COUNTDOWN TO COURT
Rachel Riley’s libel battle with ex-Corbyn aide
RACHEL Riley described yesterday how she was left fearing for her safety following a social media post by an aide to then Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The Countdown star, 35, told the High Court she received a concerted ‘onslaught of abuse’ following Laura Murray’s March 2019 tweet, which called her ‘dangerous’ and ‘stupid’.
She told Mr Justice Nicklin a campaign had been initiated to ‘get me fired from my job, as being someone who had advocated violence’.
Miss Riley, who has sued Miss Murray for libel and is seeking damages, said the tweet caused serious harm to her reputation. Miss Murray, who no longer works as an aide to Mr Corbyn, claims what she tweeted was true and reflected her honestly-held opinions.
She posted it after an egg was thrown at Mr Corbyn by a Brexit supporter, the court heard. She had been
‘Labour don’t care about Jews’
responding to a tweet by Miss Riley in which she reposted a tweet by a Leftwing commentator about an attack on former BNP leader Nick Griffin that said: ‘I think sound life advice is, if you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi.’
Miss Riley had added ‘Good advice’ with emojis of a red rose and an egg.
Miss Murray then tweeted: ‘Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi. This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.’ Mr Justice Nicklin had ruled at an earlier hearing that Miss Murray’s tweet was defamatory.
He concluded it had claimed that Miss Riley had ‘publicly stated’ that Mr Corbyn ‘deserved to be violently attacked’. Miss Riley said she was being sarcastic in her tweet and had not called Mr Corbyn a Nazi.
‘The response to the defendant’s libel of me was a concerted attack on me and my career,’ she said in a written witness statement to the court.
She had been afraid that the false allegation that she had encouraged a violent attack had made her a target for reprisals. ‘I was very concerned that I could be easily tracked down because I am a public figure,’ she said. ‘The volume of abusive and threatening messages was all-consuming.’
Miss Riley said she is Jewish and had spoken out against anti-Semitism. ‘My view is that the Corbyn- led Labour Party was fostering antiSemitism,’ she said. The appointment of Miss Murray as the party’s head of complaints soon after her tweet showed that Labour ‘don’t care about Jews’, Miss Riley said.
William McCormick QC, for Miss Murray, said his client’s tweet was true. ‘[Miss Riley] chose to tweet to her 625,000-plus followers about a violent attack in a manner which was both stupid and dangerous,’ he said.
‘It was obvious that her tweet would provoke hostile reactions.’ The case was not about anti- Semitism but about the ‘need for restraint in public discourse’, he said.
The case continues.