Last week the High Court gave Morrissey the go-ahead to pursue his libel claim against the NME in the UK courts. Tonight, via a statement on the True To You fansite, the singer has set out his side of the argument.
Saying that the NME‘s lawyers were seeking £100,000 in costs against him, Morrissey’s statements accuses the NME of double standards in its request to have Morrissey’s libel claim thrown out. "Strangely, and supported by the evidence of [Conor] McNicholas, [Krissi] Murison and [Tim] Jonze, the NME‘s lawyers argued that it would be unreasonable to expect them to remember the events of 2007, yet they went on to stress that if the case went to trial, they would wish to cross-examine Morrissey on events leading back not 3, but 19, years, to 1992, when the NME aggressively ran a "is Morrissey racist?" campaign.
Morrissey’s statement outlines his version of the events around the interview, printed in the NME in 2007, and asserts that the singer "believes that the NME‘s position is unsupportable, not least because the interview tapes exist and the printed interview transcripts exist and, on the examination of both, the conduct of the NME is there for all to see."
In another twist, the statement makes a further allegation against then-NME editor Conor McNicholas: "Furthermore, Morrissey’s camp were subsequently told that following the printed interview, Conor McNicholas wrote to Love Music Hate Racism (on whom the NME had recently devoted an entire issue), and warned them that if they supported Morrissey in this dispute then they could forget about any further support from the NME.
