Like all silver-tongued liars, Gerry Gable can charm his gullible audiences with all manner of unverifiable tales of how he and his “moles” have run rings around Nazi conspiracies, organised racists and so on, but contemporaneous documents often tell a different tale. Gable and Searchlight’s “catch” of the 1980s was former Nazi activist Ray Hill. After “coming out”, Hill put his name to a column in Searchlight magazine, Hill Street News (a pun on an American TV series).
Larry O’Hara has always maintained that it is Gable rather than Hill who wrote this (now defunct) column. Be that as it may, the August 1996 issue proclaimed fearlessly:
“Hill Street News is an occasional column, written in his own inimitable style, by Ray Hill, who was Searchlight’s mole inside the leadership of the British nazi right and the neo-nazi European terror networks in the 1970s and 1980s.”
In 1996 however, Ray Hill was not quite so fearless, because Morris Riley issued a libel writ against Gerry Gable, Searchlight Magazine Limited, Russell Press Limited (the magazine’s printer) and himself. Hill’s response was that he hadn’t actually written this column. Actually, his first “response ” was no response; Mr Riley was unable to locate him in order to serve the writ, and Gerry Gable, who had made so much capital out of Hill and had cooperated with him in saving the world from the Nazi menace over so many years, suddenly had no idea where Mr Hill was. It was not until Mr Riley threatened Mrs Gable (as Company Secretary) with contempt proceedings that Mr Hill showed his face.
Riley v Gable & Others was heard at the High Court between February 17 and February 23, 2000. Although neither Gable nor Hill gave evidence, they stated uncategorically in their witness statements that Mr Hill had not written that particular article, indeed that he had not written for the magazine for some time.
Liars ought to have better memories, because in December 1993, the current writer issued a writ against Mr Gable in connection with defamatory comments made in the November 1993 issue. In his witness statement in defence of this action, Gable stated clearly that although he personally had written about me in the Hill Street News column, the column itself was actually written by Ray Hill. The reader is invited to compare the relevant passages in his witness statements in the different actions, (see below).
Gable was clearly prepared to perjure himself in one of these actions. As things turned out, this was academic, because my action against Gable was settled out-of-court to my satisfaction, and Mr Riley won a judgment against both Gable and Hill when the jury decided that Hill had written the defamatory article, or that he should be held accountable for it.
To Gable’s Witness Statement In Baron v Gable
To Gable’s Witness Statement In Riley v Gable
To Explanatory Note
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