Mail on Sunday pays damages over fraud claims

Last Thursday, MediaGuardian reported:

A top banking executive has won a high court apology and £60,000 in libel damages plus £690,000 in costs from the Mail on Sunday, over articles that falsely implied he was at the heart of a criminal mortgage fraud.

Irfan Qadir, a former Bank of Scotland director, sued over libels in two Mail on Sunday articles in May and June 2011.

The apology was published by the Mail on Sunday a few days later:

An article ‘Bank of Scotland director “drove us out with dogs’’’ on May 8, 2011, reported allegations in a writ that in 2005, Irfan Qadir committed perjury and intimidated three businessmen, causing fear for their own and their families’ lives, to gain control of a nightclub. The article did not report Mr Qadir’s denial of the claims and wrongly alleged that he had declined to comment.

A further article, ‘Top banker named in mortgage fraud case’ on June 19, 2011, reported an allegation in a separate case that Mr Qadir centred in a £49million bank fraud. In fact, the judge in that case made it clear this was unsupported by evidence in the five-month trial, stating that Mr Qadir did not lend any money and the allegations in court should not have been made. We are no longer pursuing a defence that the allegations in the articles are true. We apologise to Mr Qadir for the distress and embarrassment caused and are paying substantial damages and legal costs.

The People pays damages over drunken proposal 'exclusive'

On 6 November 2011, the People published this 'exclusive':

Charlotte Church has proposed to her boyfriend Jonathan Powell during a boozy pub karaoke night.

The star belted out The Ronettes’ Be My Baby then slumped in a chair next to her man and gave him a huge kiss. She told him: “That was for you because I want you to be my baby. Will you marry me?”

He replied: “Yes but I don’t want to be known as Mr Church.”

The pair, both 25, then ordered bottles of champagne “one each” and celebrated into the early hours of last Saturday morning at the pub, the Robin Hood in Cardiff.

A friend said: “Jonathan was thrilled and Charlotte was very happy. She was singing I’m Getting ­Married in the Morning as we helped her to the taxi afterwards.”

Church immediately issued a statement, pointing out the story was rubbish:

"This story is a complete fabrication. I have not proposed to my boyfriend, drunkenly or otherwise. It is embarrassing for me (and him) for our families and friends to read that I have.

I was not in the pub they mention on the night they allege this happened. I haven't been there for 5 months. At the time that I was apparently drunkenly proposing I was in fact performing in a completely different town with a large public audience.

There is literally not one shred of truth in this story, and it is still alarming to me that lies of this scale can be printed. This is not journalism. It's a perfect example of why this out of control tabloid industry needs regulation immediately."

Today, the paper has agreed to pay substantial damages and legal fees, has apologised and agreed not to repeat the accusations. Lawyers for the People said in court that it:

accepts that the story was completely untrue and should not have been published. It has previously apologised in the newspaper and online for publishing the allegation, which it accepted was incorrect after Charlotte first complained.

There's no explanation has to how the People came to publish the story and all those fictional quotes. It is also worth noting that the Mail and Sun were quick to repeat the People's claims without doing any fact-checking of their own.

The People had already published one apology - three weeks after the original story appeared and, coincidentally, one day before Church gave evidence at the Leveson Inquiry. The Inquiry was told that apology was a 'unilateral one' and 'just not good enough'.

Sorry we suggested you were a sexist bully

Today's Mail on Sunday includes this apology:

An article on January 30, 2011, suggested that Dominic Raab MP behaved as a sexist bully in a previous job as an office manager. We accept that our allegations were unfounded and we apologise to Mr Raab for the damage, embarrassment and offence caused.

Yes, that was for an article published over a year ago.

Raab explains on his blog:

On 30 January 2011, the Mail on Sunday printed a story based on two second-hand and anonymous sources implying I was a sexist bully in a previous job before becoming an MP. I told the Mail on Sunday at the time that this was a smear, and that ‘any insinuation that I have behaved improperly is false and malicious’. So when they printed the story, I sued. A year later, with seven first-hand witnesses able to vindicate my side of the case at trial, the Mail on Sunday has apologised unequivocally and paid compensation to settle the case...

This was not a crusade against the tabloid press. But, when a newspaper gets a story badly wrong like this, it is important that there is some accountability - and an apology.

Sorry we said you raped a 14-year-old

The natural father of Peter Connelly (Baby P) has been awarded substantial damages after The People accused him of being a sex offender who had been convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl.

MediaGuardian reports:

Mr Justice Bean ordered Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of the People, to pay an initial £30,000 in damages plus costs of £35,000. The damages payout will rise to £75,000 if the publisher loses permission to take the ruling to the court of appeal.

The allegations were contained in two paragraphs in a crime supplement in the People about Baby P's mother, who had separated from the child's father, referred to in court as KC. They appeared in a 19 September 2010 article headed "Tortured to death as mum turned a blind eye"...

Bean said in his written judgment: "It is difficult to think of any charge more calculated to lead to the revulsion and condemnation of a person's fellow citizens than the rape of a 14-year-old girl."

KC said in his witness statement that he was "shocked and upset beyond words" by the false libel, which he first learned about in phone calls from close friends.

The judge said the appropriate starting point for the damages was £150,000. But he reduced this by half, to £75,000 because Mirror Group Newspapers moved swiftly to apologise and correct the error.

The Independent added:

Heather Rogers QC, appearing for MGN [Mirror Group Newspapers], told the High Court hearing: "This was a mistake that MGN regrets and it has apologised to the claimant, and I repeat that apology on its behalf in this court."

However, she denied KC had been badly treated, or that MGN had conducted any kind of "campaign" against him, or dismissed his legitimate complaint.

Today, Ms Rogers argued that MGN should be allowed to appeal on the grounds that the compensation order was too high and "disproportionate". 

Solicitor challenges Mail over false story

In July 2010, the Mail and Sun apologised and paid damages to Parameswaran Subramanyam, a Tamil who they accused of secretly eating hamburgers while claiming to be on hunger strike.

The Leveson Inquiry has now published a witness statement from Magnus Boyd, the solicitor who represented Subramanyam. He focuses on the Daily Mail's article and says:

The Article, which in its original hard copy form also carried a photograph of Scotland Yard, stated that the source of the allegation was the police and contained the following words:

"Scotland Yard surveillance teams using specialist monitoring equipment had watched in disbelief as he tucked into clandestine deliveries.

"A police insider said: 'In view of the overtime bill this has got to be the most expensive Bie Mac ever. ’

"Scotland Yard made no official comment but senior sources said police decided against dragging the bogus hunger striker out of his tent for fear it would start a riot.

"’One source said: 'This was such a sensitive operation that it was felt officers could inflame the situation if we brought the strike and demonstration to a premature end.."

Boyd then explains what happens when they looked into the story:

Following publication of the Article, Michelle Riondel, the solicitor then instructed by Mr Subramanyam, spoke to the Metropolitan Police Superintendent who was in charge of the operation who confirmed that:

- there was no police surveillance team assigned to watch him;

- there was no use of 'specialist monitoring equipment’;

- the police had no 'evidence’ of the allegations made in the Article;

- he was not aware of any police decision 'against dragging the bogus hunger striker out of his tent’ or 'that it was felt officers could inflame the situation if [they] brought the hunger strike and demonstration to a premature end’.

Boyd concludes:

Neither I nor my client know how the statements in the Article quoted above at paragraph 2 found their way into the Article. As a matter of logic there are only two possibilities which are either that:

i. a police source simply made up these allegations and communicated them to The Daily Mail; or

ii. The Daily Mail made up the police sources.

If i) happened then The Daily Mail must have been so confident in its police source so as not to consider it necessary to request the footage in order to verify it. Had The Daily Mail done so, it would have become clear that none existed.

If ii) happened (and the newspaper invented police sources for an article being published to the nation at large both in hard copy and on-line) then that would seem to indicate that the newspaper was sufficiently confident in the strength of its relationship with the police not to fear repercussions from the police for falsely presenting them as the source and/or that the newspaper thought that Mr Subramanyam would not have the means and wherewithal to sue.

(Hat-tip to David Allen Green)

Richard Desmond and the McCanns

At the Leveson Inquiry on Thursday, there were intriguing exchanges about the McCanns between a clearly unimpressed Robert Jay QC and Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Express and Daily Star. Desmond coughed up £550,000 in damages for a relentless barrage of defamatory articles and all his papers published front page apologies which read:

The Daily and Sunday Express have taken the unprecedented step of making a front-page apology to Kate and Gerry McCann.

We did so because we accept that a number of articles in the newspaper have suggested that the couple caused the death of their missing daughter Madeleine and then covered it up.

We acknowledge that there is no evidence whatsoever to support this theory and that Kate and Gerry are completely innocent of any involvement in their daughter's disappearance.

We trust that the suspicion that has clouded their lives for many months will soon be lifted.

As an expression of its regret, the Daily Express has now paid a very substantial sum into the Madeleine Fund and we promise to do all in our power to help efforts to find her.

Kate and Gerry, we are truly sorry to have added to your distress.

We assure you that we hope Madeleine will one day be found alive and well and will be restored to her loving family. 

Here's how some of the exchanges went at the Inquiry:

Q. But isn't it fair to say, Mr Desmond, that if you look at the hard facts, I think the McCann litigation involved 38 defamatory articles. It is right, and Mr Ashford has drawn to our attention that there are other newspapers who also perpetrated defamations, but not to the same extent as your papers.

A. Is that -- I'm not sure that's right. I'm not sure that's right at all.

Q. If it's wrong, Mr Sherborne here, who -- the McCanns are his client -- will demonstrate that in due course, but it's certainly my understanding that we're talking about 38 defamatory articles over a four-month period and that your paper was guilty, if I can put it in those terms, of the most egregious and serious defamations, and other papers were guilty of defamations of perhaps less severity in terms of quantity. Do you accept that?

A. Once again, I don't wish to minimise it, right? But four months is -- let me see now, it's 12 weeks?

Q. It's 17 weeks, on my reckoning.

A. 17 weeks, thank you. 17 weeks times 6 -- you have to help me again.

Q. 102, is it, Mr Desmond? I don't know. You're the businessman.

A. Well, I don't know. 102, very good. Is 102.

Q. Yes.

A. And there were 37 --

Q. 38.

A. I'm not trying to win points here, because we did do wrong, but I could say there were more, if there were 102 articles on the McCanns, there were 38 bad ones, then one would say -- and I'm not trying to justify, please, I'm not trying to justify anything, but you could argue there were 65 or 70 good ones.

In other words: yes, we may have accused the McCanns of 'selling their daughter for money and hiding her body in a freezer', but hey, some of our other articles were 'good'.

Yes, you 'could argue' that, although it's hard to see why you'd want to.

Moreover, just because the stories weren't defamatory doesn't make them 'good'.

Desmond continued later:

A. At the end of the day, the McCanns, you know, as I understood it, although I've never met them, were perfectly -- if we ran it for four months, you know, it took them a long time to get involved in a legal dispute with us. They were quite happy, as I understand, in articles being run about their poor daughter, because it kept it on the front page. I think it was only when new lawyers came along, who I think were working on a contingency, that the legal --

Q. I can't --

A. Well, that's the facts. I'm sorry, that is the facts.

Q. Mr Desmond I'm going to interrupt you.

A. I'm sorry, that is the facts.

Q. That must be a grotesque characterisation.

A. I'm sorry, that is the facts.

Q. Your paper was accusing the McCanns on occasion of having killed their daughter. Are you seriously saying that they were sitting there quite happy, rather than entirely anguished by your paper's bad behaviour?

A. I'm sitting here --

Q. Just think about the question before you answer.

A. I'm going to answer your question, and I've already answered it. We ran -- on your suggestion, we've run 102 -- your figure, 102 articles. For four months you say we ran it, right? Nothing happened, to the best of my knowledge, until a new firm of lawyers were instructed, who were on a contingency, that then came in to sue us.

Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCanns, said in response to Desmond's evidence:

"Mr Desmond's memory is apparently doing him a great disservice. For him to suggest that Kate and Gerry were happy with Express Newspapers' coverage, he must be living in a parallel universe." Desmond's portrayal of the McCanns' reaction to his papers' coverage of their daughters' disappearance was "grotesque in the extreme", he added. He said that the coverage, some of which was just "lies", had added to the suffering they endured.

Still, at least Desmond's many apologies to the McCanns sounded genuine. Didn't they?

But once again, please, I do apologise to the McCanns. I'm not trying to -- I am very sorry for -- you know, I am very sorry for the thing and I am very sorry that we got it wrong, but please don't, you know, try and -- every paper was doing the same thing

...

once again I do apologise to the McCanns, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, but there are views on -- there are views on the McCanns of what happened. And there are still views on the McCanns of what happened.

Somehow, ending an apology with 'et cetera, et cetera, et cetera' doesn't suggest it's entirely heartfelt.

Mail pays damages to Neil Morrissey

The Daily Mail has paid substantial (five-figure) libel damages to actor Neil Morrissey after a lengthy dispute over their 19 March 2011 article 'Homme behaving badly: TV star banned from bar near his idyllic French retreat after locals object to 'le binge drinking''.

MediaGuardian explains:

The Daily Mail apologised to Morrissey on page 2 in its new corrections and clarifications column and on its website last October.

However, the actor was not satisfied with the apology and applied for permission to make a statement in open court. In the statement read out at the high court in London on Thursday, Morrissey said he now felt "fully vindicated" over the claims.

"The Mail alleged that [a] poster had gone up and Mr Morrissey had been banned because his behaviour had made him unwelcome to the proprietors and staff as a bad influence who encouraged the antisocial and offensive binge drinking for which English settlers had become notorious and were resented by local French people," Peter Crawford, solicitor for Morrissey, told the judge Richard Parks QC.

"Those assertions were not true. Most significantly, Mr Morrissey had not been banned from the bar. Nor had he been drunken or rowdy in the bar."

The 21 October apology published by the Mail said:

An article on 19 March suggested that actor Neil Morrissey had been banned from a French bar for drunken behaviour and encouraging binge-drinking, and that his property was worth £500,000.

While we were shown a poster which indicated that he had been barred, we now accept that none of these allegations are correct. We also accept that local property valuations were overstated. We apologise to Mr Morrissey.

Roy Greenslade highlights Morrissey's statement following today's court proceedings:

"The paper was told before publication that the allegations about me were completely untrue but it went ahead and published anyway."

The Mail's response to my solicitor's complaint took an age but the paper would not back down and I had to issue proceedings.

Eventually, the Mail admitted that the allegations were false and damaging to my reputation. It proved impossible to agree the wording of a suitable retraction and apology but the Mail published its own tiny version of an apology which bore no relation at all to the eye-catching space given to the original article.

The apology, such as it was, won't have reached anything like the same number of people who would have read the original article.

My solicitor read a statement in court today in the hope that the Mail's apology would reach more of its readers."

Sorry we said you had criminal record

Today's Daily Star published the following apology to Garry (brother of Cheryl) Tweedy:

In Court yesterday the Daily Star apologised to Garry Tweedy for an article published on 13 April in which we incorrectly reported that Mr Tweedy had admitted on his Facebook profile that he had been to prison a few times.

We accepted that Mr Tweedy did not post this comment nor has he ever been charged or convicted of a criminal offence nor been sent to prison. We apologised to Mr Tweedy for this error.

Not only has the Star apologised, but they have agreed to pay damages and legal costs to Mr Tweedy. It adds to a long line of recent libel payouts by Richard Desmond's Express Newspapers.

Heat magazine will also pay damages and apologise, after they first published the false claims. The Guardian explains:

Heat's front page article on 12 April, headlined "Cheryl's family from hell", featured a photograph of Tweedy with the caption "[Garry Tweedy] reveals prison past on Facebook".

An article inside that edition of the weekly was headed "US dream in peril thanks to Cheryl's family misfortunes" and made a number of false statements about Tweedy, his solicitor Steven Tregear said in a statement read out at the high court on Tuesday.

The Daily Star falsely claimed in an article published on 13 April, headlined "Cheryl in peril", that Tweedy had admitted on Facebook that he had been in prison a few times. "The Facebook profile [the Daily Star] relied upon was a fake," Tregear said. "[Tweedy] did not post the comment and he has never been charged or convicted of any criminal offence or sent to prison."

Mail apologises to Carole Caplin

On 18 September 2010, the Mail's front page looked like this:

'Will Carole Caplin lift the lid on Blairs' marriage?' it asked. The article ran on page 13, under the headline ‘Carole’s £1m question: Will she tell all about Blairs’ sex secrets?’

The article began:

She once turned down the offer of £1million for the story of her ten years as lifestyle guru to Tony and Cherie Blair.

But Carole Caplin might now be forced to think again following the failure of a gym she set up to offer massages and health consultations to the wealthy...

The Blairs have always been worried that the former exotic dancer might 'push the nuclear button' and write a book about her extraordinary association with them.

Caplin launched a libel action against the Daily Mail's publishers, Associated Newspapers in which she argued that the article could be read to mean:

there are strong grounds to suspect that the Claimant will now disclose their sex secrets for substantial financial reward

The Press Gazette reported:

According to the writ, no proper effort was made to put the claims to her before publication. It alleges that although the paper contacted her representative, there were no questions about financial difficulties, a book, the Blairs, or sex secrets, and the conversation was solely about her gym...

The writ says that the Daily Mail has refused to apologise or retract the claims, and that the website story remains online.

At a hearing in June, where Associated tried to have the case struck out, their lawyer accepted:

that some of the headlines and captions and the first third of the article in particular could foster a suspicion in isolation that the Claimant might be planning to disclose things about the Blairs that she knew from her friendship with them. But she submits the court should not adopt a "broad brush" approach or focus simply on the headlines. She accepted during the course of argument that none of the various rhetorical questions which are posed are ever answered in the negative, but says neither they nor the hypothetical scenarios which are addressed in the article are ever answered in a positive way either...

David Price QC, for Caplin, argued:

the article poses the same question in a variety of forms: "Will Carole Caplin lift the lid on Blairs' marriage?", "Carole's £1million question: Will she tell all about Blairs' sex secrets?", "Is Carole Caplin set to blow the lid on Tony and Cherie Blair's sex secrets?". The question he says is only worth asking if there are solid grounds to suspect that the Claimant will disclose the information. In the light of the presentation and content of the article (and putting it at its lowest) a jury could, without perversity, understand the article to suggest that there are strong grounds to suspect that she will do so.

The Hon. Mrs Justice Sharp ruled:

I have concluded that read as a whole, and applying the relevant principles to the issue as it arises now, the article is capable of conveying the suspicion that the Claimant will "lift the lid on the Blairs' marriage" and their "sex secrets" for substantial financial reward. 

Today, the Mail has published the following apology:

An article about Carole Caplin on 18 September 2010 ‘Carole’s £1m question: Will she tell all about Blairs’ sex secrets?’ suggested that Ms Caplin might reveal intimate details about Tony and Cherie Blair in a book for a substantial sum, which might lift the lid on their marriage and finish the Blairs. We accept that Ms Caplin would not disclose such matters and that there was nothing improper about massages she gave Mr Blair. We apologise to Ms Caplin.

Two 'substantial' payouts in two days for the Mail

On 19 September, the Daily Mail published the following apology to Osmond Kilkenny:

On March 27, 2010, in an article headlined ‘Family at war over Subo’s millions’, we reported concerns of Susan Boyle’s family about her then manager Mr Kilkenny. We did not intend to suggest that he was likely to manage Miss Boyle’s finances dishonestly and accept this is untrue. We apologise to Mr Kilkenny for this suggestion.

Today, the MediaGuardian reports that the Mail has now agreed to pay 'substantial' damages to Mr Kilkenny:

The article, which was later removed from the Daily Mail's website, was headlined "Family at war over SuBo's millions". It suggested that because of doubts over his trustworthiness Kilkenny was unsuitable or unfit to handle Boyle's affairs.

The Daily Mail has now accepted this was untrue and apologised to Kilkenny. Associated Newspapers has agreed to pay him substantial damages plus legal costs.

Nicholas Armstrong, of the solicitor's firm Charles Russell LLP, acting for Kilkenny, told the high court in London on Wednesday the allegations were "an unwarranted slur on his character and professional reputation".

This follows the news yesterday that the Mail was paying 'substantial' damages to Lady Kristina Moore. 

Sorry we said you begged for sex

The Sun, 16 August 2011:

Man U ace begged me for sex at 5am (even though he's dating Page 3 Emily)

Footie rising star Tom Cleverley begged a girl for sex after taking her to a B&B - despite dating a Page 3 beauty.

The Sun, 5 October 2011:

Tom Cleverley - apology

An article on 16 August reported that Manchester United footballer Tom Cleverley had begged a girl for sex after meeting her at a night club, even though he was dating a Page 3 model. In fact, entirely unknown to the girl it now transpires that the man involved, who looked like Tom Cleverley, was impersonating him. We apologise to Mr Cleverley for any embarrassment caused.

Along with the apology, the Sun has agreed to pay 'a substantial sum in damages'. The Guardian reports:

According to [a] statement...read by David Price QC, acting on behalf of Cleverley...the article alleged that Cleverley "had met a girl in a Blackpool nightclub and bombarded her with text messages offering her sex"...

"Most seriously, the article then alleged that he repeatedly badgered her for sex, despite her saying no"...

The lawyer added that Cleverley had never met the girl involved and on the night of the alleged incident he was at home with his girlfriend in Manchester...

It is understood that the Sun did not contact Cleverley before publishing the story.

This is the third time this year that a Sun 'story' about the late-night antics of a footballer has resulted in a clarification and apology.

(Hat-tip to Patrick Casey)

Mirror apologies and pays damages to Martin O'Neill

This apology was published by the Mirror on 9 August and spotted by Regret the Error:

On June 24 last year we wrongly reported that Martin O’Neill, while manager of Aston Villa, had been secretly interviewed for the position of Liverpool manager, in breach of Premier League rules and his contract.

We accept that no such interview took place.

On August 10 and 11, following Mr O’Neill’s resignation as Aston Villa manager, we published a number of articles claiming that Mr O’Neill had lost the confidence, faith and respect of the dressing room, causing a players’ revolt which forced him to resign.

We also alleged that his resignation resulted in general celebration amongst the squad. We now accept that Mr O’Neill had not lost the dressing room, there was no players’ revolt and no general celebration over Mr O’Neill’s departure.

We apologise to Mr O’Neill for these false allegations and have agreed to pay him damages for libel and his reasonable legal costs.

The page two apologies to Christopher Jefferies

Seven months ago, Christopher Jefferies was subject to these character-assassinating front pages (among many, many others):


Yesterday, eight newspapers - the Sun, Mail, Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Express, Star, Daily Record and Scotsman - agreed to pay Jefferies libel damages and apologise for their coverage.

Yet there is not one word of the apology, or one word about it, on the front page of the Sun, Mail, Mirror, Express, Star or Daily Record today. Instead, the apologies are all hidden away on page two. (If anyone has a copy of the Scotsman, please do let me know how they have handled this.)

Although this was resolved legally, rather than through the Press Complaints Commission, the Code of Practice states:

A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion once recognised must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence.

Given the original offence, it is very hard to see how these apologies can be considered prominent enough.

Here's the Star's apology:

In court yesterday the Daily Star apologised to Christopher Jefferies for articles published on December 31 2010 and January 1 2011, in which we reported on his arrest on suspicion of the murder of Joanna Yeates.

The articles suggested that there were strong grounds to believe that Mr Jefferies had killed Ms Yeates and that he had acted in an inappropriate over- sexualised manner with his pupils when he was a teacher. The articles also suggested that he had probably lied to police to obstruct their investigations.

We accepted that all these allegations were untrue and apologised to Mr Jefferies.

The Mail:

Eight newspapers apologised to Mr Christopher Jefferies in the High Court yesterday. Reports of the investigation into the death of Joanna Yeates had wrongly suggested that Mr Jefferies, who was arrested but released without charge, was suspected of killing Ms Yeates, may have had links to a convicted paedophile and an unresolved murder. It was also wrongly alleged that the former school master had acted inappropriately to pupils.

The newspapers, including the Daily Mail, agreed to pay Mr Jefferies substantial damages and legal costs.

* Later the Daily Mirror was fined £50,000 and the Sun ,£18,000 for contempt of court in relation to their reports.

The Express:

In court yesterday the Daily Express apologised to Christopher Jefferies for articles published in the Daily Express on December 31 2010 in which we reported on his arrest on suspicion of the murder of Joanna Yeates.

The articles suggested that there were strong grounds to believe that Mr Jefferies had killed Ms Yeates and that he had acted in an inappropriate, over-sexualised manner with his pupils when he was a teacher. The articles also suggested that he had probably lied to police to obstruct their investigations. It was further suggested that there were grounds to investigate whether he was responsible for an unsolved murder dating back to 1974.

We accepted that all these allegations were untrue and apologised to Mr Jefferies.

Daily Record:

Yesterday the Daily Record and other newspapers apologised in court for the publication of false allegations about the retired school master Christopher Jefferies, who, we had wrongly suggested, was strongly to be suspected of having killed his former tenant Joanna Yeates.

We also wrongly suggested that he had acted inappropriately towards his pupils in the past and invaded his tenants' privacy.

We accepted that these allegations were untrue and that far from being involved in the crime, Mr Jefferies helped the police with their inquiries as best he could.

We have agreed to pay substantial damages to Mr Jefferies plus his legal costs.

At the time of writing, only the Express, Star and Daily Record have a link to the apology on the homepage of their website. MailOnline has not put it on the homepage but half way down their 'news' page - further down than a story about this weekend's weather.

It appears the Mirror, Sun and Scotsman have so far failed to publish their apologies online.

Speaking to a committee of MPs recently, Mail editor Paul Dacre, who is also Chair of the Committee that oversees the Code of Practice, said that the claim newspapers bury corrections is:

one of the great myths of our time.

This from a man whose paper's website was, only a few months ago, routinely placing apologies for British stories in its US section.

Yet if the newspapers fail so miserably to give proper prominence to apologies in a case as serious as this one, Dacre's words should be treated with the disdain they deserve.

UPDATE: The Sun's apology does not appear if you search their website for either Chris or Christopher Jefferies. But it is up there:

The Sun apologised in court yesterday to ex-schoolmaster Christopher Jefferies for false suggestions he might have killed his former tenant Joanna Yeates, acted inappropriately towards pupils in the past, invaded his tenants' privacy, was associated with a convicted paedophile and might have been involved in an unsolved murder in 1974.

We accepted these allegations were untrue and that Mr Jefferies in fact helped the police with their inquiries as best he could.

We have agreed to pay substantial damages and costs to Mr Jefferies.

The Mirror's apology is also now up:

Yesterday the Daily Mirror, The Sunday Mirror and other newspapers apologised in court for the publication of false allegations about the retired school master Christopher Jefferies, who, we had wrongly suggested, was strongly to be suspected of having killed his former tenant Joanna Yeates.

The Daily Mirror wrongly suggested that he had invaded his tenants' privacy, was associated with a convicted paedophile and might have had something to do with an unsolved murder dating back to 1974.

The Sunday Mirror wrongly suggested that he had acted inappropriately towards his pupils in the past.

We accepted that these allegations were untrue and that far from being involved in the crime, Mr Jefferies helped the police with their inquiries as best he could.

We have agreed to pay substantial damages to Mr Jefferies plus his legal costs.

And The Scotsman finally published their apology online on 1 August:

Yesterday The Scotsman and other newspapers apologised in court for having wrongly suggested that Mr Jefferies was involved in the killing of Joanna Yeates.

We had also wrongly suggested that he had acted in an inappropriate, oversexualised manner with his pupils in the past and that he invaded the privacy of his tenants in his capacity as a landlord of two flats.

We accepted in court that these allegations were untrue and that Mr Jefferies had no involvement in Ms Yeates' killing.

In recognition of the distress caused, we have agreed to pay substantial damages to Mr Jefferies plus his legal costs.

'Witch hunts and character assassination'

Christopher Jefferies, the man arrested but released without charge in the Jo Yeates murder case, has accepted 'substantial' libel damages and apologies from eight newspapers.

The papers involved were the Sun, Mail, Mirror, Sunday Mirror, Express, Star, Daily Record and Scotsman.

Speaking outside court, Jefferies' lawyer Louis Charalambous said:

"Christopher Jefferies is the latest victim of the regular witch hunts and character assassination conducted by the worst elements of the British tabloid media.

"Many of the stories published in these newspapers are designed to 'monster' the individual, in flagrant disregard for his reputation, privacy and rights to a fair trial.

"These newspapers have now apologised to him and paid substantial damages but they do so knowing that once the conditional fee agreement rules are changed next year victims of tabloid witch hunts will no longer have the same access to justice."

It is worth remembering the coverage, which included him being labelled a 'Peeping Tom' and 'Professor Strange' and he was accused of being 'obsessed with death' and 'creepy'.

Another lawyer, Bambos Tsiattalou, who had advised Jefferies, stated:

"We warned the media by letter, immediately following Mr Jefferies' arrest, in the strongest possible terms to desist from publishing stories which were damaging or defamatory.

"We were dismayed that our warnings went unheeded and are pleased that the newspapers, in settling Mr Jefferies' claims, have acknowledged the extent of the damage to his reputation."

A few hours after those damages were announced, the High Court ruled the Mirror and Sun were in contempt over some of their articles on Jefferies which 'created substantial risks to the course of justice'.

The judgment (pdf) highlights the articles in question. First, the Mirror on 31 December:

On the front page of the Daily Mirror, in the context of what were described as the “Jo files” the headline alleged that “Jo suspect is peeping Tom”. It was asserted on the front page in large print:

“Arrest landlord spied on flat couple”, followed immediately below by:

“Friend in jail for paedophile crimes”, followed immediately below by:

“Cops now probe 36 –years old murder.”

In short, while positively asserting that Mr Jefferies was a voyeur, without directly asserting that he was involved in paedophile crimes or a long unresolved murder, the impression conveyed to an objective reader was that he was somehow linked with not one but two awful, additional crimes.

Then the Mirror the following day:

The front page banner headline asks “Was killer waiting in Jo’s flat?”. The story on the front page begins:

“Joanna Yeates’s killer may have been waiting for her inside her basement flat as she returned home. Detectives yesterday sent towels and bedding for DNA tests after finding no signs of a break-in”.

We observe that if entry was not forced, then whoever went into the flat had access to it. The only person with

And in the Sun, also on 1 January:

On the lower half of the front page of The Sun the headline reads “Obsessed by death” and it is alleged that Mr Jefferies “scared kids” by a macabre fascination. He wanted to show death to his pupils and was obsessed with it...

More significant, was the headline across pages 4 and 5 “Murdered Jo: suspect “followed me” says woman”. And this was followed by a lengthy article under the headline “What do you think I am…a pervert?” describing the “landlord’s outburst at blonde”. This was an “exclusive” story about a “former acquaintance” of Mr Jefferies who felt that she was being followed by him. The thrust of the story was that Mr Jefferies liked blondes – and Miss Yeates, too, was blonde - and she felt as though she was being followed by someone described as “quite a dominant personality”, a “control freak” who made her feel “very uncomfortable”.

In the view of the newspapers there was no risk to the course of justice because people would have forgotten what they had said about Jefferies:

The main focus of the written submissions by the defendants was that the articles did not create substantial risk of serious prejudice to any trial of Mr Jefferies which might take place in the future, probably some 9 months or so after publication.

The ruling states:

The material in the two publications of the Daily Mirror is extreme...In our judgment the two publications in the Daily Mirror created substantial risks to the course of justice. They constituted contempt under the strict liability rule.

It adds that although the effect of the Sun's articles:

is not as grave as that of two series of articles contained in the Mirror, the vilification of Mr Jefferies created a very serious risk that the preparation of his defence would be damaged. At the time when this edition of the Sun was published it created substantial risks to the course of justice. It therefore constituted a contempt under the strict liability rule.

Reflecting that judgment, the Mirror has been fined £50,000 and the Sun £18,000, although at time of writing the Mirror's publishers have said they will appeal.

Given that seven of the eight papers in the Jefferies case also paid libel damages to Robert Murat almost exactly three years ago, it's clear that certain newspapers have learnt nothing from this type of coverage.

Instead, when Jefferies was arrested, there was a disgraceful feeding frenzy in which each tabloid tried to out-do its rivals with even more extreme, prurient detail.

How did this happen? As Roy Greenslade asks: how did the lawyers at these papers let these stories be published in the first place?

Will the newspapers publish apologies to Jefferies with the prominence that he deserves? Will any of the editors involved take the time to explain themselves?

And will these papers act differently next time someone is arrested in a high-profile case?

Sorry we said you were dead

In November 2010, the Mail apologised for prematurely killing off Carole Caplin's mum:

An article about lifestyle expert Carole Caplin published on September 18 erroneously referred to her mother as the late Sylvia Caplin.

We are happy to report that Sylvia Caplin is alive, well and continuing to work. Our apologies for these errors and the distress caused.

Today, a judge has ruled that Carole Caplin can sue the Daily Mail for libel for an article published last year:

Caplin, 48, is seeking damages of up to £250,000 from the Associated Newspapers title after a September 2010 article which allegedly suggested that she would disclose "sex secrets" about former prime minister Tony Blair's wife for £1m.

Judge Mrs Justice Sharp on Monday concluded that the article, headlined "Will Carole Caplin lift the lid on Blairs' marriage?", was capable of giving rise to the suspicion that she would sell her story for a substantial fee.

It is interesting to see this news appears on the front page of Tuesday's Express:


A few days ago, when Barbara Broccoli won damages from the Mail, the Express ran the story quite prominently on its website. Does this signal that the 'truce' between these tabloid rivals is breaking down again?

No, Mr Dacre, I expect you to apologise

Today, the Mail has published the following apology to James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli:

Further to our August 15 and 16 articles "Axed film quango gave £70m to own members" and "Charity that really must start at home", we wish to clarify that it was never our intention to suggest that Barbara Broccoli had awarded herself a huge grant or indeed any grant of public money or had misused any funds. We accept that the grant was properly made to a registered youth film-making charity, First Light, of which Ms Broccoli is unpaid chair of trustees. We apologise to Ms Broccoli for any embarrassment.

What that apology doesn't make clear is that it comes with 'substantial undisclosed libel damages'.

The Press Gazette explains:

The action stems from a story headlined: "Axed film quango gave £70m to own members" which appeared in the Mail on Sunday on 15 August, 2010. According to a statement read out in open court yesterday, the allegation was repeated the following day in the Daily Mail's Peter McKay column under the heading: "Charity that really must start at home"...

Her solicitor Michael Skrein, from Reed Smith, said: "So, she did not award herself or her own company any grant whilst a board member of the UK Film Council and she has not misused public funds.

"The offending publications were deeply upsetting to the claimant and her family and harmful to her reputation."

The court heard that the allegations were repeated elsewhere online, including on The Guardian's Comment Is Free website.

The Guardian adds a further comment from Skrein:

Associated had made clear that it had no intention to accuse Broccoli of any wrongdoing and had made an offer of amends – which involved payment of substantial damages, which she intended to pass to First Light, and her legal costs, and the publication of apologies.

Sorry we said you lazy and uncaring in the Baby P case

On 10 June, the Sun published the following apology to Sylvia Henry - a social worker in the Baby P case:

In our campaign to highlight the failings of the authorities to protect Baby P from his killers, we identified staff at Haringey Social Services including one of the social workers Sylvia Henry. It is now clear that Ms Henry was not at fault or to blame in any way for decisions contributing to Baby P's tragic death and should not have been a target of our campaign. She did her best for Baby P. It was also untrue to suggest that she was lazy and uncaring in her work and deserved to be sacked.

Our articles referred to Ms Henry's involvement in the tragic case of Victoria Climbie, a young girl who had been abused and killed by her carers in Haringey some 8 years previously. We accept that Ms Henry's evidence to the Laming inquiry was truthful, and withdraw any suggestion that she lied to avoid criticism. We sincerely apologise to Ms Henry for these untrue allegations and we have agreed to pay her compensation.

The Sun wasn't alone in making these false claims. The BBC explains:

Last year, Ms Henry accepted compensation from Haringey Council after the authority made false claims about her and the Baby Peter case on its website.

And the Guardian points out:

Henry accepted compensation and apologies in 2010 from the London Evening Standard, Daily Mirror and Independent

The Independent's apology referred to one article:

On 12 November 2008 we published an article about the death of Peter Connolly, who was also known as Baby P.

It wrongly alleged that Sylvia Henry, who is a social work Team Manager employed by Haringey Council, had been one of the social workers who had culpably failed to protect Baby P from his guardians and thereby bore a share of responsibility for his suffering and death.

We acknowledge that this was not the case and we apologise to Sylvia Henry.

As did the Mirror's:

On December 2, 2008 we published an article headed "Baby P social workers are still drawing full pay while on suspension" concerning the events which led to the death of Peter Connolly, who was also known as Baby P.

The article alleged that Sylvia Henry, who is a social worker Team Manager employed by Haringey Council, had behaved negligently in her dealings with Peter and had thereby contributed to his suffering and to his death.

These allegations were untrue. We acknowledge that Sylvia Henry was not to blame for the mistakes which contributed to Peter's death and we apologise to her.

We have agreed to compensate Ms Henry for the hurt and upset caused by our article.

According to the Guardian, however, the Sun's claims:

are understood to have been published in about 80 articles and Henry was also named in the Sun's Justice for Baby P campaign, which called for Haringey social services staff it alleged were responsible for Connelly's death to be sacked and barred from any future work with children.

Henry:

...was accused in articles published in the Sun of being "grossly negligent" in her handling of Peter Connelly's case and that she was "thereby to blame for his appalling abuse and death", the high court heard.

Henry's solicitor, Daniel Taylor, told Mr Justice Eady the newspaper also said she had shown no remorse for these failings and was "shameless and had ducked responsibility for Peter's death".

In a series of articles published over four months from November 2008, the Sun also alleged that Henry was lazy and "had generally shown an uncaring disregard for the safety of children, even in cases where they obviously required urgent protection".

Taylor added:

"The Sun accepts that Ms Henry was not at fault or to blame in any way for anything done by Haringey social services that may have contributed to Peter's terrible abuse and death...

"They accept that she did her very best for Peter and particularly that she made repeated efforts to have him kept safe by being placed in foster care rather than being returned to the care of his mother."

The solicitor for News Group Newspapers, Ben Beabey, said:

"The Sun fully accepts that the claimant played no part and bears no responsibility for the circumstances surrounding the death of Peter Connelly and that she did her best for him. The Sun apologises to Ms Henry."

Septicisle has more on the background to this case, noting:

Henry was one of the five individuals the paper demanded be immediately sacked for having failed to prevent Connelly's death. The paper's campaign continued even after the BBC's Panorama had disclosed that Henry had wanted Connelly taken into care in 2006...

She should never have had to pursue such a lengthy libel action though: if the Sun had bothered to investigate the case anything approaching properly in the first place they would have found, like Panorama, that she had worked conscientiously and with Connelly's best interests at heart throughout.

Christopher Jefferies sues for libel

When Christopher Jefferies was arrested during the investigation into the murder of Jo Yeates, some sections of the media launched into a quite disgraceful character assassination of the man who would be eventually released without charge:

The Mail called Jefferies 'Mr Strange', 'the 'nutty professor' and 'Professor Strange'. He 'idolised a poet obsessed by death', they claimed. The Mirror called him a 'peeping tom'. The Sun called him 'strange' and 'obsessed by death' and in one article, as Anton pointed out, he was described as:

"weird", "lewd", "strange", "creepy", "angry", "odd", "disturbing", "eccentric", "a loner" and "unusual".

In unsurprising news, his lawyers announced today:

Mr Christopher Jefferies has today given notice of libel and privacy claims against a large number of national and local newspapers in relation to articles published by them in December 2010 and January 2011.

The newspapers include The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Mail, Daily Express and Daily Star among others. Mr Jefferies will be seeking vindication of his reputation for the terrible treatment he received. Mr Jefferies will not be making any statement about these claims until their conclusion, which he hopes will be in the very near future.

Simons Muirhead & Burton partner, Louis Charalambous, who also represented Robert Murat, leads the team representing Mr Jefferies in these libel and privacy claims.

Libel and Express Newspapers

Roy Greenslade posted this on his blog earlier today - he's compiled a list of libel cases (resulting in pay-outs) involving the Daily/Sunday Express and Daily Star/Daily Star Sunday since March 2008. It's a long list:

March 2008: £550,000 to the McCanns for "utterly false and defamatory" stories published in all four EN titles about the disappearance of their daughter, Madeleine.

April 2008: substantial undisclosed damages plus costs to Italian footballer Marco Materazzi after the Star falsely alleged he had used racist abuse to provoke an attack by France's Zinedine Zidane.

June 2008: substantial undisclosed damages to Ozzy Osbourne for false allegations by the Star about his behaviour at an awards ceremony.

July 2008: £200,000 to Robert Murat for false allegations about him by all EN titles during the hunt for Madeleine. (Three other newspaper groups also paid £200,000 apiece).

July 2008: substantial undisclosed damages plus costs to footballer Andy Cole because the Star falsely accused him of beating his wife.

October 2008: £375,000 to the so-called "tapas seven", friends of the McCanns, for false allegations about them after the disappearance of Madeleine.

December 2008: £45,000 plus costs to Inayat Bunglawala of the Muslim Council of Great Britain for false claims in the Express linking him to death threats against Prince Harry.

December 2008: damages to Matt Lucas and David Walliams for an article in the Daily Star Sunday that claimed their TV series had offended gay groups in the US. In fact, the named groups did not even exist.

January 2009: substantial undisclosed damages to teenager Kelly Marshall because the Star falsely claimed she had called a murderer a hero.

February 2009: substantial undisclosed damages to Pentagon Capital Management for false allegations in the Sunday Express about the fund manager's bosses.

June 2009: substantial undisclosed damages plus costs to footballer Michael Owen for claims in the Express that he was unwanted and about to retire.

June 2009: substantial undisclosed damages plus costs to David Beckham over false claims in the Star that he chatted up a topless model.

July 2009: £20,000 plus costs to Kate Beckinsale for false claims in the Express that she had been passed over for a movie role.

October 2009: undisclosed damages to Sheryl Gascoigne for a "sensational and highly offensive" story claiming her financial demands had caused her former husband, Paul, to relapse into alcoholism.

December 2009: substantial damages plus costs to Earl Spencer and his daughter for false allegations in the Sunday Express that they had acted improperly over his divorce from his second wife, Caroline.

January 2010: substantial damages and costs to Peaches Geldof for a Star story that falsely implied she was a prostitute.

April 2010: substantial damages to four trustees of a UK charity, Ummah Welfare Trust, after the Express falsely claimed it had links to al-Qaeda.

May 2010: substantial damages and costs to comedian Matt Lucas for a string of "grossly intrusive articles" in the Star following the death of his former partner.

July 2010: damages and costs to Susan Boyle for a Star story wrongly alleging she had to be sedated on a flight to Tokyo.

July 2010: £60,000 to the trustees of a charity, Interpal, for an Express story falsely claiming it supported Hamas.

July 2010: undisclosed damages to actor Mohammed George for an untrue Daily Star Sunday story accusing him of being drunk and threatening BBC staff.

October 2010: undisclosed damages to Rockstar Games for an "entirely false" Star story about the company having invented a video game based on the exploits of the gunman Raoul Moat.

November 2010: undisclosed damages and costs to former MP Stephen Hesford for a false Express report that he had sexually harassed an employee.

Mail buries apology to Sophie Dahl

In May, Sophie Dahl launched a libel action against the Daily Mail over an article written on 31 December 2009 by Liz Jones:

A writ filed at the High Court says the Mail’s article suggested Dahl had previously brought personal legal proceedings against the column’s author, Liz Jones, when she was the editor of fashion magazine Marie Claire for "having done nothing more than simply (and accurately) describe her as being ‘realistically curvy’".

The writ says this passage of the article was understood to have meant Dahl had acted “like a petty-minded and overly sensitive prima donna”.

Press Gazette added:

According to the writ, she is seeking aggravated damages, in part, as the paper failed to apologise to her or respond to a letter of complaint.

Today, the Mail has, finally, apologised:

On 31 December 2009 an article by Liz Jones headed 'March of Anorexia Chic' stated she had been sued by Sophie Dahl for describing her as 'realistically curvy' in a magazine. This was incorrect. In fact Ms Dahl had sued for breach of contract in a claim that was settled out of court. We apologise to Ms Dahl.

There is no mention of this apology on the Mail's homepage. Given how prominently the Mail always places links to Jones' columns, this simply looks like yet another example of a newspaper burying an apology.