And so, we reach the final end to the court case. You may think it all finished months ago, not so. The final, final act is when we have the reading of the Statement in Open Court (SIOC). This took place Thursday the 5^th of December 2024. Which is five years and nine months after the articles in the Mail on Sunday were published.

I could not talk or write about the SIOC before it happened, or the Judge would be most upset and angry. And you don’t want an upset or angry Judge. I have also been constrained, until today, in what I could write or say. You may not think so, but I have. The entire legal process is exceedingly slow, controlling and thin-skinned. There can be no criticism of any aspect whatsoever. There we go.

You may wonder what a statement in open court (SIOC) is. I find myself virtually unable to put it in plain English because I am not entirely sure myself. The first thing to say is that the defendants in a libel case are not obliged to make any apology. Something I did not know until recently.

So, the Mail on Sunday, and/or Barney Calman did not need to apologise. And you will note that Barney Calman, the gentleman – and I use this word loosely – who devised and wrote the articles has remained tight lipped. The word ‘sorry’ has not, and I suspect never will, pass his lips.

Had you ever met him, this would not surprise you. The word unpleasant does not do justice to the man. In this case, he basically accused me of being a mass murderer and clearly thought it rather amusing. Oh titter, titter. ‘Yes, sweetie a dry martini would be gorgeous.’

In lieu of an apology, the party that wins the case – in this case me and Zoe Harcombe, are entitled to have ‘their’ statement read out in open court. This has to be signed off by the Judge and read out in court. Which means that it represents the approved ‘legal’ summary of the findings of the case. The defendants can argue for changes – and they have done so. But it is not far off what we wanted, if rather dull.

Our lawyers, Carter Ruck, who I must say have been utterly brilliant and clever, also crafted a Press release, to go along with the SIOC. It is below. Further down is the SIOC itself.

What are my thoughts on what happened? Firstly, the articles were clearly a hatchet job designed to destroy my reputation. And Zoe Harcombe’s reputation. And quite possibly drag the GMC in, so that I would lose my job. In Barney Calman’s own words ‘we’re planning a big takedown of statin deniers.’

But what did he base the take down on? At one point in the planning stages for the articles Barney Calman wrote. ‘I must admit I have not read Malcolm Kendrick’s book.’ Yes, he decided to attack me, without reading my latest book at the time ‘A Statin Nation’.

In court he also admitted he had not read any book or paper I had written. The only thing he managed to quote was some words from the back cover of ‘A Statin Nation.’ Pretty exhaustive research there, Barney.

My arguments and scientific papers were of no importance to him, for his mind was made up. Based on … a fly cover. At another point, during a WhatsApp conversation with a mysterious cardiology expert called ‘X’ he asked the question of her. ‘So, Kendrick is right?’ They replied. ‘I’ve never actually read him Mea Culpa.’

It seems that no-one involved in writing these articles had made any effort to find out what I had so say, about anything, I was to be found guilty of the terrible crime of – something or other. For which, I was to be duly punished. There could be no discussion, or argument. My guilt had been established on the basis of … nothing! Further clear evidence of my guilt was to be accused of authoring a scientific paper – which I had nothing to do with.

In truth the entire episode would have been funny, had it not been so serious. The Keystone Cops of the mainstream media world. Don’t bother to read anything, don’t bother to try and discuss anything with your intended targets. Get your facts wrong. Admit you have no idea how to read and understand clinical papers… in court under cross-examination. Then accuse Zoe Harcombe, who did a degree in mathematics at Cambridge, of making up statistics to suit her arguments.

Why on Earth did Associated Newspapers (the publishers of the Mail on Sunday) not give up immediately? It would sure as hell have saved them a lot of money. Amazingly, as long as two years after we sued it appears their lawyers had not bothered to speak to Barney Calman.

What actually happened?

In my opinion, or should I say ‘allegedly’ what actually happened here was that Barney Calman had heard from various cardiology experts that cholesterol and statin ‘deniers’ were causing people to stop taking their drugs. This was clearly a dreadful thing, ‘worse than the MMR scandal’ according to Professor Sir Rory Collins. Such people needed to be exposed for the dangerous idiots that they are.

Barney clearly thought this was the basis of a good story, as part of his ‘fake news’ series. Heroic researchers, such as Professor Sir Rory Collins had dedicated their lives to the good of humanity. Their brilliant and groundbreaking research had proved that statins were wonder drugs that saved thousands of lives and had no side-effects whatsoever. All the evidence supported this. Had Barney ever read any of it?

Despite this mountain of unimpeachable evidence, there were still this band of unscientific unbelievers who dared to question the mighty statins, and even the mighty cholesterol hypothesis itself. They needed to be crushed and humiliated in public, in one of the most widely read newspapers in the world.

Barney Calman almost certainly thought this would be a slam dunk. On one side he had lined up various professors, including the chairman of the British Heart Foundation itself. As icing on the cake, he got a quote from the Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock. A man whose knowledge of cardiology literally has no beginning.

On the other side he had a few pipsqueaks who were never going to able to fight back. Too costly and dangerous for them. The lawyers who checked the piece almost certainly thought the same thing. Yup, probably libellous, but we have all these professors supporting us. Off you go Barney, publish away – allegedly.

Bong!

We did fight back, and we won. We won because of the lazy assumption that all the ‘experts’ must be right. Therefore, we must be wrong. There was no need to check facts, or to find out what we were saying, or why we were saying it? Waste of time, clearly unscientific idiots.

To quote from the SIOC itself:

“in the context of the public interest defence, perhaps the most serious omission of Mr Calman was his treatment of the Claimants’ right-to-reply responses”. The failure to consider the responses and the materials in them properly was said by the Judge to have “rendered the right-to-reply process hollow and superficial”, and the Judge also described Mr Calman’s attitude towards the Claimant’s responses as “dismissive”.

Sadly, this is how a great deal of ‘scientific’ debate now takes place. There is the agreed mainstream narrative, and here are all the ‘experts’ who support it. They do not need to defend their position, they just band together to attack and ridicule anyone who dares question them.

Luckily, when you go to court, this defence counts for little. Judges are unimpressed by eminence. The ‘do you know who I am’ argument cuts little ice with them. I imagine Judges have seen enough eminent people spouting lies and rubbish to last a lifetime. Justice is, or at least tries to be, blind.

And so, the Judge decreed that Barney was talking libellous nonsense. The punishment for Barney? As our lawyers had predicted, almost immediately after the Judgement was made – he was promoted. This, allegedly, is the way that Associated Newspapers says *$%k you.

I can only hope that a little voice whispers into his ear at night.

What I mainly hope, and one of the main reasons why I took on this fight, is that ‘others’ will take note that. First, that you don’t attack me, or Zoe, ever again. More importantly, you cannot just spout libellous nonsense on the basis that the ‘experts’ have your back.

You might, horror, of horrors, have to debate the science itself.

Press Release

Date: 5 December 2024

The Mail on Sunday apologises and pays substantial damages to doctor and academic in “statins” case

Dr Zoë Harcombe PhD and Dr Malcolm Kendrick have secured a full apology, substantial damages and their legal costs from the publisher of The Mail on Sunday, as their long-running libel claims come to a successful conclusion.

The case related to articles published in March 2019, containing allegations that Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick had made knowingly false statements about the cholesterol-lowering drug, statins; and that they had thereby caused large numbers of people not to take statins, causing harm to public health.

A statement in open Court, read today on behalf of the Claimants, recorded that these allegations were and are completely untrue, as The Mail on Sunday has now acknowledged. Dominic Garner of Carter-Ruck told the Court that in particular, “neither Dr Harcombe nor Dr Kendrick is a challenger or a ‘denier’ of scientific fact, or a purveyor of lies about cholesterol or statins”. To the contrary, the Court heard that the two Claimants “have always been passionate believers in evidence-based science and open scientific debate, who defend the principle that impartiality and objectivity are called for in the evaluation of scientific evidence, including in relation to the use and prescription of statins”.

Each of them considers strongly “that the debate about the balance of the benefits and harms of statins remains ‘alive and kicking’”. However, they “do not believe that the Defendants treated them fairly in the articles of which they complained”.

The conclusion of the case, through agreed settlements, follows a landmark judgment delivered in June this year, in which Mr Justice Nicklin dismissed the The Mail on Sunday’s public interest defence. The Judge found among things that The Mail on Sunday’s right-to-reply process had been “hollow and superficial” and that the journalist’s attitude towards Dr Harcombe’s and Dr Kendrick’s responses had been “dismissive”, whereas the journalist’s own experts had been allowed to have “a very significant”, and “undue”, influence over the editorial process and the terms of the articles.

In agreeing now to resolve the claims – more than five years following publication – The Mail on Sunday has withdrawn its articles and published a full apology to the Claimants, accepting that its allegations “are untrue and ought not to have been published” and recording that the publisher is “happy to set the record straight, and apologise to Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick for the distress caused”.

The Mail on Sunday has undertaken not to repeat its allegations and agreed to pay the Claimants substantial damages, as well as their legal costs.

Dr Harcombe said of the conclusion of the case:

“I am delighted and relieved that this case has been resolved in our favour. This has been a long and complex case, but one that I felt compelled to bring given the scale – and unfairness – of The Mail on Sunday’s public attack on our integrity.”

Dr Kendrick has said:

“I am very happy, and relieved, to have secured complete vindication for what were unfounded smears on my reputation and professional integrity. The Mail on Sunday’s articles should never have been published. The publisher chose to rely on the views of experts who sit squarely on one side of the statins debate, without even acknowledging that there is a legitimate public debate about the use and efficacy of one of the most widely prescribed drugs. Those who do not hold mainstream views on statins should not have their views rejected out of hand or be wrongly cast as dishonest propagandists, as the Mail on Sunday did here.”

Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick were represented by Claire Gill and Dominic Garner of Carter-Ruck and by Adrienne Page KC and Godwin Busuttil of 5RB.

NOTES:

Dr Zoë Harcombe is a professional researcher, writer and public speaker on the subject of diet, health and nutritional science. She is a graduate of the University of Cambridge in economics and mathematics and has a PhD in public health nutrition.

Dr Malcolm Kendrick is a recently retired general practitioner, writer, and lecturer, with a specialist interest in the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. He has authored books including “The Great Cholesterol Con” (2008), “Doctoring Data” (2015), “A Statin Nation: Damaging Millions in a Brave New Post-Health World” (2018) and “The Clot Thickens: The enduring mystery of heart disease” (2021).

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim Nos. QB-2020 000799

QB-2020-000801

KING’S BENCH DIVISION

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST

BETWEEN:-

ZOË HARCOMBE PhD

First Claimant

-and-

ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
BARNEY CALMAN

Defendants

AND BETWEEN:-

DR MALCOLM KENDRICK

Second Claimant

-and-

ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS LIMITED
BARNEY CALMAN

Defendants

STATEMENT IN OPEN COURT

Solicitor for the Claimants

My Lord/Lady, I appear for the Claimants in this matter, Zoë Harcombe PhD and Dr Malcolm Kendrick.

Dr Harcombe is a professional researcher, writer, and public speaker on diet, health and nutritional science. She is a graduate of the University of Cambridge in economics and mathematics and has a PhD in public health nutrition. Her thesis was titled “An examination of the randomised controlled trial and epidemiological evidence for the introduction of dietary fat recommendations in 1977 and 1983: A systematic review and meta-analysis.”

Dr Kendrick is a general practitioner, writer, and lecturer. As a medical practitioner, he worked in general practice, intermediate care and out of hours for two NHS Trusts in Cheshire, the East Cheshire NHS Trust and the Central Cheshire Integrated Care Partnership (CCICP). As a writer and lecturer, he has a specialist interest in the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease. He has authored books including “The Great Cholesterol Con” (2008), “Doctoring Data” (2015), “A Statin Nation: Damaging Millions in a Brave New Post-Health World” (2018) and “The Clot Thickens: The enduring mystery of heart disease” (2021). He was an original member of the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine at the University of Oxford and of The International Network of Cholesterol Sceptics, the latter comprising scientists, doctors and researchers who share the belief that cholesterol does not cause cardiovascular disease. He has also worked for the European Society of Cardiology and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.

In the course of their research and publications in their specialist fields, both of the Claimants have, to different degrees, contributed to ongoing public debate concerning the use and efficacy of statins, the cholesterol-lowering drugs widely prescribed for cardiovascular disease.

The First Defendant, Associated Newspapers Limited, is the publisher of The Mail on Sunday, and the operator and publisher of the MailOnline website and associated applications. The Second Defendant, Mr Calman, is the Head of Health for The Mail on Sunday, having formerly been the publication’s Health Editor.

On 3 March 2019, the Defendants published in The Mail on Sunday a series of articles as part of a special report under the headlines “Deadly Propaganda of the Statin Deniers”, “Statin Deniers are putting patients at risk, says Minister”, referring to the then Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock MP, and “There is a special place in hell for the doctors who claim statins don’t work”. The articles were published in similar form online on the MailOnline website on 2 March 2019, where they remained until June 2024. The articles featured prominent photographs of both Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick, who were identified as so-called “statin deniers” who published “fake news” about statins.

Several paragraphs of the articles included reference to remarks given to the Defendants by Mr Hancock, known as “the Hancock Statement”. Other paragraphs referred to a scientific paper produced primarily by researchers working at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the University of London and published in the British

Medical Journal known as “the LSHTM Paper”.

Following substantial pre-action correspondence aimed at resolving the Claimants’ complaint without the need for litigation, the Claimants issued proceedings for libel against the Defendants in February 2020. In answer to the Claimants’ claims, the Defendants relied upon substantive defences of honest opinion; truth; reporting privilege under Section 15 of the Defamation Act 1996 (in respect of the Hancock Statement); reporting privilege under Section 6 of the Defamation Act 2013 (in respect of the LSHTM Paper); and publication on a matter of public interest.

The Claimants’ claims went to trial in July 2023 to determine a series of preliminary issues, including the public interest defence; privilege; meaning; whether the publications contained defamatory statements of fact or of opinion; and if and insofar as opinion, whether Mr Calman had held these opinions. A finding that he did not would invalidate a defence to the claims of honest opinion.

The Court was not asked to determine, nor did it determine, who is “right” in the statin debate.

In a Judgment of 25 June 2024, the Court dismissed the Defendants’ public interest defence in its entirety. The Judgment itself may be found in full on the National Archives and Bailii websites. In relation to the way in which the Defendants had gone about the preparation of the articles, the Court found that there had been a number of significant failings in the Defendants’ approach.

The Court held that Mr Calman was an honest witness who had approached his work honestly, and an allegation of malice against him was dismissed. A key issue for the Court was whether or not Mr Calman reasonably believed that it was in the public interest to publish the articles. In that context the Court assessed Mr Calman’s journalistic approach: “what inquiries were made, what did [Mr Calman] know, what information did he receive, what opportunity did he give to the Claimants to comment and respond to the allegations to be made against them and how ultimately did he present all of this material in his Articles?”

After a detailed analysis of how Mr Calman went about writing his story, the Court concluded amongst other things:

The use made by the Defendants of the Hancock Statement “gave readers a completely misleading impression of what Matt Hancock had said” and “Mr Calman knew that”. This was described as a “serious error” on the Defendants’ part.

The portrayal of a patient “case study” used in the coverage – which referred to a heart attack patient at Hammersmith Hospital in London identified as “Colin” – was “misleading”.

That “in the context of the public interest defence, perhaps the most serious omission of Mr Calman was his treatment of the Claimants’ right-to-reply responses”. The failure to consider the responses and the materials in them properly was said by the Judge to have “rendered the right-to-reply process hollow and superficial”, and the Judge also described Mr Calman’s attitude towards the Claimant’s responses as “dismissive”.

That Mr Calman had allowed the experts who had helped him with his story to have “a very significant”, and “undue”, influence over the editorial process and the terms of the articles.

That “[w]hilst there is an important area for editorial judgment in what is reported in any article, it is not in the public interest for a publisher to misstate (or ignore) the evidence it has available. That remains the case even if the underlying material or evidence is complex.”

Informed by these conclusions, the Court held that although Mr Calman believed that publishing the articles was in the public interest, the Defendants had failed to demonstrate that this belief was, in all the circumstances, reasonable, with the consequence that the Defendants’ public interest defence failed. Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick welcome that finding, since each of them believes, and has always believed, that the debate about the balance of the benefits and harms of statins remains “alive and kicking” as Dr Fiona Godlee, a former editor-in-chief of the British Medical Journal, put it^[1], and that accordingly where the press wishes to criticise individuals who hold non-mainstream views on statins the public interest demands that the scientific evidence supporting their views should be properly and fairly scrutinised and presented to their readership, not rejected out of hand. They do not believe that the Defendants treated them fairly in the articles of which they complained.

At trial, the Court found that the articles defamed the Claimants by conveying to readers the defamatory meaning that each of Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick had repeatedly made public statements about cholesterol and statins that they knew to be false; that there were strong grounds to suspect that each had made these knowingly false statements motivated

by the hope that they would benefit from doing so either financially or from enhanced status; and the direct effect of the publication of these knowingly false statements by Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick was, first, to cause a very large number of people not to take prescribed statin medication; and second, thereby to expose them to a serious risk of a heart attack or stroke causing illness, disability or death; that in consequence, each of Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick was rightly to be condemned as a “pernicious liar”, for whom there was “a special place in hell”, whose lies, deadly propaganda, insidious fake news, scare stories, and crackpot conspiracy theories, had recklessly caused a very large number of people to stop taking statins, risking needless deaths and causing harm.

These allegations were, and are, completely untrue. In particular, neither Dr Harcombe nor Dr Kendrick is a challenger or a ‘denier’ of scientific fact, or a purveyor of lies about cholesterol or statins. To the contrary, they have always been passionate believers in evidence-based science and open scientific debate, who defend the principle that impartiality and objectivity are called for in the evaluation of scientific evidence, including in relation to the use and prescription of statins. Accordingly, the articles’ allegations went to the core of the Claimants’ personal and professional reputations, by directly impugning their academic integrity and motivation, and attributing to them a risk of having caused a serious public health scare, on a scale said to have been worse than the infamous MMR vaccine scandal.

In particular, to have such allegations made of a dedicated practising GP, Dr Kendrick, was a particularly serious and unjustified slur.

In fact, neither of the Claimants has knowingly made false statements as alleged by the articles. Indeed, Mr Calman acknowledged in his evidence at trial that he did not intend for the articles to allege dishonesty on the part of Dr Harcombe or Dr Kendrick, nor had he seen anything in his research that would suggest Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick were dishonest. It is therefore highly regrettable that articles were published by the Defendants which went so far beyond what they said they had intended in terms of a critique of the Claimants and that this serious error on their part was not recognised by them sooner than it was. The Claimants are appalled that, until they were removed from the MailOnline website in June 2024, these grave libels continued to be published there – in unqualified and unamended form, despite requests by them for qualification and amendment – for more than five years.

Furthermore, there is no evidence linking any published views of Dr Harcombe or Dr Kendrick about statins to a reduction in statin uptake, let alone any evidence linking their published views to illness, disability or death consequential upon a reduction or cessation

of usage of statins. Specifically, the LSHTM Paper, to which the articles referred, did not have as its subject matter anything that Dr Harcombe or Dr Kendrick had said or written, but rather was concerned with a general debate on statins taking place in the mainstream media following publication of two papers in the British Medical Journal in October 2013 which were not authored by either Dr Harcombe or Dr Kendrick. The LSHTM Paper simply should not have been deployed against Dr Harcombe or Dr Kendrick by the Defendants in the way it was; there was no justification for doing so.

Finally, the books that Dr Harcombe has written are about diet, not about cholesterol or statins. She does not blog regularly about cholesterol and statins. She has not – and there were no grounds for alleging, contrary to what was implied in the articles, that she had – profited financially from having a stance on statins. As for Dr Kendrick, while he has written several books, articles, blogs and scientific papers about statins, there were no grounds to allege in his case either that he had profited financially from his stance on statins. At the time he wrote and published the various books, articles and papers about statins, he was working in full time employment as a GP, and that was always his primary concern and almost exclusively his source of income. He has derived only modest income from his books and none at all from his articles, blogs and scientific papers.

In its Judgment, the Court stated that in consequence of its decision on the preliminary issues the Defendants’ pleaded defences of truth and honest opinion could not be maintained in the form in which they had been advanced. The Defendants were afforded an opportunity to amend their Defence to bring it in line with the decisions made on the preliminary issues.

The Defendants did not seek to do so, but instead offered to settle the Claimants’ claims in their entirety on terms which the Claimants accepted. As well as undertaking not to repeat those allegations that the articles were found by the Court to bear, the Defendants have published an apology both online and in the print edition of The Mail on Sunday, which accepted that the allegations are untrue and ought not to have been published. The Defendants have also agreed to pay each of the Claimants very substantial damages, in addition to their legal costs.

On this basis, and on the footing that this statement will be read publicly on their behalf in open court, Dr Harcombe and Dr Kendrick are satisfied that they have secured proper vindication in this matter, and feel they are able finally to draw a line under these proceedings

[1] https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)30721-3.pdf