Taylor-Forrest v Owen & Anor

This is an appeal brought by Mr Taylor-Forrest against an order of Burton J, dated 4 June 2009. He also seeks permission to file an appellant's notice out of time in respect of a suspended committal order made by Jack J following on from an order of Burton J and Maddison J dated 10 September 2009.

The order of Burton J applied to this appellant, although the penal notice was inaccurate in that it threatened only imprisonment against directors. That was altered by Maddison J but the nub of the order repeated by Maddison J required this appellant to publish prominently in two identified websites a retraction in a form set out in an annexe to the order.

The necessity for that order, in Burton J’s judgment, arose from proceedings for libel issued by Mr Owen and Mrs Williams, defended by this appellant but in respect of which this appellant's defence was struck out. Thus by a court order made by Master Eyre, at the end of 2008 and on 19 March 2009, this appellant was forbidden from defending the allegations advanced by Mr Owen and Mrs Williams.

It is quite plain from the course of the submissions advanced by the appellant himself during this appeal today that that is the source of his grievance. He said then and he claims now that no-one should restrict him from telling the truth, as he sees it to be, in answer to the allegations made by Mr Owen and Mrs Williams. He says the serious allegations he made and published against them are the truth and it was not open to the courts to deprive him of the opportunity of defending his right to tell the truth, and, indeed, requiring him to remove and remedy publication of what he sees to be the truth.

Today, in my view, he should be disabused of that version of the law. It is not the law of the land and all of us are required to obey orders of the court which forbid publication or require retraction of that which hitherto has been published. And it is no answer to persist in saying that ‘all I want to say is to tell the truth’.

This appeal, following the orders of Burton J and Maddison J and Jack J, is concerned with obedience to orders of the court. This appellant has not yet (and it is to be hoped he will) complied with those orders. He has not successfully appealed against the order of Master Eyre which forbade him from defending the allegations made by Mr Owen and Mrs Williams. That, therefore, remains the position and he cannot and is not entitled to attempt to resist the orders of the court by saying that ‘if only I had the opportunity to tell the truth’. Such a claim merely exacerbates his disobedience to those orders and the contempt he has shown in the face of those orders.

Today Mr Taylor-Forrest seeks to repeat what he contends to be the truth. In short, he seeks again to go behind the striking out of his defence and the order made by courts previously. He has gone to the extent of accusing all the judges and the Masters in the Queen's Bench Division of conspiring against him to prevent him telling the truth. I need only give a short example of the way in which he expresses himself. He says that the courts have been used as sinister, front activists with a much wider background purpose by many judges within the Queen's Bench and third parties over a time scale of five to six years, with the intention of denying him justice and restitution long before that (see paragraph 8 of his skeleton argument).

The grounds of appeal are merely repetition of those scurrilous and scandalous allegations made against all those who have hitherto been involved in this appeal. Nothing that Mr Taylor-Forrest has said today seems to me to undermine or water down his attitude as exemplified in the paragraph in the skeleton I have quoted.

There is in my judgment no basis whatever that he has advanced today as to why Burton J's order was wrong. Nor has any valid excuse been advanced as to why he did not obey. In those circumstances, Jack J, in my view, took a merciful course in suspending the order of imprisonment. This appellant, consistent with an intransigent attitude throughout, failed to take that opportunity to do what he was required to do and as far as I am aware has hitherto continued to disobey those orders, notwithstanding the fact that he has been arrested and imprisoned for a short period in December 2009.

For those reasons, there being nothing cogent or coherent in anything advanced in writing in addition to the oral arguments advanced by Mr Taylor-Forrest today, I would dismiss his appeal.

I agree, and I wish to associate myself expressly with everything which has fallen from my Lord.

The defence having been struck out by Master Eyre in circumstances where, as my Lord has observed, the appellant made no attempt to appeal that order, it followed that Burton J was fully justified in making the order he did. Burton J having made that order, it was the absolute and unqualified obligation of the appellant to obey it. That is the law; that is the rule of law.

The appellant defied the order, disobeyed it, and it is unsurprising in the circumstances that committal proceedings were launched and that he was, perfectly properly as it seems to me, committed to prison by Jack J, albeit that that judge mercifully, as my Lord has pointed out, suspended the order. That act of mercy had no effect whatever on the appellant, who proceeded in his defiance in circumstances which led inevitably, and I emphasise entirely appropriately, to his actual incarceration.

For those reasons, as well as the reasons given by my Lord, each of these applications appears in my judgment totally without merit and must accordingly be dismissed.

I add only this so that the appellant can be in no doubt as to where he stands. The consequence of our order today is that the order of Burton J remains in full force and effect. It is, to repeat, the absolute and unqualified obligation of the appellant to obey that order. If he persists in his defiance, and if he persists in refusing to obey the order by taking the steps that Burton J ordered him to take, then he should expect that a further application will be made for his committal to prison. He can also expect that if such application is made and if his continuing contempt is found proved against him, the sentence which will be imposed on that occasion will be significantly heavier than the sentence which Jack J imposed.

I entirely agree with what my Lords have said. In my view each of these applications and appeals is totally without merit. None of the matters put before the court by Mr Taylor-Forrest begins to undermine the orders that were made by Burton J, Maddison J or Jack J, and for those reasons I agree that the appeals must both be dismissed.