This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/dec/21/management-consultant-wins-libel-daily-mail
The article has changed 4 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 2 | Version 3 |
|---|---|
| Consultant wins aggravated libel damages against Daily Mail | Consultant wins aggravated libel damages against Daily Mail |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| A management consultant has won £65,000 in aggravated libel damages over a Daily Mail claim that he won Scotland Yard contracts through cronyism – a story former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said contributed to his decision to resign. | |
| Andrew Miller brought high court proceedings over a front-page story in the Daily Mail on 2 October 2008 – the day Blair resigned after three and a half years running the Met. | |
| In a preliminary judgment in 2011, high court judge Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that the article meant that there were, at the date of publication, reasonable grounds to suspect that Miller was a willing beneficiary of improper conduct and cronyism because of his friendship with Blair in respect of the award of a number of Met contracts to his company worth millions of pounds of public money. | |
| Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers denied libel, contending the article was substantially true or that the action was an abuse of process. | Daily Mail publisher Associated Newspapers denied libel, contending the article was substantially true or that the action was an abuse of process. |
| But, giving her ruling on Friday, after a hearing in May, Mrs Justice Sharp said Associated's defence of justification – that the claim made in the article was true – had failed, and she could find no basis for concluding that Miller's continuation with the claim was an abuse of process. | |
| "I have already said I regard the allegation made by the article as serious. It was very prominently published to many millions of people," Sharp added in her judgment. | "I have already said I regard the allegation made by the article as serious. It was very prominently published to many millions of people," Sharp added in her judgment. |
| "I am in no doubt that Mr Miller had suffered considerably as a result of its publication; and was very distressed and hurt by it. | |
| "There was substantial aggravation in my view. This is also a case where a significant award is required to vindicate Mr Miller's good name." | |
| In his 2009 autobiography Policing Controversy – serialised in the Mail's sister title the Mail on Sunday – Blair recalled of his departure from Scotland Yard: I was quite calm in that it somehow felt appropriate that the finally decisive factor in my decision should be a set of untruths in the Daily Mail. I drafted my resignation statement on the train." | |
| Blair said after Friday's high court ruling: "I am pleased by this judgment. The allegations of impropriety involving Mr Miller's friendship with me were always without any foundation." | |
| The judgment is particularly embarrassing for the Daily Mail at a time when the newspaper industry is in talks with the government about devising a new system of press regulation following the publication of the Leveson report. | |
| Sharp said she had decided to take the relatively unusual step of awarding aggravated damages because of factors including the Daily Mail's failure to contact Miller before publication, the prominence of the article on the paper's front page, and its failure to publish an apology, correction or retraction, despite admitting errors in its story. | |
| During cross examination, Miller told the high court: "Nobody from the Daily Mail had the courtesy to contact me before they wrote something that trashed my reputation." | |
| The judge also took into consideration Associated persisting with its justification defence, accusing Miller of abusing the legal process by continuing with his action, and its "lengthy and tenacious" cross examination of the claimant. | The judge also took into consideration Associated persisting with its justification defence, accusing Miller of abusing the legal process by continuing with his action, and its "lengthy and tenacious" cross examination of the claimant. |
| "Mr Miller was evidently extremely angry about and upset by the article and the effect it had on his reputation: it had been 'trashed' as he described it, by an article which contained ghastly insinuations, and was nasty and devious," Sharp said. | |
| • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". | • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication". |
| • To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook | |