Jonathan Price, for the presenter, said: 'It is now a facility that rescues animals in need of a forever home, as they put it, because for whatever reason they are unwanted by their former owners. In a preliminary ruling in March 2022, Mr Justice Johnson found that the allegations were defamatory and said the men 'do not shy away' from their allegation that Mr Packham 'misused his role as a BBC presenter to defraud the public into making charitable donations on the false pretext that tigers had been mistreated by a circus and rescued by a zoo'.Īt the start of the trial, the High Court in London heard that the environmentalist was accused of 'abusing his privileged position as a BBC presenter' to dishonestly appeal for donations for the charity, which he and his partner Charlotte Corney are trustees of. In written arguments, Mr Wightman and Mr Bean also said: 'The statements complained of are serious and would convey a defamatory tendency were they not factual and bloody well true.' Mr Wightman previously said the articles were a 'long-term journalistic investigation' and he was 'standing on a mountain of facts' about the allegations. The weblog's editor Dominic Wightman, writer Nigel Bean and a third man, Paul Read, are defending the libel claim. One of the articles on the website Country Squire Magazine said Mr Packham and his partner had 'clearly not been truthful with the British public', adding: 'Money has been raised on the back of their truth-bending and they now need to come clean and tell the truth.'Įnvironmentalist Chris Packham has been fighting his case during a libel trial this morning over denied allegations that he misled the public into donating to a wildlife charity
The strongly-denied allegations, repeated in several tweets and videos, relate to Mr Packham's involvement with the Wildheart Trust charity, which runs a wildlife sanctuary on the Isle of Wight. The court was told that Mr Packham had been described by the defendants as a fraud, a 'notorious liar', of having an 'obvious nastiness', and of playing the 'Asperger's victim card'. The 61-year-old TV naturalist is suing three men for libel over nine online articles claiming he defrauded people into donating money to rescue 'broken' tigers from circuses while knowing they were well looked after. Chris Packham was accused of playing the 'Asperger's victim card' by publishers who claimed he defrauded the public into donating to a wildlife charity.
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