inadequate to mark its disapproval of this conduct and deter its agencies from a
repetition. The monopoly aspect of the matter is a good reason for sayings, that the
news medium in question has a duty to take particular care to ensure the truth of the
news it disseminates, but for myself I would not regard the existence of cometitors as
being any great mitigating factor where the defendant by its conduct has rendered itself
liable to an award of exemplary damages. I see no significant difference between the
conduct of the radio and television services in this case and the defendant in the Times
Newspapers case [5] and, although here we have two news media, it is relevant that
they are both Government agencies. The plaintiff has already been awarded all that he
is entitled to receive by way of compensation, and the issue at this stage is only to fix a
sum which will bring home to the defend ant the court's disapproval of the conduct of its
various agencies and to deter them from similar conduct in the future. I would, therefore,
award the same additional sum in respect of exemplary damages as I consider
appropriate in the Times Newspapers case, namely, K10,000. In the result I would allow
this appeal and reduce the total damages to K20,000.

Judgment

GARDNER, J.S.: The Acts of this appeal have already been set out fully, and so have
detailed answers to the specific grounds of appeal raised by the appellant. I agree
entirely that an amount awarded as exemplary damages cannot be taken into account
when assessing the total amount of compensatory damages.

The two expressions are quite clear. The first relates to compensation to an aggrieved
plaintiff for loss of reputation and kindred matters-the second expression shows that it is
intended to set an example to a particular defendant in order to deter him and others
from acting in a contumelious manner again. The learned trial judge was therefore
correct when he took into account the compensatory damages which had been awarded

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