Two big beasts of the media jungle, both Jewish, are set to have a second court face-off on Monday after a libel action by the Express newspapers proprietor, Richard Desmond, against the investigative journalist Tom Bower, was temporarily suspended.
Judge Eady discharged the jury on Tuesday after “fundamental” new information emerged. A new jury will be sworn in next week at London’s High Court.
At issue is an apparently passing reference to Mr Desmond in Mr Bower’s 2006 unauthorised biography of the disgraced media tycoon, Lord Black, Conrad and Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge.
In the book, Mr Bower says that Mr Desmond ordered the Daily Express to report unfavourably on Lord Black’s business empire. Mr Desmond insists he did not interfere in what went into his papers and believes the claim is defamatory.
Mr Bower, who has also written a so-far unpublished biography of Richard Desmond, Rough Trader, denies libel on the grounds that the story was substantially true and not defamatory.