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Revision as of 18:36, 6 January 2006 by RHaworth (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Tom Rubython is perhaps the most libelous writer in the history of English journalism. His career has been punctuated by bad debts, dissolved companies and over 100 visits to London’s Royal Courts of Justice.
The 60-year-old writer has 17 defunct companies to his credit and numerous prosecutions for libel. In his 30-year career running companies and launching magazines he has cost hundreds of people their jobs and lost millions of pounds. Rubython has written variously on a number of subjects from gambling and marketing to business and motor sport. More recently he has turned his attention to Formula One, where he has become a familiar face due mainly to his cheap suits and Bobby Charlton-esque comb-over.
In every sector he has been sued for libel. To name a few, Rubython has been successfully prosecuted for libel by Conde Nast managing director, Nicholas Coleridge, former Chelsea chairman Ken Bates and Alan Donnelly, a consultant to motor sport’s governing body Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile. He has even been prosecuted by Kelvin Mckenzie, the former editor of tabloid newspaper The Sun, who is more used to being on the other side of the dock.
Throughout this time Rubython has surrounded himself with criminals. His biggest backer for his various projects has been disgraced media tycoon Owen Oyston, who was jailed for six years in 1996 for raping a 16-year-old girl in the back of his sports car. Even after this, Rubython got himself in trouble with the law, naming the girl in question in his Sunday Business newspaper, just four days after Oyston went to jail. One senior media industry figure commented at the time: “Naming the victim in a rape case is as bold a flouting of the law as you can think of.” Rubython was again prosecuted and again lost.
But Rubython had already got himself well acquainted with libel law by that stage. A former market trader, he first entered the world of publishing in the early eighties with an industry title about fruit machines and gambling. He was in his element in the murky world of gambling but soon folded the magazine after he insulted a senior member of the gambling establishment. He went on to launch a string of unsuccessful publications before his biggest publishing venture Business Age, a weekly business magazine. At its peak, Business Age had a £6,000 a week budget for legal costs. It was in this publication that Rubython libeled Coleridge, Bates and Mckenzie. Each eventually received published apologies and were paid damages. But none of the damages came from Rubython’s pockets. With the business weighed down with debt Rubython soon jumped ship in search of other projects.
In 1996 he launched Sunday Business, a weekly business magazine. The first incarnation of Sunday Business (it was later bought out and relaunched by the Barclay brothers) was one of the biggest disasters in recent newspaper history. Rubython, the publisher and editor in chief, gave the editorship to his good friend Anil Bhoyrul. But the money ran out almost before he had started. This was when Rubython capitalised on his relationship with Oyston. The tycoon bailed out the venture with a heavy investment. Suffice to say, Rubython soon lost all the money. But he stayed loyal to Oyston and even visited him in jail, solidifying their friendship.
Meanwhile, Sunday Business, which was widely considered to be wild and unreliable, staggered on for almost two years before Rubython was ousted and it was sold on. Bhoyrul went on to write a business column called City Slickers in the Daily Mirror tabloid newspaper. He would later be found to be trading on his own share tips and was sacked. Bhoyrul is still under investigation by the Department of Trade and Industry and faces a long jail sentence should he ever return to England from Dubai. After leaving Sunday Business, Rubython set up a new venture with Oyston. Scottish Data Ltd was an internet recruitment company based in Clydebank, Scotland. Rubython employed locals to create an internet database of job opportunities and even finagled a £75,000 grant aid from local government. But the cracks began to show very quickly. Wages were paid late or not at all and there were repeated failed attempts to find new investors.
Rubython even employed Paul Greenhalgh, a criminal straight out of jail with no qualifications, to take up a senior management position at the company. This was at the behest of Oyston, who Greenhalgh had helped out during their time in prison together. The Scottish Data venture was short lived, even by Rubython’s standards. Within months, Rubython had pulled out of the business premises, leaving around 40 employees with no wages and with no jobs.
One employee, computer operator Joe Bacchetti, said at the time: "We were supposed to be creating a database of jobs, but we were always worried about our own. Rubython was always ready with excuses. In the end we got let down very badly." Furious Scottish MPs are understood to still be investigating why over £75,000 in grant aid was handed out for Rubython to launch and ruin yet another company.
But Rubython escaped unscathed again. And he was already planning his next project following meetings with another wealthy individual, Formula One impresario Bernie Ecclestone.
When Rubython edited Business Age magazine in the mid-90s, the best-ever selling issue was one that carried a picture of Ecclestone alongside the question: ‘Would you trust this man to run a public company?’ The article incurred Ecclestone’s wrath – with the result that he summoned Rubython to his offices in central London. The result, via protracted negotiations, was EuroBusiness – an Ecclestone-Rubython joint venture which, for a business title, had an abnormally high pro-Formula One content. Rubython was also put in charge of another Ecclestone-backed project, F1 Magazine. It was not long before he started causing trouble again. McLaren-Mercedes boss Ron Dennis cancelled a photo shoot with the magazine for his driver David Coulthard after branding its coverage of events "tasteless". Dennis said at the time: "I'm not against the media and freedom of speech, but both myself and several team owners are unhappy over different issues. It is in my opinion tasteless, often inaccurate and not a positive reflection on Formula One.”
Soon afterwards, Rubython was sacked from both magazines. But he was to carry on his now trademark “tasteless” and “inaccurate” themes in his next publication BusinessF1, a magazine that combined his two favourite areas of journalism. However, his nose was soon put out of joint when he was denied a Formula One press pass before the first issue of the magazine was published.
Even though it is highly unusual for a new launch magazine to receive a press pass and especially not a trade magazine with, at best, a tiny readership, Rubython took it personally. He began writing fallacious articles about the Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, which issues the passes. Rather than proving the magazine’s credentials and then applying for a pass, Rubython hit the self-destruct button, libeling anyone he took a disliking to.
BusinessF1 currently has at least nine libel cases against it brought by various upstanding members of the motor sport industry. Hearings are due to take place in the UK, Monaco, Germany, France and the United States.
Rubython has already lost one libel case at the magazine. Alan Donnelly, a consultant for the FIA, was awarded £8,500 in damages plus a further £120,000 in legal costs from Rubython following a story which falsely alleged he had diverted fees from the FIA for personal use when they should have gone to his company, Sovereign Strategy.
Other cases include a writ brought by Willi Weber, who manages Michael and Ralf Schumacher, issued after an article in the March issue of BusinessF1 alleged he had been involved in criminal activities including prostitution and drug running. Weber is demanding damages of up to £100,000 for the piece, which he says is untrue, has severely damaged his personal and professional reputations and caused him hurt, distress and embarrassment.
References
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