Richard Desmond, the owner of the Daily and Sunday Express,will become the first newspaper proprietor to take the stand in the High Court since Robert Maxwell, when he launches his libel action against the investigative journalist Tom Bower on Monday.

Mr Desmond, who is worth an estimated £950 million, has taken exception to a references made by Bower in a book about the disgraced former owner of the Daily Telegraph, Lord Black of Crossharbour.

Conrad and Lady Black mentions Desmond only over two pages. Bower says that the Express owner ordered the Sunday Express to report in 2002 that Lord Black’s then company, Hollinger, was facing “its biggest crisis ever” after “a credit facility was cancelled by its bankers”.

Desmond complains the statement implied that the newspaper’s owner interfered in the content of the tabloid title, causing it to run a story that he was forced to apologise to Lord Black for a few months later. He denies ordering that the story be written, and claims the error is defamatory.

The impending battle — in which the Express owner will be cross-examined in front a jury — amounts to the biggest public test of Desmond’s reptuation since he bought the Daily Express,its Sunday sister title and the Daily Star in 2000, in a £125 million takeover that saw its then editor, Rosie Boycott, and many of its staff depart.

So personalised is the battle that Desmond is not taking action against the book’s publishers, Harper Collins, part of News Corporation, parent company of The Times. That means that if Bower is defeated, he could be forced to personally hand over any damages awarded by the court.

Robert Maxwell, the former owner of the Daily Mirror, was the last newspaper proprietor to step into the High Court and fight a libel battle. He won £55,000 in damages from Private Eye in 1986, overturning allegations that he was a “private paymaster” for the Labour party, in a case that saw the Czech-born former Labour MP cry in the witness box. Maxwell died suddenly in 1994, after it emerged he had been plundering the pension funds of Mirror Group Newspapers.

Desmond left school at 15 and went on to built a media empire, which in the first two decades of its life relied on profits from pornographic magazines such as Asian Babes and Horny Housewives. He once said that he was “aggravated about being called a pornographer” because all his titles were legal but he no longer owns the magazines. He was able to use the profits they generated in the Nineties to expand his company, Northern & Shell, into televisionand mainstream newspapers.

Bower, who began his career as a reporter on Panorama and is married to the former editor of the Evening Standard, Veronica Wadley, was once described as an “assault weapon” rather than a journalist. He has written critical biographies about a string of colourful businessmen, including Harrods owner Mohamed al-Fayed, the late Lonhro boss and onetime Observer owner, Tiny Rowland, as well as Sir Richard Branson, Maxwell and Gordon Brown. He is no stranger to controversy either, having been sued by Maxwell, Lord Black and Sir Richard in the past.

“I have always been invigorated by the calculated snubs of the rich and powerful, and the obstruction in this instance was as stimulating as ever,” he wrote in his biography of the Prime Minister.

Both sides have run up legal costs estimated at £500,000, and the hearing — the most high-profile libel battle of the year — is expected to begin with Desmond’s evidence before the jury and to last the first two days, in which he will be questioned by his barrister Ian Winter QC, and Bower’s counsel, Ronald Thwaites QC.

Witnesses for Desmond, who is advised by celebrity law firm Schillings, are also expected to include Martin Townsend, the editor of the Sunday Express.Bower may also take the stand in his own defence, depending on how the case develops — but neither side is believed to have tried to ask Lord Black, now in jail after being found guilty of fraud after his business empire collapsed, to assist their case.

Both Desmond and Bower declined to comment ahead of the trial.

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