Police officer awarded £60,000 damages over Times article

Report about Met detective sergeant Gary Flood claimed there were strong grounds to believe he was dishonest and corruptA police officer has been awarded £60,000 in damages in a high court judgment against the Times over an article which claimed that there were strong grounds to believe he was dishonest and corrupt.Mrs Justice Nicola Davies awarded Gary Flood, a detective sergeant with the Metropolitan police's extradition unit, £45,000 in a high court judgment published on Thursday to reflect his distress and anxiety, the damage to his reputation and the need for proper vindication.Davies added another £15,000 to reflect the newspaper's conduct and "to serve as a deterrent to those who embark upon public interest journalism but thereafter refuse to publish material which in whole, or in part, exculpates the subject of the investigation".The article at the centre of Flood's high court libel action appeared in the Times and then on the Times Online website in June 2006. Headed "Detective accused of taking bribes from Russian exiles" it read: "Police are investigating the alleged sale to a security company of intelligence on the Kremlin's attempts to extradite opponents of President Putin."After an inquiry, neither criminal nor disciplinary charges were brought against Flood, who returned to the unit when he was exonerated and, in September 2007, the Times was informed of the outcome of the investigation.During lengthy legal proceedings, launched in May 2007, the supreme... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Police officer awarded £60,000 damages over Times article

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