Michael Jackson libel case: Why Jane Preston was never going to lose

The Jacksons Are Coming promo/Studio Lambert

While I still linger here in Google Hell, my congrats to film director Jane Preston. She, Studio Lambert and C4 have just seen off a frivolous libel action over her 2008 Michael Jackson TV doc, The Jacksons Are Coming. MJ's penniless former bodyguard Matthew Fiddes dropped his lawsuit, claiming the film was 'fabricated', after racking up costs of £3m, £1.7m of which C4 must pay nonetheless. For why, read here.

I had no doubt of Jane's integrity because of my past dealings with her. She is both courageous and principled.

Of the former virtue: in the early '90s she took on Mirror Group when the People's then editor, the ghastly bully Bridget Rowe (now Ukip Nigel Farage's press sec), fired her for being pregnant. Naturally the socialist organ denied any such thing, but on the court steps, Mirror Group settled the case and gave Jane a lot of lolly. I had played my tiny part in this, writing a long exposé of Rowe's illegal management style for Private Eye, but Jane herself never once thought of backing down. She is a lionheart.

Of the latter virtue: while at the People (pre-Rowe), Jane was commissioned to interview her friend Boy George by the paper's magazine supplement. He wouldn't have spoken to anyone else from the paper. Unfortunately, the then editor, the late Richard Stott, had an abiding loathing of the popstar. He held George responsible for the death of a friend's grownup child through drugs.

When Stott read Jane's sympathetic but newsy piece, he went ballistic and ordered his writer-lapdog Mary Riddell (who churns for the Telegraph now) to re-do it to ensure readers were reminded that George was the chemicals anti-Christ. Somehow Jane got wind of this and at final proof stage undid some of Riddell's damage so that the final piece was broadly as she wrote it. This earned Jane her first firing from the paper and my abiding admiration.

In my experience people very rarely alter over time. Chin-chin, Jane!

Bill corrects David on Bridget about The People

In the venerable Press Gazette the venerable editor of the British Journalism Review, Bill Hagerty, who was once the editor of The People (sometimes called the Sunday People) – he succeeded the venerable but late Richard Stott - quite rightly corrects the venerable former Mirror editor, David Banks, on the matter of whether the not-so-venerable former editor of the doomed People, Dame Bridget Rowe CBE, MBE (gongs added to draw attention to absence), raised or lowered the circulation of last. She didn’t raise. As Bill writes, he left the title with a weekly circulation of just over a 2m while psycho successor Rowe flushed herself away at 1.77m. Banks is a friend of Rowe.

Quite how Rowe managed to lose so few copies (for contrast, I believe Stott managed to let go of about 400,000 readers in just over a year) is worthy of thought, yet I feel that the question cannot be fully answered until we know the truth behind the People's Phantom Sales Scandal, first raised by the venerable pundit Stephen Glover in The Spectator (1998). He discovered that 130,000+ copies of the People had been recorded as dispatched to a promotions company but which had never been received. The figure had been included in the sales audit nonetheless. Glover never did get to the bottom of this mystery. “Could the whole exercise have been a ruse to boost the circulation of the People when its sales were flagging?” he asked. He even called the Mirror Group CEO at the time, David Montgomery. He didn’t get back so far as I know.

For more on this story click here.

The Reverend H. Goatboy has died: Who?

"Sadly, Goatboy was never able to regale the Popbitch crowd with his story of Jimmy Savile - largely because of restraint ... imposed by those pesky libel laws." Politicalhackuk.

"[I] would like to pay tribute to a gossip legend and habitual resident of Popbitch.com, who died this week. The name Goatboy will mean little to most, but plenty to many. Suddenly, there is less in this world that makes us go 'arf'." Hugo Rifkind, The Times

Somebody big in the media died this week - and lachrymosity is rife. No, not the former Mirror and People editor Richard Stott. I mean, Alastair Campbell and a few other cunts besides, who gives a shit? He was just another lump of compromised tabloid cliche. No, I'm talking of another passing. That of The Reverend H Goatboy - mega-gossip sites Popbitch and Holy Moly are in mourning. No, I'd never heard of him either. So, let's see what the fuss is about.

"A Popbitch legend has passed to the great bin shouting contest in the sky," someone announces. I like Popbitch, can be too cute on furry animals, but it's fun and well written. Don't recall Rev Goatboy. An obit elsewhere says he was "larger than life" - click here. But this still doesn't explain who he was or what he did.

Holy Moly tells a story about one of Thatcher's cabinet ministers having sex with the 12-year-old son of an aristocrat. It is to be inferred from context that the Rev Goatboy supplied and wrote the story. In the second story, the same Tory high-up features in photos showing him messing around with young boys. Why is this politician not named? Arcati is mystified.

Holy Moly recounts: "On Monday we heard that Paul, a dear friend of Holy Moly!, and Popbitch too, had died in his sleep. Known to many simply as The Reverend Goatboy, he was, among many things, a wonderful raconteur, a true gentleman and always entertaining company. Like the consummate rock 'n' roller he was, the Reverend believed life was something best lived at 100mph and soundtracked by Motorhead. We will miss him."

Here's the important bit: "Even if you've only ever laughed once at the Holy Moly! mailout, we can guarantee it was one of Paul's stories that cracked that smile. Without Paul there would have never been a Holy Moly." Now I begin to understand ... Go here for more ... and his importance to Popbitch. Someone there recalls: "What an excellent chap - the night he rescued me from a whores' hostel in Leeds will always be a fond memory. He wouldn't want you to know but he was a soft bugger at heart, even if he DID drive a hairdresser's car... he'll be missed. jedibitch".

Lots of Goatboy postings here. But they could be in Aramaic for all the sense they make to me.

He was Paul Hadwen. More here. He died in his 50s - click here. He was cremated today at the Lawnswood Crematorium, Leeds, at 3.40pm. He liked his drugs. So do most journalists I know.

Not everyone loved him. On one messageboard I read this: "You know what else is evil - the internet. Therefore by using it we are effectively playing with the Devil’s tool! You should add the creator and inventor of this wicked tool, the self-styled Reverend Goatboy (currently in hiding in The North in the godless European state of United Kingdom) to your list ... Love and kisses to Georgie. x x". This is quite sexy.

Back to Popbitch: "Goatboy, aka Rev_Rickenbacker, aka Horace, remains the heart and soul of this community. Until this week, when we got the sad news of our friend's sudden death from pneumonia. We came to love this mischievous, shady, wickedly funny, warm-hearted internet legend. From extraordinary tales from his own life, to his strong political beliefs - anti-authority, anti-Thatcher, don't let the bastards get you down - to the most jaw-dropping pieces of gossip (including two scandalous stories about an 80s Conservative Cabinet Minister), tens of thousands of us got to know Goatboy." Read much much more at Popbitch.

Did he once cock-cunt Tara Palmer-Tompkinson? "After he left me disheveled and glowing, I realised the stories were true, he really is God's Gift to women!" she's quoted somewhere.

Hardly anyone met him yet they weep - "Is it strange to cry for someone you have never met outside the confines of a computer screen?", writes a blogger, eloquent on virtual bereavement. "The internet is a strange old place. Meeting people seems to matter little when you spend years reading each other’s thoughts on the most trivial of subjects." Read the piece - it's great.

He sounds like the net's Robin Hood, or the net's useful alternative Gatsby. I sense the big bang of a great legend; stories will be told of his derring-do; there will be exaggeration - essential to legend. I wonder if publishers are clued-up? SCOTT PACK, ARE YOU READING THIS? Richard Stott died rich from the media; Goatboy sounds like he died poor yet exercised a great deal of influence on the media.

Nope, never heard of him.

This could be relevant.

Richard Stott ... and his Boy George scandal

The untimely death of Richard Stott - who held a record-breaking five Fleet St editorships - has prompted a few private emails to Arcati, some unpublishable. "I have to laugh seeing David Banks paying tribute in one of the obits," writes someone who does not wish to be named. "When Montgomery fired Stott as Mirror editor in the early '90s - two days after saying his job was safe - Banks was moved in, and it was routine to dismiss Stott as redundant Old Labour - Banks happily played along to line his own pockets and do Rommel's bidding. Nowadays Banks sounds regretful of his association with Montgomery. As well he might!"

Another correspondent who also asks to remain anonymous writes: "Stott is described as a 'great' editor - but I saw none of that when he edited The People in 1990/1. First, he happily allowed Frankie McGowan to fire or drive out a large number of staff for her useless 'upmarket' supplement modelled on New Woman which she had edited beforehand. It was a disaster - circulation fell like a stone. And rather than take personal responsibility, Stott had Maxwell remove McGowan after a few months much to her fury. She was a ferocious, hysterical bully - so fair's fair.

"And I wasn't impressed by his editorial practices at times. He had a particular hatred of Boy George because of the singer's association with the drugs-related death of someone known to Stott. Stott would grow demented at George's name. One week a freelance writer called Jane Preston on the supplement was able to get an exclusive interview with George thanks to a personal connection - it was a tremendous interview, full of juicy stuff, along with pictures.

"But Stott wasn't having it. When he heard what was planned he immediately got Mary Riddell - who now passes herself as a thoughtful political columnist on the Observer - to re-write the interview, turning it into a vicious, sarky piece full of innuendo. Riddell and Stott wanted to retain Jane's byline - giving no thought to the personal cost to her - but at the eleventh hour Jane persuaded the subs to remove her name, and I think one or two insults in the copy. It was an heroic thing to do.

"Stott went mental when he heard about this - he ordered that Jane never be used again or allowed on the premises. But then shortly afterwards, Stott was moved back to the Mirror and Bill Hagerty took over who was happy to continue using Jane. Personally, I think Stott was a bit of a shit."

For happier memories of Stott, visit Gentlemen Ranters.

Boy George site

Richard Stott dies at 63

From PA ... following my report of his illness a few days ago:

"Richard Stott, former editor of the Daily Mirror newspaper, died this morning after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, his family said. He was 63.

“Mr Stott held five editorships, a fleet street record, of three newspapers during his career, the Daily Mirror, Sunday People and Today; and in recent years was known for a Sunday Mirror column which he continued writing until just weeks before his death.

"He also edited Alastair Campbell’s diaries - finishing the task from his hospital bed.

"His wife Penny was by his side; he leaves behind three children Emily, 35, Hannah, 32, and Christopher, 28, and one granddaughter Phoebe, aged two."

David Montgomery will allow himself a small glass of sherry to celebrate this event.

Richard Stott and Bridget Rowe: Beauty and beast

I am sorry to hear that the former editor of the Mirror and People, Richard Stott, is very ill. Though he might sometimes kick people who annoyed him, and once was found trying on a pair of earrings in the Mirror's fashion cupboard, he was a decent editor who did not resort to ferocious bullying. His dismissal by the deceitful David Montgomery back in the early '90s marked a very low period in Fleet Street history.

And while I'm in a mellow mood, I am happy to say that the despised Bridget Rowe has been spotted - this time as a talking head in Five's Diana: Last Days of a Princess, due to be broadcast next week. A nice person kindly sent me the DVD for my perusal.

The bitch appears to have lost acquaintance with diet pills: there was a school of thought that her crazy, vicious behaviour as editor of the People and Sunday Mirror, then as MD of both, was possibly due to the psychotropic properties of her fat pills which she popped like M&Ms. If this was the case, then some compassion is required, rather than my vitriolic scorn. So in such spirit I can report that in her nunnish black outfit, these days, she looks a bit like David Walliams' tranny (in mourning) who insists, against falsetto evidence, "I'm a laydee!" A friend suggests she looks more like the late Bubbles Rothermere but there's a line to be drawn between a fun-loving nature and a life gone to pot.

On the other hand, sight of her fat, cry-baby face brought to the surface a malevolent instinct - particularly when she tried to emote with downcast expressions: she intended to indicate a modicum of sympathy for the dead Princess' plight at the hands of the paparazzi. Yet it was the likes of Rowe who caused her death in the first place - by relentlessly bullying her hacks to unearth any filth and paying over the odds for royal pictures. She was a principal driver of the Diana market that ended in tragedy. Whoever made this nasty cheap docu-drama must have a dark sense of humour. Another joke is that anyone might think she was once the editor of the Mirror because it is this paper that's spliced in with the front page photo of Di and Dodi's kiss while Rowe prattles on - when in fact she was at the People.

By her side on the programme was a man who is unworthy of naming but who was her favourite picture editor. The last time I encountered him he came out with his epitaph: "I give the best blow jobs in London!"