Andrew Mitchell ordered to pay further costs after refusing Plebgate settlement
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Version 0 of 1. Former Conservative cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell has been hit with further legal costs on top of the £300,000 he has already paid after turning down a settlement in his failed Plebgate libel action. The former chief whip had sued News Group Newspapers over a September 2012 story in the Sun that claimed he had called Downing Street police officers “fucking plebs” after they refused to allow him to cycle through the main vehicle gates. He lost his legal battle in November, after a judge ruled that he probably had said those words, despite the politician’s protestations that he had not. In a hearing on Friday it emerged that the Conservative MP could have avoided the huge legal bill he has now been hit with if he had taken a settlement two months before the case started. Mitchell has already paid £300,000 in costs – shared between the Police Federation, which funded one of the police officers, PC Toby Rowland, and NGN – after an interim order, but another ruling on Friday means he is facing a further bill. At the high court in London, Mitchell was ordered by the judge to make further interim payments of £15,000 to NGN and £10,000 to the Police Federation. Another judge will make a detailed analysis on total costs at a later date. The hearing was related to an application by Mitchell’s counsel, James Price QC, who said that the double representation was unreasonable and disproportionate, so his client should only have to pay one set of costs. The judge said the cost of PC Rowland’s legal team was reasonably and necessarily incurred – but NGN should have foreseen that a full team was not required to protect its interests. “If Mr Mitchell had accepted that offer, then he would have got that which he now in effect seeks,” he said. “There would have been a trial of the preliminary issue between him and PC Rowland only and only one set of costs would have been incurred and payable by him if, as was the case, he lost.” He added: “Although I have concluded that NGN should have foreseen that their interests were fully protected if the preliminary issue had been substantially derogated to PC Rowland’s team, nevertheless they were entitled to protect their own interests in any reasonable manner which they saw fit. “They made an offer which would have eliminated all risk of an adverse costs finding both for themselves and Mr Mitchell at the trial of the preliminary issue. Parties should be able to make such offers and encouraged to do so because, if sensible offers are accepted, the costs of litigation, which in the end do nobody any good, are avoided. “To give effect to that policy, it is necessary that, when an issue such as this arises, a reasonable offer made should result in a legitimate benefit accrued to the party which makes the offer. “In my judgment, the making of that offer, and the failure to accept it by Mr Mitchell, is ultimately determinative of the issue of whether or not it was reasonable to incur the costs of two legal teams at the trial of the preliminary issue, subject of course to the costs judge determining whether there was unreasonable duplication or that costs have been unreasonably increased.” “Accordingly, I decline to make the expression of the view I otherwise would.” The question of what damages Mr Mitchell should pay PC Rowland, for claiming that the officer had fabricated his allegations, will be assessed at another hearing, unless the two sides reach a settlement. The judge stayed that claim for 28 days to allow negotiations to take place. |