Directors set to sue candidate (From Gazette Series)

Directors set to sue candidate

TWO company directors from Gossington are suing a Welsh parliamentary candidate for more than £300,000 for allegedly publishing damaging words on his website and in a magazine.

Nick Keca and Marianne Fitzjohn, who live in the hamlet just off the A38 near Slimbridge, are suing Paul Flynn, Labour's parliamentary candidate for Newport West.

Mr Flynn is currently seeking re-election to the constituency . Mr Keca, Ms Fitzjohn and their Yorkshire-based colleague Graeme Webber run Endowment Justice, a company that seeks compensation for badly treated endowment policy holders. The company is based in Bilston near Wolverhampton.

On April 4, solicitors acting for Endowment Justice filed a claim form in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court against Mr Flynn.

They claimed damages exceeding £300,000 for libel contained on his website titled Justice For Some and an article in Money Marketing Magazine entitled Endowment Chasers Are 'Wolves Profiteering From Misery'.

The articles are alleged to have related to the business of purchasing endowment policies for profit and were published on February 6 and 10.

Mr Keca was unable to comment about the specifics of the writ but did attempt to explain why it has been brought about.

He told the Gazette: "Endowment Justice and its directors have only brought this action against Mr Flynn as a very last resort when he refused to retract and make amends for various statements he made publicly knowing them to be malicious, misleading and untrue.

"We agree with some comments that Mr Flynn has made in the past about the financial services industry - endowment policy holders have been treated very badly.

"We do not agree that third party complaint handlers are unnecessary. Consumers have the right to seek representation whether they believe that they need it or simply want to exercise freedom of choice."

Mr Flynn has dismissed the writ as "a joke" and denied that he has ever written such an article for the magazine.

He said: "There's not a lot I can say about this issue because of the legal situation but it is being dealt with by solicitors.

"I've never seen Money Marketing Magazine, which I believe to be part of the Financial Times.

"I have certainly never written anything for it but I have criticised certain activities under protected privilege in the House of Commons.

"This writ is frivolous, it's a joke and I'm not going to respond to it."