A strange choice of character witness he may be but the 73-year- old former gangster Mad

A strange choice of character witness he may be, but the 73-year- old former gangster “Mad” Frankie Fraser, notorious for his brutality in London’s East End during the 1960s, yesterday appeared before Woolwich Crown Court to vouch for the character of old-time gangland opponent, Charlie Kray. The complaint, filed last June, says that the show’s “carefully and maliciously edited statements were designed to hype the ratings at the expense of the American cattle industry”. With speculation rising that Ms Winfrey may attempt an out-of-court settlement, neither she nor her production company will comment on the case.Mr Lyman, whose comments on the Oprah show 15 months ago triggered the whole affair, is unrepentant, however. “When you say something you can prove to be true, you shouldn’t have to worry about the sky falling in on you.

I did not say these things without giving it a considerable amount of thought. I will stand by what I said on the show.”If Mr Lyman and his more famous co-defendant triumph in Amarillo, the food disparagement laws may wither as quickly as they sprouted. In the meantime, however, some advice to any unsuspecting Europeans planning a holiday in the United States this summer. David Bederman, a law professor at Emory University who has followed the flowering of the laws, recently described them as “flagrantly unconstitutional” But Kevin Isern, a lawyer for Mr Engler, is unperturbed. “We’re not trying to restrict anybody’s right to free speech,” he insisted “But free speech has to be correct speech. I think there is still a duty on the part of the talk shows to report what the truth is.”The allegation lodged against Ms Winfrey and her co-defendants is blunt. The message was clear: persist with the campaign and we will level food-disparagement claims against you.Some legal experts, however, believe the suit will fail because of the clash between the new laws and constitutional rights of free speech.

The shift of the burden of proof from plaintiff to the defendant in these laws means that their constitutionality is certain to come under the microscope. One fruit and vegetable association, for instance, recently sent a “cease and desist” notice to a Vermont environmentalist group which is leading the fight against food irradiation. Whereas plaintiffs in normal libel suits must demonstrate that the defendant knowingly defamed the person or product, under the food laws as drafted in most states, it is simply enough to have said something disparaging and false about the food. Whether you, the defendant, knew that you were uttering a falsehood is irrelevant.The Amarillo trial will be closely watched, and not just because of the celebrity factor It will be the first test of the new laws. The food industry will be deeply anxious to see the suit succeed If it does, expect other such actions.

Subsequently, the link between Alar and cancer could not be proved and apple growers from the American north-west tried to sue CBS They failed. Sympathy for the growers led to the drafting of the new laws.Not only do the food disparagement laws exist – and several other states expect to pass their own versions soon – but they are actually tougher than those for traditional libel. Alar was a chemical sprayed by orchards on apples which some scientists believed could lead to cancer, particularly in cases where the apples were eaten by the young. Critics of the laws have dubbed them “banana bills” and “veggie libel laws”. But whatever you call them, the new laws provide agri-business interests with a potentially devastating weapon to silence anyone who dares to challenge a particular foodstuff or farming practice on health or even ethical grounds.”The idea that an activist group with the price of a full-page ad can feed the public misinformation about a food product as part of a political agenda is being challenged,” a newsletter of the Animal Industry Foundation recently concluded.The genesis of these laws was an item carried by the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes in 1989 on the so-called Alar scare.