Austen Ivereigh - Press Allegations and Resignation

Press Allegations and Resignation

On 18 July 2006, Ivereigh resigned as the cardinal's director of public affairs following allegations by the Daily Mail. The allegations were the subject of legal proceedings initiated by Ivereigh in the High Court of Justice against Associated Newspapers Ltd. (ANL). A trial in February 2008 was inconclusive, but at the retrial in January 2009 the jury unanimously found that Ivereigh had been libeled. He was awarded £30,000 in damages and all costs, estimated at £3m. Ivereigh said his reputation had been "comprehensively vindicated".

Awarding costs against the Daily Mail, Justice Eady said that Ivereigh had achieved an “unqualified victory” against the newspaper’s “intransigence”, and had done so “in light of the sneering, belittling of his personality and his character made by the defendant”. Associated Newspapers, the judge said, "chose a strategy that in the end yielded nothing and are to be regarded as ‘in substance and in reality’ the losers."

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