Actually, this is quite a fun story too. A former Bullet For My Valentine tour manger is suing Kerrang! publishers EMAP over an interview in the rock magazine where the band's drummer claimed to have walked in on the tour manager masturbating in a dressing room at a German venue where the band were playing.
The interview ran this time last year, under straplines warning readers to "prepare to be disgusted" by the "sickest interview ever". The band's drummer Moose was asked if he had ever been "caught wanking", to which he was reported to have replied: "Never, I'm too good at it, but we caught our tour manager pleasuring himself in Germany two weeks ago. He was in a dressing room and we just walked in and I knew what he was doing instantly, you can't mistake that sound for anything else. We called him Stinky for the rest of the tour".
The manager was unnamed in the interview, but the tour manager on the band's late 2005 German tour was one Mark Stickland. He claims that the story is not only untrue, but also seriously defames his character and professional conduct. He is suing the magazine's publisher, and his lawyer, William McCormick, told the court hearing the case yesterday that the Kerrang! piece "Attributed to him [Strickland] conduct which he will say is wholly inconsistent with him properly discharging his professional responsibilities. What's being said is that when he should have been at work, he engaged in activity which was lewd, sexual and, effectively, he could not control his sexual impulses".
McCormick added that his client was a "fairly ordinary guy who takes a quiet pride in doing his job well and enjoys the respect and esteem of friends and acquaintances", but that since the interview was published he had been publicly mocked and called by the name suggested by the drummer in the interview (Stinky in case you're not keeping up).
However, EMAP are standing by the story, deny libel and say they plan to call Moose, real name Michael Thomas, to give evidence in their defence. Their legal representative, Caroline Addy, says that aside from the allegations being, in their opinion, true, Stickland wasn't named in the article anyway meaning that to the vast majority of the magazine's readers he remained anonymous and, anyway, the allegations related to an "entirely ordinary sexual behaviour" and therefore were not defamatory. Addy added that the claimant had previously been happy to join in banter and "teasing of a sexual nature" when touring with the band, concluding therefore that the libel suit had been launched for financial gain rather than vindication.
The courts are expected to dedicate three more days of discussion as to the tour manager's wanking, or not, before reaching a conclusion.