The plaintiff in this case claimed infringement by the plaintiff in his non-fiction work "The Spear of Destiny". The plaintiff had written a history of the spear which was allegedly used to pierce the side of Christ on the Cross. He detailed the history of the spear from Israel to Hofburg Museum in Vienna. The plaintiff identified it as the spear used by many legendary historical people and claimed that the spear had become a symbolic source of inspiration in Nazi Germany. The plaintiffs book was meticulously researched using a combination of empirical techniques and use of a psychic medium.

The defendant, James Herbert was fascinated by the plaintiffs book and used it as the basis of a fictional account of the post-war fate of the spear entitled "The Spear". The novel concerned a neo-Nazi group, secret agents and terrorists. The book was divided into sections. At the beginning of each section was a prologue. The prologues told the story of the spear from the Crucifixion to the end of the second world war. The plaintiff sued for copyright infringement.

The defendant admitted using the plaintiffs book as a source of inspiration for his novel.

The court upheld the plaintiff's claim of copyright infringement and in finding for the plaintiff decided as follows -

1. The defendant had infringed the plaintiff's copyright by writing the prologues using the same characters, incidents and interpretation of the significance of events

2. In assessing the quantum of damages the court had to assess the value of the infringing part of the defendant's work in relation to the whole of the original work. Although the infringing part represented only 4% of the defendants work, the value of the 4% was 15% of value of the whole derivative book. there were in all, fifty alleged instances of language copying in the defendants work.