Justice Kit Toogood’s character analysis of defamation litigant Colin Craig may have rocked the former Conservative Party chief somewhat, having been described variously as being intelligent and articulate on the one hand, but “self absorbed”, “lacking insight” and “hypocritical” on the other.

The seemingly endless Craig litigation drama, which LawFuel uncatalogued earlier, needed to be brought to an end, the Judge said.

However the most disturbing comment from Justice Toogood was his statement that Colin Craig had “manufactured evidence”.

Justice Toogood presided over the lengthy defamation trial between the self-represented Craig and blogger Cameron Slater during mid-2017.

The judge had declined to award any damages to Craig for defamation, saying much of the harm to Craig’s reputation was self-inflicted.

His comments in the costs judgment were –

I held in the judgment that Mr Craig went so far as to manufacture evidence designed to support his position, in responding to Ms MacGregor’s claims under the Human Rights Act, and to mislead the Court rather than to acknowledge to others that he had behaved badly.

Ms MacGregor complained that Mr Craig deliberately manipulated and exploited her in terms of his demands for her time and effort in his re-election campaign and I held that his behaviour placed her under pressure and caused distress.

I do not think it follows, however, that Mr Craig knew his conduct towards Ms MacGregor had reached the level of sexual harassment. I refer below to passages in the judgment that convey my assessment of Mr Craig and the extent of his awareness of the inappropriate aspects of his relationship with his press secretary.

We do not know what steps were taken by counsel at the trial, by the Police or anyone else in respect of the serious matter identified by Justice Toogood although such matters might normally be expected to be dealt with the utmost gravity.

In the meantime, the record-breaking defamation verdict against Colin Craig by Plaintiff Jordan Williams has been set aside in a majority verdict at the Supreme Court although we understand that even that matter may not have ended.

Bob Jones on The Craig Saga . . And Justice Toogood

A few hours after I posted the item last week on the Colin Craig-Jordan Williams courtroom stoush, lo and behold Justice Kit Toogood issued his judgement on the costs debate regarding Craig’s battle with Cameron Slater. He found against Craig describing him as “self-obsessed, lacking self-awareness and insight and, to a degree, hypocritical.”

If Craig has an ounce of common-sense he will pay regard to those wise words. The issues he continuously pursues are ancient history, relating to the 2011 election. No-one cares and while initially highly entertaining, are now wearingly tiresome. He should drop further litigation and get on with his life.

More interesting was the photo of the judge accompany the Stuff report. With the news from Britain a week back that medical professionals there found via DNA reports that a tenth of their patients were not sired by their fathers, Kit Toogood need have no concern on that score.

He’s evolved into the splitting image of his famous dad, the great Selwyn Toogood, arguably our most famous television personality of the 1960s and 70s.