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 Abt 1834 -
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| Name |
Edward Carter RUCK |
| Born |
Abt 1834 |
| Gender |
Male |
| Person ID |
I6718 |
Young Kent Ancestors |
| Last Modified |
22 Apr 2010 |
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| Sources |
- [S109] Obituary, The Times, London, England, December, 2003, 22 Dec 2003.
From The Times
December 22, 2003
Peter Carter-Ruck
Flamboyant and argumentative libel lawyer famous for his successes, his fees and his fallings-out
One of the best-known libel lawyers of his generation, Peter Carter-Ruck was the author of a standard work on the subject and a high-profile practitioner in what is the most exhibitionist branch of the law. He was tough, tenacious and hard-working, and his career was not without controversy. Three acrimonious partnership disputes, several legal scrapes, including a complaint to the Law Society, and public rows about his penchant for extravagant fees, reflected his willingness to take risks.
A top libel solicitor has to be a combination of showman, psychologist, nursemaid and poker player. Over an exceptionally long career, spanning more than 60 years, Carter-Ruck showed that he possessed all these qualities in full measure, not least a gambling spirit. Excoriated by Private Eye, which regularly took indelicate liberties with his name as vengeance for the money it frequently had to pay to his clients, Carter-Ruck took the view that for a libel lawyer all publicity was good publicity.
This penchant for the limelight attracted some of the best-known names of the era, including Randolph Churchill, Sir James Goldsmith and Norman Lamont, who placed their reputations in his hands. But they were also attracted by his skill as a shrewd litigant who gave no quarter. At a time when London gained a dubious fame as the libel capital of the world because of the huge size of the damages awarded by its juries, it proved a profitable trade, yielding several yachts, a Rolls-Royce with personalised number-plate and houses in three countries.
The son of a property dealer, Carter-Ruck began his career modestly in the small legal firm of Oswald Hickson, which he joined as an apprentice in the litigation department in the late 1930s. But his taste for justice began rather earlier, or so at least his wonderfully Pooterish autobiography Memoirs of a Libel Lawyer has it: “I suppose it was because of my parents’ profound sense of right and wrong that I developed at a very early age a passionate feeling of the importance of justice. I remember vividly one occasion when I was 6: I was told by my parents that I would not be given any haddock at our Sunday breakfast because of something I was wrongly accused of having done. So I took hold of the haddock by the tail from the dish and ran down the garden crying, ‘Well, Peggy (his sister) shall not have any either.’ ”
The quest for justice was interrupted by the outbreak of war, but after a relatively uneventful period in which he served as a gunnery instructor, Carter-Ruck returned to Oswald Hickson and took over the ailing business on the death of its founder. An early lucky break came when he was introduced to Randolph Churchill, one of the most persistent litigants of the day. Carter-Ruck masterminded his libel actions in two famous cases, against Gerald Nabarro, who had unwisely accused Churchill of cowardice, and against The People, which had claimed that Churchill had falsified a history of his father.
Another lucrative client was Princess Elizabeth of Toro, who became the most successful serial libel claimant in British courts, winning award after award from newspapers that reported Idi Amin’s false allegation that she had had sex with a stranger in a lavatory at Orly airport.
It was partly as a result of these cases that Carter-Ruck developed his reputation as a plaintiff’s lawyer. Another less fortunate reputation which dogged him was for charging extravagantly. Even the Ugandan princess for whom he did so well was moved to complain. A London solicitor, Tudor Roberts, who was charged £60,000 in the 1960s, took matters further. The bill was reduced first to £41,000 and then after the intervention of a taxing master to £20,000.
“We may be expensive but we do give a service which is really first-class,” Carter-Ruckonce explained. “I reckon if I give a Rolls-Royce service and do really well for people, then I deserve to be paid.”
Most of his clients were happy to pay him, so long as they won. In that case, the costs fell to the defendants to pay. But, inevitably, there were reverses, and as his career lengthened they became more frequent.
Derek Jameson, the former Editor of the Daily Express, found himself with bills for £75,000 after being encouraged to persist in a libel action against the BBC. It was only afterwards that he learnt that counsel’s advice warning that it was a very high-risk case had been deliberately withheld from him. Carter-Ruck’s private secretary, May Richards, subsequently complained to the Law Society about this serious lapse. Carter-Ruck’s only explanation for his conduct was that he feared that the opinion would have undermined Jameson’s confidence. A secondary explanation, that counsel had changed his view about the merits of the case, was subsequently denied by the counsel, David Eady, QC.
Neither this nor other highly publicised reverses dented Carter-Ruck’s career. A bitter partnership dispute with his colleagues at Oswald Hickson, which dragged on with threats of writs for more than four years, led eventually to his departure and setting up his own firm under his own name in 1981.
A few years later, history repeated itself with another partnership split, this time involving his daughter Julie, who departed in acrimony with several colleagues. Nothing daunted, Carter-Ruck refused to retire and continued to practise into his eighties, advising such well-known clients as the South African journalist Jani Allan, who lost a spectacular libel action after her personal diary mysteriously turned up in court and was used to devastating effect by the late George Carman, QC.
Eventually Carter-Ruck was persuaded by his partners to retire, but only after yet another bitter dispute in which he found that his name had been summarily removed from the notepaper. Lawyers were consulted, large fees were incurred but eventually realism prevailed. Even then, at the age of 86, Carter-Ruck went on, joining Pelly’s, a small legal practice in Bishop’s Stortford in Hertfordshire, a few miles from his 17th-century home, where he claimed to be the oldest practising solicitor in the country. Right to the end, he continued to seek new clients, joining in the “Stop Stansted” campaign and telling friends that he would like to represent the people of Gibraltar against the Spanish and British governments.
Apart from the law, his only other loves were sailing and his wife, Ann, to whom he was married for more than 60 years. She and a son predeceased him. Their daughter survives him.
Peter Carter-Ruck, solicitor, was born on February 26, 1914. He died on December 19, 2003, aged 89.
- [S109] Obituary, Various, England, 19-22 Dec 2003.
OBITUARY: Peter Carter-Ruck.from: Daily Post (Liverpool, England)
December 23, 2003
AS A young boy at boarding school, where he was frequently caned and once kissed by an amorous master, Peter Carter-Ruck learned that life is full of absurdities, punctuated with pain, shock and laughter.
His surname itself would on occasion cause ribaldry, with wags quickly spotting the humorous potential in changing the initial letters.
Among those wags were the hacks on the satirical magazine Private Eye, who became familiar with the ways of Carter-Ruck during his time as Britain's leading libel solicitor, counting among his clients celebrities of the political scene, stage and screen - Stewart Granger, Robert Maxwell, Diana Lamplugh, Randolph Churchill, Sir James ...
Just days after his death, top libel lawyer is savaged by former colleague.
Article from: The Evening Standard (London, England)
Article date: December 23, 2003
COPYRIGHT 2003 Solo Syndication Limited. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.
Byline: PATRICK MCGOWAN
WITH clients ranging from soap stars to captains of industry and leading politicians to royalty, Peter Carter-Ruck had an unassailable reputation as Britain's most feared libel lawyer.
The man admired by his clients, such as Randolph Churchill, James Goldsmith and Mona Bauwens, who struck terror into his opponents, was apparently not so well-liked by his colleagues.
Now that the legendary scourge of Fleet Street is no longer in a position to sue, a former colleague has decided it is at last safe to set the record straight.
David Hooper was a media lawyer at the firm Mr Carter-Ruck set up in 1981.
He left in 1985 after a row over a ...
AP Online 12-22-2003 Dateline: LONDON
Peter Carter-Ruck, an aggressive litigator who was one of Britain's best-known libel lawyers, has died, his daughter said Monday. He was 89. Carter-Ruck started his career defending newspapers but soon moved to suing them, representing high-profile clients including Winston Churchill's son Randolph. He died Friday at his home in Great Hallingbury, northeast of London, said his daughter, Julie. She did not give the cause of death. Fleet Street editors grew to fear letters from Carter-Ruck. Among his favorite targets was the satirical magazine Private Eye, ...
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