Indeed, if you settle out of court, you have no recourse. That is why settling out of court should be a course of action when you know you’re going to lose because you’re wrong; unlike in the US, going to court won’t cripple you if you win, so settlements where you believe you’ll win but it’s cheaper to settle than go to court and win, they are rarer in the UK.

It should be noted that the system that we’re talking about is pretty old and seems to work, in general. The only objectionable thing reported there was the issue of standing, to my mind; if the publisher released it in the UK then that’s their fault, but if Amazon just did a couple of imports, then it’s probably down to them, instead.

Look, I don’t deny the possibility that both Ehrenfeld and the CUP were flat damn wrong and deserved to lose. My point is that under existing British law, it seems not to matter. Verdicts and settlements like these send a message to everybody associated with controversial issues, and the message is “shut up, even if you’re right, or you might get sued.” That’s not a message conducive to a democratic society.

Surely the reversal of presumption in these cases would protect free speech while still punishing outright lies. It works pretty well across the pond.

As for the later reversal of verdicts, that’s only workable in circumstances where people keep fighting following a conviction. Having settled out of court, the CUP has no recourse even if every word they printed proves true. A trial need not occur for speech to be chilled.

It’s normal that entire press runs are destroyed in libel cases. In fact, a friend of mine had it happen to his first press run. That’s the sort of thing that editors should be on top of.

Demonstrably truthful speech isn’t libellous. Irving lost his case, as you say, and had to pay both sides’ costs (another feature of the UK legal system that I like) and ended up broke as a result. If CUP have backed down, it may just be because they realise that they can’t demonstrate the truth of their claims, ie, they made an error. Why go through a trial you know you’ll lose, and have to pay both sides’ lawyers on top of whatever verdict is achieved?

Galloway won because the Telegraph couldn’t prove their case; if, however, the victory came about as a result of perjury, Galloway’s going to prison (as did Jonathan Aitken and Jeffrey Archer, both former MPs themselves, who perjured their way to libel victory with help from others). If they lost as a result of perjury however, that’s not an indictment of the Telegraph’s case and they’ll get the verdict reversed and Galloways going to clink.