In a case that calls to mind Grogan v. Paolella et al. in the US, a polygrapher in the UK has sued a fellow polygrapher for defamation. The Independent’s Jerome Taylor reports:
Lie detectors at war (but who’s telling the truth?)
It’s not just Jeremy Kyle and Trisha Goddard who are rivals: the polygraph experts on the two shows are engaged in a bitter defamation battle. Jerome Taylor reportsWednesday, 3 December 2008
It is the kind of argument that could probably have been settled by the tools of their trade, but bosses at two of Britain’s major polygraph companies are choosing to deal with their differences in the High Court rather than opting for lie detectors.
On one side is Bruce Burgess, a 64-year-old polygraph expert whose company is used to identify love rats and maintenance shirkers for ITV’s The Jeremy Kyle Show. On the other side is Don Cargill, who conducts polygraphs for The Trisha Goddard Show, Five’s rival show to Kyle’s.
According to a writ filed in the High Court, Mr Burgess is suing his opposite number over a letter Mr Cargill allegedly wrote to the broadcasting watchdog Ofcom in which he reportedly said Mr Burgess had been sacked for incompetence from a government pilot to test sex offenders.
Mr Burgess claims he was never even hired for the government programme and has alleged that Mr Cargill was trying to discredit him because he obtained different results on a lie detector test they both conducted on the same person. Mr Burgess has now filed a defamation case for £50,000 against Mr Cargill in the High Court.