Judge: 'It's obviously a joke'

Channel 4 has won a £550,000 legal battle against a woman who claims Da Ali G Show libelled her.

In a 2004 interview with American writer Gore Vidal, Sacha Baron Cohen’s character referred to a former girlfriend as a ‘bitch’ and a ‘minger’ and said he got her pregnant.

Viewer might have assumed the woman, named in the show as Heddi Cundle, was fictional. However a woman of that name came forward and said she met Baron Cohen briefly in Israel when they were both teenagers. The lawsuit, however, was brought under the anonymous pseudonym ‘Jane Doe’.

In the interview, recorded for the US version of Da Ali G Show, the wannabe rapper asks Vidal about whether there was any point in amending the American constitution.

He said: ‘Ain't it better sometimes, to get rid of the whole thing rather than amend it cos, like me used to go out with this bitch called Heddi Cundle and she used to always be trying to amend herself. Y'know, get her hair done in highlights, get like tattoo done on her batty crease, y'know gave the whole thing shaved n very nice but it didn't make any more difference. She was still a minger and so, y'know, me had enough and once me got her pregnant me said all right, laters, that is it. Ain't the same with the constitution?"

Co-producer HBO has twice settled out of court over the item, but Channel 4 decided to fight after the plaintiff pursued charges relating to the show's wider distribution.

Judge Terry Friedman today ruled in the broadcasters’ favour, saying it was ‘obvious that the Ali G character is absurd, and all his statements are gibberish and intended as comedy. The programme is obviously a spoof of a serious interview programme. No reasonable person could think otherwise.’

Channel 4 said it was only the second successful case of its kind in the US.

In 2001, the broadcaster had to pay Bolton fire-safety officer Keith Laird a reported £10,000 over an episode of Phoenix Nights featuring an incompetant fire-safety officer character of a very similar name.

Here is the interview at the centre of the new case:

Published: 22 Apr 2009