Rachel Riley awarded £50k after political blogger libelled her a ‘serial abuser’
Countdown host sued Mike Sivier after he published an article saying she bullied a teenager during an anti-Semitism debate
It’s not the £50k. It’s the legal costs:
Originally, Mr Sivier had his defence claims of truth and honest opinion thrown out by a judge in January 2021. He appealed the decision and won a Court of Appeal challenge four months later on the grounds of pursuing a public interest defence.
Ah, no, that’s a house’s worth of cash – even at today’s house prices.
Just to remind of something about English law. The loser pays everyone’s legal costs. The whole lot, tout. Massed and ferried ranks of lawyers on both sides to get up to the Court of Appeal and back down again.
The only potential way out of that is if he’d offered £50k plus one pound in damages at the start – if the damages award is less than the offered settlement then it’s the person who continued with the case that picks up the bill.
I think it would be safe to say that there wasn’t an offer of £50k plus one at that start.
There’s a value to a blogger limiting themselves to mere vulgar abuse.
I wonder when Arron Banks’ appeal is ?
Thr judgement there sets a very dangerous precedent and frankly, I can’t see how it can be allowed to stand.
Since I stopped watching telly, Ms Riley is one of the few things I miss.
“The loser pays everyone’s legal costs. The whole lot…”
Always worth remembering from 2009…..
“Tory deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft has settled his libel action over a website claim that his companies offered banking facilities which helped customers unlawfully to evade tax.
Lord Ashcroft, the chairman and majority shareholder in BB Holdings Limited, accepted a public apology and a substantial undisclosed donation to a charity he founded – Crimestoppers – from accountant Richard Murphy.
Murphy, a director of Tax Research LLP, who has a website, Tax Research UK and a related blog, will also pay the legal costs of the peer and two subsidiaries of BB Holdings – The Belize Bank Ltd and Belize Bank International Ltd.”
ha ha ha hahahahaha.
“ Originally, Mr Sivier had his defence claims of truth and honest opinion thrown out by a judge in January 2021. He appealed the decision and won a Court of Appeal challenge four months later on the grounds of pursuing a public interest defence.”
Hang on – if he won the appeal, why is he having to pay damages?
Did it go even further? Or was it only a partial defence? I didn’t think public interest worked like that.
He has £233,830 pledged on his crowdjustice funding site which I am sure will go some way to paying the bill
Like RichardT, I was puzzled by the wording. It looks as though Mike Sivier won the right to appeal and lost the appeal itself.
Perhaps another case of “journalists and
numberswords”.Isn’t that the Terroblegraph being terrible ?
I think they mean that he won the right to appeal. Ms R won all the cases. I believe.
“Since I stopped watching telly, Ms Riley is one of the few things I miss.”
There’s a youtube channel that posts the maths parts of every Countdown episode, youtube keep recommending them to me. They must know of my love of mathematics…….
https://www.youtube.com/@bjoern.gumboldt
Rachel Riley is worthy of vulgar abuse I am told. I say that as mere vulgar abuse of course.
Until Rachel Riley, I didn’t realise goalkeeping kit was sexy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79HaBH8jGbs
I wouldn’t complain if Rachel Riley abused me. Woof!
Richard T.
He was granted an appeal against the striking down of the public interest defence and has now lost on that defence.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Riley-v-Sivier-Judgment.pdf (scroll right to the end for the judgment)
@Andrew C, the blog was written in the name of Tax Research LLP but the LLP accounts made no reference to damages or legal costs. I wonder how much it cost him.
He may save his house:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/
There are a few broken links in the article – I suspect they may have been broken very, very, recently.