As a consummate expert in defamation law, Richard Rampton KC was the ideal barrister to conduct one of the most important trials ever held in the London courts in defence of the truth.
Rampton, who has died aged 82, led the courtroom case against the Holocaust denier David Irving in a hearing that became a textbook example of how to combat fake news. It was memorialised in the David Hare-scripted film Denial (2016).
Representing Penguin Books and the American historian Deborah Lipstadt, who had been sued by Irving after she accused him of misinterpreting Nazi documents, Rampton systematically demolished his offensive bluster and racist jokes.
Working with the solicitor Anthony Julius and another barrister, Heather Rogers KC, Rampton decided not to put death camp survivors in the witness box to avoid exposing them to taunting cross-examination by Irving. They also convinced Lipstadt not to give evidence, focusing their efforts instead on falsifications within Irving’s volumes – exposed by the Cambridge historian Professor Richard Evans.
As author of the definitive law book Duncan and Neill on Defamation, Rampton kept a steely grasp on the issues and his conversational, persuasive delivery was perfectly suited to addressing the judge, Mr Justice Charles Gray.
Before the high court trial in 2000, Rampton taught himself German in order to familiarise himself with the wartime papers and visited Auschwitz. Opening his defence, Rampton declared: “Mr Irving calls himself a historian. The truth is, however, that he is not a historian at all, but a falsifier of history. To put it bluntly, he is a liar.”
Rampton presented the court with more than 30 examples of historical distortion. On the final day Irving, losing concentration, addressed Gray as “Mein Führer”. The judge subsequently ruled that Irving was “an active Holocaust denier… antisemitic and racist.”
It was the case of which Rampton, a supporter of freedom of speech and one of the leading defamation barristers of his generation, was most proud. When Irving approached him afterwards to shake hands Rampton refused, remarking: “It wasn’t a game of tennis!”
In Denial, he was portrayed by the actor Tom Wilkinson who borrowed his trilby and distinctive round glasses for the part. The success of the film led to Rampton’s second career as a lecturer. He travelled widely, speaking to schools, colleges and synagogues about the case because he believed it should never be forgotten.
Rampton was born in Norwich during the second world war. His father, Anthony, was an army officer involved in military training. His mother, Joan (nee Shanks), was from Paisley in Scotland. The family eventually settled in Petersham, west London. After the war Anthony rejoined the family firm, Freemans, a pioneer in the clothing catalogue business. It went public in 1963; the profits were used to establish the Hilden Charitable Trust.
Rampton went to Bryanston school in Dorset, where he played rugby and cricket, as well as gaining a lifelong affection for Mozart. At Queen’s College, Oxford, he studied classics. He wanted to switch to medicine but failed an exam. His father suggested he become a barrister because he loved arguing.
In 1963, he married his childhood sweetheart Carolyn Clarke. She later worked for the Liberal Democrats’ whips office in the House of Lords and was appointed MBE for public service.
Rampton was called to the bar in 1965. He joined One Brick Court, a set of chambers that specialised in media law. He stayed there for more than 50 years. In 1987, he was appointed a QC.
His spotlight-grabbing libel cases included appearing successfully in 1981 for the Daily Mail against the Moonies, or Unification Church, who sued over an article headlined The Church That Breaks Up Families.
Rampton also secured victory for Andrew Neil, then editor of the Sunday Times, against Peregrine Worsthorne, former editor of the Sunday Telegraph, in a 1990 hearing following criticism of Neil’s “playboy” love life. Neil, however, won only £1,000 in damages.
Rampton was co-author with Lord (David) Windlesham of the report into Thames Television’s controversial Death on the Rock programme which investigated the SAS shooting of three IRA members in Gibraltar in 1988. Their inquiry effectively exonerated the journalists, concluding that it was a “trenchant” work made in “good faith and without ulterior motives”.
Rampton participated in the UK’s longest-running defamation trial known as McLibel. He was reported to have earned £2,000 a day representing McDonald’s for the two-and-half-year hearing which ended in 1996. The company won but it was a PR disaster.
Other prominent cases included Gillian Taylforth vs News of the World, Count Nikolai Tolstoy vs Lord Aldington and success in securing victory for George Galloway in 2004 against the Daily Telegraph which had falsely accused him of taking up to £375,000 a year from Saddam Hussein.
Colleagues paid tribute to Rampton’s great intellect and integrity. He was renowned for completing the Times crossword – across clues first. He was generous to friends and colleagues, hosting parties at which he shared his collection of fine wines.
He was also known for smoking Gitanes, a habit not so widely appreciated. One former pupil – now Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the King’s Bench Division – stuffed firework gunpowder into his cigarette so that it exploded during a case conference. There was laughter but no injury.
Rampton was a trustee of the Hilden charity which supported the homeless, refugees and prisoners. He enjoyed fly fishing on the River Itchen in Hampshire and formed a cricket team, the Brickbats, recruited mainly from fellow chambers’ members.
A regular visitor to Murrayfield, he relished Scotland’s rugby victories. He was also a fine caricaturist, dashing off humorous cartoons during lulls in trials.
Rampton is survived by Carolyn, their children, James, Patrick and Catherine, and seven granddaughters.
• John Richard Anthony Rampton KC, barrister, born 8 January 1941; died 23 December 2023
