Parish council chaos as £20k libel bill issued over claim clerk ‘gave the finger’ during meeting
The judge said the case was about ‘interpretation of his hand movements’ in relation to ‘giving the finger’
Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world
Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email
Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email
A parish councillor who accused the village clerk of secretly giving him "the finger" during a council meeting has been handed a £20,000 libel bill after being sued at the High Court.
Councillor Andrew Peake, 60, was sued by Dr James Miller, the clerk of his rural Norfolk council, after a campaign of online abuse in which he branded Dr Miller a "dishonest, scheming, devious and threatening liar."
The pair were both stalwarts of the parish council in Fleggburgh, a picturesque village of only around 1,000 population, close to Great Yarmouth in the Norfolk countryside.
Mr Peake insisted claims he made on his "Fleggburgh Eye" Facebook page about Dr Miller - a Cambridge-educated academic - were truthful, accusing him among other things of secretly giving him "the finger" during a council meeting.
But he has now been ordered to pay £20,000 in libel damages to Dr Miller, 60, after Judge Richard Parkes KC found he had not proved any of his defamatory online statements were true.
On the surreptitious "finger," the judge said it was about "interpretation of his hand movements," with Dr Miller's elbow on the table and his finger projecting upwards next to his face.
The judge went on to say he could not find on the balance of probabilities that an "offensive gesture" was made.
Giving judgment following a High Court trial, Judge Parkes said the village strife had been "stoked by the ill-advised use of social media."
Cambridge-educated economist Dr Miller, who lives in nearby Freethorpe, was clerk to the council from February 2019 to September 2021, with engineer Mr Peake a councillor until he resigned in April 2021.
Fleggburgh resident Mr Peake had been elected in 2017, with a mission to end what he saw as the “obvious secret decision making” at the council and to make it more open and accountable.
He also ran a Facebook page, initially named 'Andrew Peake of Fleggburgh' but later becoming 'Fleggburgh Eye', where much of the strife was made public.
"The posts complained of repeated very similar allegations over a nine-month period," said the judge. "They generally repeated the same allegations that Dr Miller, as clerk to Fleggburgh Parish Council, was dishonest, incompetent and threatening."
He found that the campaign of posts were to the effect that Dr Miller was a "fraudulent, dishonest and incompetent clerk" who had taken money for work he did not in fact carry out.
Dr Miller was accused of repeatedly lying about having written the council's social media policy and of generally being a "threatening, scheming, dishonest, devious liar," he said.
When sued for defamation, Mr Peake responded, claiming the defence of "truth" in relation to his online postings, describing Dr Miller as "dishonest and deceitful."
He said Dr Miller had acted in a "threatening" manner towards him during council meetings, pointing out one incident in which the clerk allegedly "gave him the finger."
A map of Fleggburgh:
Ruling on the case, Judge Peake said: "I have seen a photograph of the alleged gesture, which shows Dr Miller with his left elbow on a table and his left hand by his face, with the second finger projecting slightly forwards.
"I do not know where Mr Peake was in relation to Dr Miller. Dr Miller denies having intended any offensive gesture, which he said would have been highly unprofessional, not to mention unwise, giving that Mr Peake was filming him.
"My conclusion is that no offensive gesture was made, or at least not intentionally, even if Mr Peake believed it to have been."
He said Mr Peake was "plainly consumed with a very strong personal dislike of Dr Miller, which is evident in his posts."
"I had the impression also that Dr Miller’s intellectual self-confidence, which some might regard as a little abrasive, may have grated a little on Mr Peake," he said.
Due to his "aversion" for Dr Miller, Mr Peake had found it difficult to allow the clerk "any margin of error," he continued.
"To him any false statement by Dr Miller was a lie; any statement capable of being regarded as a threat made him a threatening person; any error showed rank incompetence.
"As Mr Peake told me, he is on the autistic spectrum, and he tends to see issues in polarised terms of black and white.
"In my judgment, that difficulty has led him to make accusations which are not justified by the evidence which he regards as proving them.
"In short, the plea of truth fails."
Continuing, he said allegations of "incompetence" had not been proven by Mr Peake.
"What Mr Peake has done is to put forward a number of individual mistakes by Dr Miller, none of great seriousness, and to ask the court to infer from his making mistakes that he was an incompetent clerk.
"All of us make mistakes, whether of judgment or otherwise: humanum est errare.
"Even judges do so. That does not make them incompetent.
"Incompetence entails an inability to perform a job or a role to a reasonably acceptable standard. There is no evidence that comes close to establishing such a failure on Dr Miller’s part."
"I accept Dr Miller’s evidence that he worked many more hours than he was paid to do, that he never took money for work that he had not properly carried out, and that he gave up much of his final holiday to leave the council’s affairs in reasonable order."
Awarding Dr Miller £20,000 in damages, he said he would take into account the "distress" which the former clerk had suffered from the posts.
"He said in his witness statement...that he was shocked and alarmed by the posts and very worried about how his friends, family, council members and individuals in the community generally would perceive him," he continued.
"He felt and still feels that his reputation has been badly harmed, and took his role as parish clerk very seriously. He found it truly awful that people were reading (the) posts and believing them.
"He was blocked by some people on Facebook, and asked by others what was going on, which meant that he had to explain to them what had been going on.
"He has tried to avoid going anywhere where he fears that Mr Peake might be.
"He regards himself as a stoical person, but has been caused great stress and anxiety not only by his ordeal, but also by the stress which has been placed on his wife and children.
"I accept his evidence. The allegations, particularly those of dishonesty, were extremely serious, and I do not doubt that they were widely known in the area where Dr Miller lives and works.
"Equally, of course, Dr Miller’s vindication is likely to become well known in that area. Much of the publication took place largely in a fairly contained part of the Norfolk countryside, where – in my experience of rural matters – news spreads quickly.
"It appears to me likely that Dr Miller’s vindication will become widely known in short time in the area where he lives and works, the country bush telegraph being what it is."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments