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High Court: Sally Bercow's Lord McAlpine tweet was libel | |
(34 minutes later) | |
A tweet by Sally Bercow about Lord McAlpine has been ruled libellous by the High Court. | |
Mrs Bercow, the wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow, published a tweet two days after a BBC Newsnight programme had wrongly implicated a "leading Conservative politician" in sex abuse. | |
Amid widespread speculation about his identity, she wrote: "Why is Lord McAlpine trending. *innocent face*." | |
Mrs Bercow said she was "surprised and disappointed" by the ruling. | |
A subsequent High Court hearing will determine the damages she must pay. | |
Last November, Newsnight implicated a Thatcher-era politician in allegations of sexually abusing boys in the care of a children's home in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s, but it did not name Lord McAlpine. | |
The former Conservative Party treasurer was then wrongly identified on the internet. | |
The BBC apologised unreservedly to Lord McAlpine and settled his defamation claim for £185,000. | |
After publishing her comment about Lord McAlpine, Mrs Bercow apologised in four subsequent tweets but denied that her original tweet had been defamatory. | |
But she added: "However, I will accept the ruling as the end of the matter. I remain sorry for the distress I have caused Lord McAlpine and I repeat my apologies." |