James Dyson loses libel claim against Daily Mirror publisher
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
Sir James Dyson has lost his libel claim against the publisher of the Daily Mirror over a column that branded him a hypocrite who had “screwed” Britain.
The billionaire inventor launched a legal battle against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), saying a “vicious and vitriolic” personal attack in the newspaper had damaged his reputation.
In the Daily Mirror article, published in 2022, journalist Brian Reade referred to Sir James as the “vacuum-cleaner tycoon who championed Vote Leave due to the economic opportunities it would bring to British industry before moving his global head office to Singapore”.
The writer pretended to address children who had been encouraged to follow Sir James’s example as an entrepreneur, saying: “Kids, talk the talk but then screw your country and if anyone complains, tell them to suck it up.”
Sir James brought a libel claim in the High Court, arguing that the criticism was “particularly damaging and distressing” given his philanthropic work encouraging young people to become engineers.
During the trial his lawyer, Justin Rushbrooke KC, said in written submissions that the articles, both in print and online, “constituted a serious and unjustified slur on Sir James’s reputation, business and personal”.
But in a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Jay dismissed the inventor’s claim, saying he agreed with MGN’s defence that Mr Reade’s article was “honest opinion”.
Adrienne Page KC, representing the newspaper group, said the words in the article were “substantially correct” and that Sir James could not dictate how the commentator posed them.
The judge also said there was no evidence that the 76-year-old had suffered any financial loss as a result of the article, nor that his philanthropic work had been harmed in any way.
Mr Jay added that the author had not accused Sir James of dishonesty and was entitled to offer honest comment “however wounding and unbalanced” it had been.
A spokesman for MGN said: “We welcome today’s judgment which upholds the rights of our columnists to share honestly held opinions, even about powerful or wealthy individuals.”
Dyson said it was a “highly successful global technology company which employs 3,700 people in the UK, (and) paid more UK corporation tax after 2019 than before”, but made no reference to the outcome of the case.
