High court jury considers if newspapers libelled lecturer in anti-cuts stories

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/21/high-court-jury-libel-lecturer

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A high court jury is considering whether the Daily Mail and London Evening Standard libelled a university tutor when they linked him to an anti-cuts riot in the capital.

Mr Justice Eady told members of the libel trial jury on Thursday to apply the test of a "regular newspaper reader" when deliberating over their verdict.

They are the first jurors to decide on a libel action in the high court for three years and expected to be one of the last.

Ryan Cooper, an associate tutor and student at Sussex University, wants the high court to rule that his reputation was damaged by articles in the Evening Standard and Daily Mail in November 2010.

The newspapers are accused of portraying Cooper as a "ringleader" in attacks on Conservative party headquarters in Millbank, central London, on 10 November 2010 following an anti-education cuts march in the capital. Both newspapers deny libel.

If the 12-strong jury find in Cooper's favour, they must then award a figure of appropriate damages to be paid by the publishers of the two newspapers, Evening Standard Ltd and Associated Newspapers.

The court has heard that potential damages against Associated Newspapers are likely to be greater than those against Evening Standard Ltd because the Daily Mail and its Mail Online website have a bigger readership than the Evening Standard, whose print edition appears only in and around the capital.

William McCormick QC, for Cooper, told the court that the Daily Mail is implicated in the libel action because it "lifted" quotes originally published in an Evening Standard front page splash.

The jury has heard contested evidence about a key interview with Cooper by an Evening Standard journalist during the Millbank raid.

Cooper accused the journalist, Benedict Moore-Bridger, of "deliberately falsifying" part of an interview with him to make it seem like he was a ringleader in the attacks. Moore-Bridger told the jury on Wednesday that those claims were untrue and "frankly insulting".

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