the solid facts and the existence of this investigation into the Claimant's activities.

12 The Claimant further sought to ask the Court to infer that the facts in the matter set out and pleaded in his claim and the particulars of his claim were widely known to a substantial number of identifiable persons who watched and listened to the news broadcast of the Defendant.

13 The Claimant complained that by reason of the publication of the said news report, and the statements contained in that report, that the Claimant had been gravely injured in his character, credit of reputation as a public figure and as a citizen, and had been lowered in the estimation of right thinking members of the society generally, had been brought into public scandal odium, contempt and embarrassment.

14 He further pleaded in aggravation of damages, he relied on the following facts. That the Defendant's network on or about the night of the 16^th of October prior to the defamatory publication complained of, published a news report wherein it stated that the Claimant was successful in defending bribery allegations brought against him in a United States Court in New York. Yet, the very next day, knowing the content of the publication in the news report to be false or reckless as to the truth of such statement, they proceeded to publish the defamatory matter complained of in the newscast.

15 He further pleads that to compound this, the day after the publication referred to above, the Defendant re-broadcast the libellous and defamatory statement contained in the aforesaid news report on the 10 O'clock news broadcast on the same evening of the 17^th of October, 2008.

16 That the Defendant, despite the engagement by way of two letters from the Claimant, flatly refused to apologized or make reparation for the defamatory publication.

17 He further stated in his pleadings that the Defendant falsely and maliciously published of the Claimant the defamatory words and statements contained in the news report, and he relied on the following intrinsic facts: The Claimant contended that the language and expressions contained in the news report were utterly disproportionate to the facts alleged by the report.

• 1) The report states that both GRENLEC and Petrocaribe denied what is alleged against the Claimant, the former Minister, in respect of any secret deals with those entities.

• 2) The two entities, GRENLEC and Petrocaribe, having denied any such secret dealing, the report nevertheless proceeds to state that such alleged dealing, which was reported to have been denied, was causing the increase in price in gas for consumers, a matter wholly disproportionate to the facts.

• 3) The statement that the investigation was based on solid facts is disproportionate to the other statements of fact in the body of the defamatory report for reasons that:

  • a) No solid facts of this alleged secret trade dealing between the two entities and the Claimant had been set out or stated in the report, and

  • b) Both GRENLEC and Petrocaribe Grenada Ltd. have been stated to deny the existence of any such secret dealing by the Claimant or at all.

18 The Claimant says and contends that the publication of the said defamatory statements contained in the news report published by Defendant were actuated by malice or some improper motive. He then proceeds to request the various reliefs stated.

19 The Defendants in their defence do not deny that the broadcast was made and that the words which were uttered during the broadcast were in fact said.

20 It is denied, however, that the said words referred to or were understood to refer to, were capable of referring to the Claimant as alleged. It is also denied that the said words were understood to refer to the Claimant, and it is denied that they bore or understood to bear or were capable or bearing the meanings pleaded in the statement of claim by the Claimant.

21 The Defendant denies injury, embarrassment, loss and/or damage alleged against the Claimant as claimed in the statement of claim. They admit that the words complained of were rebroadcast in the same evening as the initial broadcast but they deny that the Claimant is entitled to aggravated and/or exemplary damages on the basis of the facts or matters set out in his statement of claim.

22 The Defendant further denies the imputation of malice contained in the statement of claim and further states that the particulars relied on therein amount to distortions and misrepresentations of the words carried in the broadcast.

23 The Defendant denied that they have any intention of further publishing the words complained of, and the Defendant will maintain that the Claimant is not in any event entitled to an injunction by reason of the matters pleaded above.

24 The Defendant further pleaded that they contend that the words contained are published on an occasion of qualified privilege, and they go on to state the particulars of that qualified privilege:

• 1. The Defendant admits so much of Paragraph 11.1 of the Statement of Claim as alleges that at all material times the Claimant is and was a Politician, former Minister including holding the portfolio of Minister of Energy in the former New National Party Government of Grenada. Save as...