to substantiate her claims and was deserving "of the gravest censure". As a result, Douglas-Pennant was never again employed by the government. Libel and divorce During his time at the bar, Hastings was involved in a variety of libel cases and in a divorce case which significantly changed the law relating to the admission of evidence from spouses regarding the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a child. His first significant libel case was Sievier v Wootton. Robert Sievier was a well-known horse racing journalist and owner with a reputation for brushes with the law and underhanded dealings, having previously been tried for blackmail and acquitted on a technicality. In 1913 he accused Richard Wootton, a noted trainer of racehorses, of ordering his jockeys to withdraw from races if he had bet on another horse so as to allow him to make large amounts of money. Wootton sued him for libel and won, but was granted only a symbolic farthing in damages because the jury thought that Sievier had not intended to cause harm. As a result of this pyrrhic victory, Wootton held a grudge against Sievier for many years. As revenge, Wootton wrote a pamphlet titled Incidents in the Public Life of Robert Standish Sievier in which he claimed that Sievier had been expelled from the Victoria Racing Club, twice been declared bankrupt, cheated a man of £600 in a game of billiards and blackmailed another for £5,000. The pamphlet was released on the day of the Grand National and distributed widely through the crowds, and in response Sievier sued Wootton for libel. Sievier appeared without a lawyer, while Wootton was represented by Sir Edward Carson, Hastings, and E. H. Spence. After the second day of the trial, Carson was called away to Ireland on political business, and Hastings was forced to act as the primary counsel for Wootton. Hastings destroyed Sievier's reputation in cross-examination, and the jury decided in Wootton's favour. In 1922, he became involved in Russell v Russell, which eventually went to the House of Lords, who set a common law rule that evidence about the legitimacy or illegitimacy of children born in marriage is inadmissible if it is given by either spouse. John Russell, later Lord Ampthill, married Christabel Hart in 1918, with both spouses agreeing that they did not want to have children. In October 1921 Christabel Russell gave birth to a son, Geoffrey Russell, and