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The libel case between Simon Singh and the British Chiropractic Association took a strange turn yesterday after the BCA released its response to Wednesday’s legal ruling.
That ruling gave permission to Singh to appeal an earlier ruling defining the meaning of an article he wrote for the Guardian in 2008 which the BCA claims is defamatory (see: Simon Singh vs the British Chiropractic Association, redux).
Responding to the ruling, the BCA posted a statement, part of which read “the BCA was maliciously attacked by Dr. Singh”. Later, a new statement appeared which said instead that “the BCA was libelled by Dr. Singh”.
Is there an argument that Simon Singh could now countersue or start a fresh claim over the BCA suggestion that he acted maliciously?
When contacted by Nature, Simon Singh’s lawyer Robert Dougans of Bryan Cave said he could not comment on the issue at this stage.
A spokesman for the BCA said “the wrong statement was posted and that has now been corrected”.
As this blog post went to press both statements were still available on the BCA website, although only the most recent one was linked to from the news page.
Image: extracts from both statements / BCA