Tag Archives: Jim Curran

Jim Curran v Jim Perrin (part 1 of 6)

In an earlier posting  Jim Perrin loses a court case?  we were referring to the case, it had been decided, which was to be brought against him and we are now able to give the facts as told us by the other person most nearly concerned — ‘the injured party’.

In 1979 Jim Perrin was climbing with a fellow climber, Jim CURRAN, on the sea-cliffs of Wales. The step by step and the finger-tip-hold progression of this climb — the attempt of a new route on the Mewsford Point — is documented in chapter twenty of Jim Curran’s* autobiography, Here, There and Everywhere.  (published in Spring, 2012) and is described minutely in climbing terms which will be recognised by all rock-climbers: even to non-climbers it is apparent from his words that Jim, as Jim Perrin’s climbing partner on that occasion, was placed in some danger and experienced considerable disquiet as he followed. Continue reading →

Jim Perrin loses a court case? (Well, no! The matter was settled ‘OUT of court’!)

In the 1990s Jim Perrin libelled a fellow climber (Jim Curran) so vilely, impugning his climbing credentials, that he was to be sued for it: a date was fixed for the trial.

Spectacularly, further damning evidence was produced against Jim Perrin and an offer was made in settlement — of many tens of thousands of pounds — within only days of that trial. Today the figure is enormous — then it was a fortune — a sum however which ‘luckily’ was covered by the insurers of the magazine that had published the libel of which Jim Perrin was guilty: he would, it seems, have the Luck of the Devil and, as we have written elsewhere, ‘he sailed away Scot-free’.

Nevertheless the details of this case are well known in the climbing community — and to us through close friends in that community: it is a brush with which he has been tarred ever since. He has learned though to be more circumspect in his writing and over the years has developed a unique style which we believe to be — and have described as — ‘Libelling libel-lessly ref. our post Jim Perrin writes libellously? and it may be observed that he uses this ‘style’ frequently, and to great malicious effect. Continue reading →