Judge to decide on Morrissey libel case

A judge will decide today whether to throw out singer Morrissey’s libel case over an article about his attitude to immigration.

The former Smiths frontman is suing the NME and ex-editor Conor McNicholas over a November 2007 interview and has claimed that they deliberately tried to characterise him as a racist.

The magazine’s counsel, Catrin Evans, has asked Mr Justice Tugendhat to “strike out” the action as an abuse of process, saying it was “not a genuine bid for vindication”.

She told London’s High Court that the 52-year-old star’s explanations for not progressing the claim were “wholly unconvincing”.

Morrissey’s lawyers have said that continued lack of assistance from Morrissey’s former manager, Merck Mercuriadis, with whom he parted company in May 2008, was principally to blame, as he was a crucial witness and supplier of documents.