£230,000 Met libel payout for lawyer in hacking cases

Scotland Yard was today forced to make an embarrassing libel payout of £230,000 to a lawyer for phone-hacking victims.

Mark Lewis, who represents the family of Milly Dowler, has settled a claim for libel against the Met after the force effectively accused him of misrepresenting the scale of illegality at the News of the World. The police have agreed to pay him £30,000 in damages and his £200,000 legal costs.

The case centres on evidence Mr Lewis gave to the media select committee in 2009 when he claimed that Detective Sergeant Mark Maberly had told him that the defunct Sunday tabloid had hacked 6,000 victims.

At the time the Met and News International were insistent the scandal was confined to one rogue reporter, Clive Goodman, who was jailed in 2007.

Shortly afterwards Lady Buscombe the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, gave a speech to the Society of Editors stating that former Assistant Commissioner John Yates had passed her “reliable evidence” that Mr Lewis’s evidence was incorrect.

The lawyer sued the Met, Baroness Buscombe and the PCC on the grounds that he had effectively been accused of misleading Parliament.

Today, Scotland Yard expressed its regret at the High Court. Ronald Thwaites QC, representing Mr Lewis, told Mr Justice Eady: “(The Met) regrets that the statement made by it may have been misinterpreted in some quarters and takes the opportunity to confirm that it has no reason to believe that Mr Lewis gave anything other than evidence which was to the best of his recollection.

“Equally Mr Lewis for his part is happy to confirm that he withdraws the allegation of dishonesty made in this claim against DI Maberley and recognises that he also gave an account of events to the best of his recollection.”

Martin Forshaw, for the Met, told the court he agreed with Mr Thwaites’ statement. Outside court Mr Lewis said: “The Metropolitan Police have spent about £250,000 unsuccessfully defending my claim which could have been avoided if there had been a proper investigation into the activities in 2006 rather than one where only Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire were prosecuted.”

“It is very regrettable that they chose to try and maintain the News of the World line that there had been ‘one rogue reporter’.”