主题：老太太违反了美国的四项基本原则 -- 一着

about the litigation case.

Irving's reputation as an historian was widely[3] discredited after he brought an unsuccessful libel case against the American historian Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books in 1996. The court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism,"[4] and that he had "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence."[4][5]

Main article: Irving v Penguin Books and Lipstadt

David Irving sued her and her publisher, Penguin Books, for libel in an English court, after she characterized some of his writings and public statements as Holocaust denial in her book Denying the Holocaust. Lipstadt's legal defence team was led by Anthony Julius of Mishcon de Reya while Penguin's was led by Kevin Bays and Mark Bateman of Davenport Lyons. Both defendants instructed Richard Rampton QC while Penguin also instructed Heather Rogers as junior counsel. The expert witness for the defence was Cambridge historian Richard J. Evans, assisted by Christopher Browning, Robert Jan van Pelt and Peter Longerich.

Although English libel law puts the burden of proof on the defendant rather than the plaintiff, Lipstadt and Penguin won the case using the justification defence, viz. by demonstrating in court that Lipstadt's accusations against Irving were substantially true and therefore not libelous. The case was argued as a bench trial before Mister Justice Gray, who produced a written judgment 334 pages long detailing Irving's systematic distortion of the historical record of World War II. The Times (April 14, 2000, p. 23) said of Lipstadt's victory, "History has had its day in court and scored a crushing victory."[2]