Sheridan wins £176k interest payout on top of damages
● Court of Session overturns earlier ruling on payments to former MSP
Formermsptommysheridan is entitled to around £176,000 interest on top of the £200,000 damages he was awarded in his defamation action against the publishers of the News of the World, a court has ruled.
Mr Sheridan won the highprofile case against the nowdefunct newspaper after it printed allegations about the then-socialist MSP’S sex life.
The paper was ordered to pay £200,000 in damages but weeks later a police investigation was launched into allegations of perjury and Mr Sheridan was charged.
He was jailed after being found guilty in December 2010 of lying under oath during the successful defamation action and was freed from prison after serving just over a year of his sentence.
News Group Newspapers (NGN) wanted to have the 2006 civil jury verdict set aside but a number of appeals were refused and the £200,000 was paid out last year.
The Court of Session has now overturned an earlier ruling on interest payments and said Mr Sheridan is entitled to interest on the £200,000 at a rate of 8 per cent a year from the date of the jury’s verdict in August 2006 until the principal sum was paid in May 2017.
In the latest decision the Lord President, Lord Carloway, said there were “significant flaws” in the previous ruling.
In a written judgment, he said: “The reasons special to the cause which the Lord Ordi-
0 Tommy Sheridan won his case against the News of the World in 2006
nary found relevant were, first, that the defenders had not caused any unreasonable delay(andthushadnotwrongfully withheld payment) given that the grounds for a new trial were ‘anything but frivolous’.
“He held that the defenders were not responsible for the time taken to resolve the appeal and payment of the principal sum.
“The reasons for these matters, according to the Lord
Ordinary, lay in the criminal prosecution, which arose out of the pursuer’s own conduct.
“This analysis contains significant flaws.
“First, it was the defenders who initiated a motion for a new trial, in the knowledge that this could delay payment, and secondly, and most important, they failed in their attempt to have the jury’s verdict overturned.
“The fact that they were
unsuccessful ought to have been the central feature of the Lord Ordinary’s thinking.”
The written judgement concluded: “Interest will run on the jury’s verdict at the judicial rate of 8 per cent per annum from 11 August 2006 (the date when the verdict could have been applied) until May 30 2017, the date when the defenders paid the principal sum.”