CWC retract part of their statement [28 February 1998]
This was part of the 26 February statement:
Cable & Wireless reserves the right to vary our terms and conditions in accordance with our contract, including the free local calls element, and therefore cannot guarantee that this will never change. In this respect the article in The Times of 18th February 1998 is not wholly accurate.
The sentence in bold is libellous. Nick Mailer and I claim modest credit for being the first to spot this. From the mailing list:
I see Nick's point; how can something be 'not wholly accurate' if it is a transcription of what the Press Office said? Either the Press Officer's statement is 'not wholly accurate' or Chris's integrity is being impugned.
To cut a long story short, The Times threatened CWC with proceedings. Chris Ward would be happy to stand up in court with his shorthand notes of the CWC statements: would the CWC Press Office have similar notes? On Friday afternoon CWC caved in and agreed to remove the sentence 'as soon as possible'. Such a pity that dozens of copies of the original statement were emailed and that there are now two copies on this site.
There's a loose end, though. Quoting from Chris's very long statement to the mailing list, which you can read here:
[CWC said that] there had indeed been a change of mind taken at the highest level [of CWC] after he gave me the statement.
As far as I am aware the change of mind was before either statement. Or was the 23 January letter from Graham Wallace to a Watch reader yet another communication not intended to be taken seriously?
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