Eastwood v HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

����������� The defendant repeats the Particulars of Justification set out at paragraph 6 above and adds �

����������� Prior to the McGuigan fight in Las Vegas with Steve Cruz in 1986 the plaintiff promised, in writing, to give to McGuigan the sum of $250,000 if McGuigan was beaten by Cruz.� Following McGuigan's defeat in the fight to Cruz the plaintiff did not pay the said sum to McGuigan but, rather sought to argue that he was not legally bound to pay the said sum.� The said sum was not paid by the plaintiff to McGuigan until after McGuigan had instituted legal proceedings against the plaintiff for, inter alia, payment of the said sum.

����������� We also bear in mind the words of Carswell LCJ in Neeson and Another �v- Belfast Telegraph Newspapers Limited [1999] NIJB 200 at page 206:-

����������� In the present appeal the judge has very properly given leave to appeal.

As a result the defendant was held to be entitled to introduce evidence of other facts capable of justifying defamatory words in a wider sense than that pleaded by the plaintiff provided that the words the defendant sought to justify were capable of bearing the wider meaning.