Court of Appeal rules that Channel 4 v Fiddes trial will go ahead without jury

The Court of Appeal has today upheld a controversial decision that the high-profile Channel 4 libel trial must go ahead without a jury. The appeal was brought by Matt Fiddes, the former bodyguard to Michael Jackson, in what is a significant case for the right to trial by jury in libel actions. Costs in the case are now expected to reach £4million, an example of the extreme costs in libel cases that are increasingly posing a threat to freedom of expression.

Niri Shan, one of the UK's leading libel lawyers and Head of Media Law at Taylor Wessing, comments:

"Jury trials in defamation proceedings are an historical relic. All they serve to do is to substantially increase the costs of libel litigation for the parties involved and represent an unnecessary cost for the taxpayer - which the costs of this case illustrate. If juries were dispensed with, libel litigation would become far more streamlined and, because you could have an early determination on meaning, many more cases would settle at an early stage. Hopefully, this decision represents the first step in the abolition of jury trials in defamation proceedings."

Lawyers Niri Shanmuganathan

Notes to editors

Niri Shan has defended cases against many high-profile individuals including the Duchess of York, the Beckhams, Britney Spears, Kate Hudson and Stephen Gerrard. In the last year, Niri has been acting in widely reported cases for Associated Newspapers publications Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and Evening Standard against Madonna.

Niri is available for comment. To speak to him please contact Sarah Le Cheminant at Taylor Wessing:

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