Sir James Dyson has lost his libel claim against the publisher of the Daily Mirror after a columnist at the newspaper stated that he had “championed Vote Leave … before moving his global head office to Singapore”.
The inventor gave evidence at the Royal Courts of Justice for two days during a trial against Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN) over an article published in January 2022.
In the Daily Mirror article, the journalist Brian Reade wrote that it must be confusing to be a young person who “wants to do the right thing”, before discussing the actions of a series of individuals including the former prime minister Boris Johnson, Prince Andrew and Dyson.
He referred to the entrepreneur as “the vacuum-cleaner tycoon who championed Vote Leave due to the economic opportunities it would bring to British industry before moving his global head office to Singapore”.
Reade continued: “Kids, talk the talk but then screw your country and if anyone complains, tell them to suck it up.”
Dyson described the article published last year as a “personal attack on all that I have done and achieved in my lifetime” and said it was “highly distressing and hurtful”.
In a written witness statement, the 76-year-old said he had made “huge investments” in the UK and prioritised “setting a good moral example to young people”.
He continued: “So to be accused by the defendant in the articles of being a hypocrite who had screwed the country and who set a poor moral example to young people is not only wrong, but incredibly harmful to my reputation.”
However, MGN defended the claim, including by arguing that Reade’s article was “honest opinion”.
In a ruling on Friday, Mr Justice Jay dismissed the inventor’s claim, finding that MGN’s defence had succeeded and that Dyson had not proved that he had suffered serious harm to his reputation.
He said: “In the present case, the claimant cannot demonstrate that he has suffered financial loss as a result of these publications. Nor can he show that his philanthropic work, particularly directed to young people and schools, has been harmed in any way.”
In the 34-page ruling, the judge described Dyson as “an honest witness, albeit one with a particular world-view”.
In his evidence, Dyson argued that the decision to establish Dyson’s global headquarters in Singapore “had no material impact upon Dyson’s UK operations or its commitment to the UK, or to the amount of corporation tax paid in the UK”.
In his decision on Friday, Jay said he had to consider “whether an honest commentator could think that the claimant has screwed the country, in other words has harmed it in some way, by acting as he did”.
The judge concluded: “Mr Reade was not attempting to offer a window into or shine a light on the claimant’s thought processes or motivation. He could not, and did not, claim to do that.
“Rather, the ‘screwed his country, etc’ remark was Mr Reade’s ‘take’ on how people would or might envisage the claimant’s actions.”
The judge continued: “Given that Mr Reade fell short of accusing the claimant of dishonesty, the scope for honest comment, however wounding and unbalanced, was very considerable indeed.”
After the decision, an MGN spokesperson said: “We welcome today’s judgment, which upholds the rights of our columnists to share honestly held opinions, even about powerful or wealthy individuals.”
During the trial, Justin Rushbrooke KC, for Dyson, said in written submissions that the articles, in print and online, “constituted a serious and unjustified slur on Sir James’s reputation, business and personal”.
Adrienne Page KC, for MGN, said the words in the article were “substantially correct” and that Dyson could not dictate how the commentator posed them.
A spokesperson for Dyson said the company employed 3,700 people in the UK and paid more UK corporation tax after 2019 than before. They said: “[Dyson] continues to invest vast sums in the UK, files more patents than any other company, and in 2017 founded a university in Malmesbury which has educated hundreds of undergraduates who pay no tuition fees while earning a salary and even paying tax.”
