[All images added by this website] Wednesday, August 27, 2008 The First Post David Irving sues for loss of archives DAVID IRVING, the right-wing historian who was imprisoned in Austria for denying the Holocaust [not so: it was for "trying to revive the Nazi Party"!]happened, is about to return to court. This time, however, he is on the attack. Irving is suing his former lawyers Howard Kennedy, solicitor Peter Laskey, and legal executive Peter Ling in a dispute over his £750,000 Mayfair flat and for the loss of his historical archives. David Irving comments: SOMEBODY has leaked court papers to the press, not I. The journalists may not have been told the whole story. Their reports conceal the fact that our claim is for "professional negligence", a very serious charge to make against any attorney. The brief facts are these: in the aftermath of the failure of the Lipstadt Libel action, I flew to the United States on a long pre-arranged speaking and research tour.    Lipstadt's publishers had lodged a bankruptcy petition, which we were appealing; the appeal was to be heard on May 22, 2002. Our lawyers stated that we had every prospect of success, as her publishers had themselves suffered no losses.    The bank holding the mortgage on my apartment off Grosvenor Square, where I had lived for thirty-four years and raised two families, suddenly foreclosed, on the grounds that a petition had been issued, although we had made the agreed interest payments right up to that point. They even obtained a possession order, which was served on us in April, 2002. A few days later, on about May 7, 2002, they actually obtained an early date for possession: we were to be evicted on May 23, 2002. I was still in the United States.    With our appeal just due to be heard, no judge would have refused us a reasonable stay of execution of the possession order, probably of four weeks, if we applied for it. It is a simple application, one that I would have normally made in person; being overseas, however, on May 8, 2002 I instructed attorney Peter Laskey and his firm to make the application.    He banked our two thousand pound (US $4,000) check -- and went off to Moscow for a week. Without telling us, he did not make the application, either then or when he returned. Nor did his law firm. On about May 20, when I eventually inquired from Seattle, eight time zones away, what the court had ruled, he finally admitted in an email that he had failed to make the application.    The results were catastrophic. Not only did we lose our home three days later; I lost my entire archives, manuscripts, equipment, and research materials. The court will have to decide if it was through professional negligence. MANDRAKE incidentally seems not to know that his paper, The Sunday Telegraph, published my first four books as serials. In court papers, Irving alleges that his lawyers failed to carry out his instructions to deal with a possession order issued against the property in Duke Street following his unsuccessful libel action against the American academic Deborah Lipstadt. Irving had sued her for libel after she accused him of being a Holocaust denier. He was subsequently arrested during a visit to Austria, where it is a crime to glorify and identify with the German Nazi Party. After a trial in Vienna, he served a prison sentence from February to December 2006. The legal action against Lipstadt cost Irving £3m in legal fees and ultimately resulted in him filing for bankruptcy. Even worse, at least from his point of view, when the flat was re-possessed he also lost his historical archive, which he values at £500,000. Irving, 70, maintains that his legal advisors failed to tell him "in a timely manner" of their omission [that he was in danger of losing the Duke Street apartment], which would have allowed him to take action to save his home and historical papers. While he values the loss of his possessions and archives at half a million £500,000 and also wants damages for grief and distress, he has limited his claim for damages to £300,000.   London, August 24, 2008 Irving heads back to court Mandrake by Tim Walker The unsavoury Right-wing author David Irving, who was imprisoned in Austria for denying the Holocaust, is about to return to court. This time Irving, 70, is suing his former lawyers Howard Kennedy, solicitor Peter Laskey, and legal executive Peter Ling in a dispute over his £750,000 Mayfair flat. Irving alleges in court papers that they failed to carry out his instructions to apply to the court to stay a possession order against the property in Duke Street following his unsuccessful libel action against the American academic Deborah Lipstadt, which landed him with a £3 million legal bill and led to his bankruptcy. Now living in Dorney, Windsor, Irving blames the legal team for the loss of his possessions and historic archives, and is claiming damages of £300,000. He also maintains that they failed to tell him "in a timely manner" of their omission, which would have allowed him to take remedial action himself. He values the loss of his possessions and historic archives at £500,000 and also wants damages for grief and distress but limits his claim for damages to £300,000. The legal team intends to defend the action and Irving will have to return to the Royal Courts of Justice where, eight years ago, he unsuccessfully sued Miss Lipstadt for libel after she had accused him of being a Holocaust denier in a book. He was subsequently arrested during a visit to Austria, where it is a crime to glorify and identify with the German Nazi Party. After a trial in Vienna, he served a prison sentence from February to December 2006.   Hear David Irving speak in England and the United States this year. Get his books at special prices, too. Apply by clicking on this link. The Lipstadt Trial: index David Irving vs.Peter Laskey and others: High Court Claim document   David Irving, a Radical's Diary: He speaks in Manhattan and Washington, and a journalist called Blumenthal interviews him on film: YouTube version | Blumenthal writes on Huffington Post

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