Alexander Lyle-Samuel - Court Case of 1919-1920

Court Case of 1919-1920

The political fight in Eye at the 1918 general election was clearly contested with a ferocious degree of intensity. During the campaign Lyle-Samuel was the subject of a number of allegations which went beyond the usual cut and thrust of democratic politics. Consequently, as a result of unspecified but allegedly scandalous allegations against him, Lyle-Samuel had issued writs against the National News and against both his Conservative opponent, Colonel French and his agent, Mr Alfred Pretty. The accusations against the National News later surfaced in court. Lyle-Samuel complained that the paper had reported that he had married his first wife solely for her money, that he had then tricked her of her money, deserted her, driven her mad and left her to die in a lunatic asylum (sic). It was also alleged that he had married his second wife also for her money and that he had then engaged in a company promoting transactions of a dishonest character. The newspaper had relied on an unnamed informant to source their story and the legal precedents of the day gave the papers a lot of leeway as to how far they were required to verify such disclosures. In a judgment which made it plain that the newspaper probably should have checked the source more closely, the judges in the Court of Appeal nevertheless found that they had not acted outside the law and dismissed Lyle-Samuel’s appeal. Lyle-Samuel appealed again to the High Court.

The case came back to court in December 1919, the Lord Chief Justice hearing the matter sitting with a special jury. The judgment of the Lord Chief Justice was that the defendants had had no evidence to substantiate their allegations against Lyle-Samuel or to claim that was unfit to be a Member of Parliament. He also found that French and Pretty had made no effort to enquire into the truth of the charges they had heard against Lyle-Samuel before arranging for them to be published in the press. The jury found for Lyle-Samuel, awarding damages in the sum of £500. However one of the jurors wished it to be recorded that he had had great difficulty arriving at a verdict. The office of the Lord Chief Justice was at the time of trial held by Lord Reading. Reading was a former Liberal MP and Cabinet Minister, close to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. There is no evidence that he approached the Lyle-Samuel case, the action of a political colleague, with anything other than the proper judicial detachment. The publishers, who were by now in different ownership than at the time of publication, later withdrew their pleas of justification, i.e. their claim that what they had published was true and agreed to pay Lyle-Samuel £525 to cover costs.