Former Sun editor
Kelvin McFilth has demonstrated many key skills in the recent past: being so poisonous
a presence that no newspaper will hire him, an ability to argue the toss that
lost him an annual £250,000 from the Daily
Mail, the demonstration that he can still play the whining victim at the
age of 65, and the shortest Maily
Telegraph career on record.
Now, though, he has added another skill to that list: the
continued ability to lie so badly that it landed the Mail with a non-trivial legal bill. Not that you would know from
most of the press – still maintaining the tradition of Omerta – but it seems
that, while at the Mail, Kel libelled
a Hastings GP, thus demonstrating that the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre’s
decision to bin him was spot on.
It also demonstrated
excellent timing from those at the Tel
– notably former Liverpool player Alan Hansen, who had been on the pitch at
Hillsborough as the tragic crush in the Leppings Lane end pens took place – who
gave then editor Tony Gallagher little choice but to bin him. The Guardian reported
his departure on April 5 last year. Three
days later came news of the libel action.
As Press
Gazette reported yesterday, “Spanish-born GP Jose Antonio Serrano Garcia,
44, sued over an April 2012 article which appeared in the Daily Mail under the
heading: ‘A whole year of hell, thanks to a foreign doctor’”. The McFilth
invective was as uncompromising and nasty as ever, talking of “foreign doctors working in the NHS who, for
reasons deriving from their being foreign, are seriously incompetent,
inadequate or otherwise unacceptable”.
“For reasons deriving from their being foreign”. Kel’s the kind
of bloke who, had he run a pub in the early 60s, would have had a “No blacks, no Irish” sign displayed. He’d
regale regulars by telling “I think that
Apartheid thing in South Africa is wrong, but that Henrik Verwoerd geezer has a
point”.
Doctor Serrano, it seems, was not incompetent, and nor was
there, as McFilth suggested, a language barrier between him and his patients.
Nor, indeed, did he, as the article made out, ignore what one particular
patient was telling him. And again, nor was the doctor wrong to write to the
DVLA about a bus driver whose thirst endangered his occupation – and his
health.
So it should surprise no-one that the Mail, despite the customary practice of contesting the claim all
the way to court (Leveson critics take note), found itself having to stump up
£45,000 in damages, plus costs for both sides, which will probably be, oh I
dunno, well north of another £200k on top. Kel has maintained one tradition all
the way from his time at the Sun: his
pants are still ablaze.
As he is now unemployable, there, sadly, goes Kelvin
MacKenzie. On his way ... out.
The Sunday Sport calls.
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