Fraud jibe 'made me laughing stock', says McKenna

Paul McKenna

LONDON - British hypnotist Paul McKenna told a court today that a newspaper story saying he was a fraud who had bought a degree made him a "laughing stock".

The 42-year-old former entertainer, whose self-help business now has an annual turnover of £2.5 million, alleges he was "pilloried" by journalist Victor Lewis-Smith on 10 occasions from 1997.

He told the High Court in London he was devastated when he saw another mention of his "bogus degree" from Lasalle University, Louisiana, in an October 2003 article in The Daily Mirror newspaper, headlined "It's a Load of Doc and Bull".

In it, Lewis-Smith, said: "I discovered that anyone could be fully doctored by Lasalle within months (no previous qualifications needed), just so long as they could answer the following question correctly: "Do you have 2,615 dollars, sir?".

McKenna said he had only just received a published retraction to an article written by Lewis-Smith the previous month referring to him as "Non-Doctor".

"I was horrified as I thought that I had set the record straight only a few days before in the Evening Standard, " McKenna told the court.

"I was appalled that he had returned to the subject again which seemed to me to be an act of spite. I felt humiliated and disgusted. I was very hurt as it depicted me as a fraudster who knowingly had bought a degree to defraud the public."

McKenna added that in his profession it was essential that people trust him and therefore he believed that the article had been damaging to his professional reputation and business.

"As well as being of fundamental importance to me, the 20 or so people that I employ are equally reliant on that trust."

McKenna, of Drayson Mews, west London, said that commercial competitors and practitioners had seized on the article and mocked him.

"My peers make jokes about the article and I became a laughing stock".

McKenna's lawyer, Desmond Browne, has told the judge that the newspaper was not arguing that McKenna was a charlatan, but was suggesting that he either knew his degree was bogus or was reckless as to whether it was.

The hearing continues.

- REUTERS