BBC presenter Chris Packham says he has faced “puerile, offensive, and damaging” allegations as he began a High Court libel trial over denied claims that he misled the public into donating to a wildlife charity to rescue tigers from circuses.
The TV star and environmental campaigner is suing three men for libel over nine online articles claiming he defrauded people into donating to the Wildheart Trust charity to rescue “broken” tigers while knowing they were well looked after.
Packham strongly denies the allegations made against him in articles for website Country Squire Magazine and repeated in a slew of Tweets and videos.
Opening the case, the star’s barrister Jonathan Price said Packham first made his libel claim in March 2021 over four published articles, only to find a fifth posted the following day complaining about the legal action and including links to the alleged defamatory material.
He said Packham has been forced to update his claim as it has progressed through the courts, due to ongoing publication of statements considered to be libellous.
“This case is notable for the extraordinary level of vitriol that the defendants have displayed towards (Packham)”, he said.
“The defenants have published an enormous amount of purile, offensive, and damaging material about (him), often under the guise of fundraising for their defence.”
Country Squire Magazine editor Dominic Wightman, writer Nigel Bean and a third man, Paul Read, are the defendants in the libel claim.
Mr Price told the court Packham has also faced an allegation, which is denied, that he had lied about Scottish gamekeepers burning peat during the 2021 COP26 conference.
He added: “Their persistence in putting on the record in this litigation extremely serious allegations against (Packham) of additional dishonesty, as well as bullying and the commission of rape and other sexual offences, despite there being an astonmish lack of credible, or in some cases any, evidence for such allegations.”
Mr Wightman has previously said the articles were a “long-term journalistic investigation” and he was “standing on a mountain of facts” about the allegations.
In written arguments submitted before the trial began, Nicholas O’Brien, representing Mr Wightman and Mr Bean, said they will argue the allegations made in the articles and Tweets are “substantially true”.
They claim Packham “abused his privileged position as a BBC presenter” and “raised funds for his girlfriend’s zoo charity from the public fraudulently and dishonestly, deceiving them by lying and repeatedly about mistreatment and rescue of lions from a zoo.”
They allege he threatened “unfounded” legal proceedings to “cover up his actions”, and further claim that Packham “lied by asking for donations to feed the animals at the zoo during Covid, concealing the fact that it was going to receive a large insurance payment”.
It is said for the two defendants they were telling the truth that Packham had “falsely claimed” to rescue tigers from a circus, and that “the circus from which the Tigers had been rescued had cruelly forced them permanently to live in a wholly inadequate, tiny cell in which they lacked the space to exercise.”
They will argue that the tigers were well looked after, rather than being starved of food and “subjected to serious mistreatment”.
In his defence, Mr Read says he is not the author or editor of the articles, and acted only as “proofreader”.
The libel trial continues.
