Eddie Hobbs and Village

As we reported last week, we had emailed Eddie Hobbs our initial draft of our article concerning his handing of the finances of two clients of the Taylor Investment Group in 1993 and 1994. We invited his response to what we had written and we undertook to publish in full his reply.

We had several conversations with him on the Thursday morning before going to press and shortly after noon on the Thursday (8 September), having read our article, discussed some changes with us and been reassured we would publish in full his reply, he said he welcomed the publication of the material. He said it was as well to get this into the public domain so he could deal with it.

Then after we had gone to press he emailed us (around 3pm on the Thursday) saying his solicitor considered the article defamatory. This was followed by further emails raising objections that had not been raised previously and then a solicitor's letter demanding we desist from publication.

We halted publication after the main part of the magazine had already been printed. We made changes to the article to accommodate the objections newly raised by and on behalf of Eddie Hobbs and then went to press again.

Following that solicitors for Eddie Hobbs wrote to our printers (the Meath Chronicle and Boylan Printers) in an attempt to deter them from printing Village. Our distributors, Newspread, were also alerted. The sought senior counsel advice and were assured the material was not libelous.

We had gone to press at lunchtime on Thursday, 8 September, relaying on the welcome Eddie Hobbs had expressed for the material we were publishing and we then incurred substantial (for us) additional costs by his subsequent objections to what we were doing and his threats to our printers and distributors.

We have written to Eddie Hobbs inviting him to compensate us for the damage he caused us. His solicitors have replied denying he is responsible for causing us damage.