PCC settles libel claim with media lawyer

According to a report by Press Gazette, the Press Complaints Commission has reached a settlement with media lawyer Mark Lewis, who sued the self-regulatory body for libel earlier this year.

Media Guardian  reports:

The commission [PCC] and the baroness [Buscombe, PCC chair] made a formal statement of regret at the high court to settle a libel action brought by Mark Lewis, one of the lawyers at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World. They also agreed to pay a sum for damages and legal costs, but neither side would disclose any detail.

The case involves claims about Lewis’ evidence about phone hacking given to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee in 2009. The PCC, when contacted by Meeja Law, said: “We are not in a position to comment.”

Press Gazette reported that Lewis continues to pursue a case against the Metropolitan Police:

Lewis told Press Gazette: “I am very satisfied that Baroness Buscombe and the PCC have accepted my claim and expressed regret for the consequences of what she said. My case continues against the Metropolitan Police who still defend the claim. Eventually the truth will come out from the Met and I will be vindicated.”

It was a case I initially covered for Journalism.co.uk; here is a report from February when Lewis was first considering taking action. Just over a year ago in November 2009, Lewis called for Buscombe’s resignation, in a letter reproduced here.

This entry was posted in defamation, media law, media regulation and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to PCC settles libel claim with media lawyer

  1. Pingback: Law and Media Round Up – 29 November 2010 « Inforrm's Blog

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s