Ukip delay over legal case was deliberate says judge

UKIP TOOK a “deliberate, informed and calculated” decision to ensure that a defamation action brought by Rotherham’s three Labour MPs should not be settled before a General Election, the High Court has ruled.

A year ago, Mr Justice Warby said that Jane Collins, the MEP for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, should pay £54,000 in damages to each MP over remarks she made about the town’s child abuse scandal.

She was also directed to pay their costs with an interim payment of £120,000. Sir Kevin Barron, the MP for Rother Valley, John Healey, who represents Wentworth and Dearne, and Sarah Champion, the MP for Rotherham, sued Ms Collins for libel and slander over a speech she gave at Ukip’s conference in September 2014 – a month after a report found about 1,400 children in the area had been abused between 1997 and 2013.

The judge said she alleged that each of them knew many of the details of the exploitation yet deliberately chose not to intervene.

She also expressed the opinion that they acted out of political correctness, political cowardice or political selfishness and were guilty of misconduct so grave that it was or should be criminal, as it aided the perpetrators.

Yesterday, the judge said that none of the sums had been paid, and it was the MPs’ case that Ukip should bear the costs as it had provided financial support to Ms Collins and sought to influence the conduct of the action for its own ends.

Ukip accepted that it had funded Ms Collins in the sum of £31,000, but said its primary concern was to help her settle the claims. The judge said it would be unjust to make any order for the period up to the end of February 2015 as the party was not to be held responsible for Ms Collins making the speech.

It began by acting in good faith, funding the provision of initial advice and representation. Thereafter, it played a supportive role, aiming to fund a settlement. But, things changed in late February and early March 2015, he added.

“In that period, the party took a deliberate, informed and calculated decision, for reasons of party political advantage, to ensure that the case was not settled before the General Election.”

The likelihood was that, but for its role, the case would have been settled by March 20, 2015 at Ukip’s expense. Ms Collins’ conduct as a litigant in person between June 2015 and January 2017 was not caused or contributed to by Ukip and it would be unjust to make them pay towards the costs incurred as a result, he said.

But there was every likelihood that a settlement in spring 2015 would have obviated any need for the assessment hearing.

Mr Justice Warby yesterday ordered that Ukip should pay the MP’s costs from March 20, 2015, to June 23, 2015, and costs from the assessment hearing. The order would be subject to assessment.

His ruling made the party liable in addition to, and not in substitution for, the orders against Ms Collins, who remains liable. DEFENCE SECRETARY Gavin Williamson has claimed Jeremy Corbyn “cannot be trusted” after reports emerged that he met a Czech diplomat three times at the height of the Cold War.

Mr Williamson alleged it was “a betrayal of this country” that Mr Corbyn met with the envoy, said to have been “a communist spy” acting under cover.

Mr Corbyn strongly denies knowingly meeting a spy but confirmed that he had talks at the House of Commons with a diplomat in 1987. The furore erupted after

newspaper revealed documents from a Soviet-era archive that described the meetings and revealed the future Labour leader was known to the Czechs under the codename of COB.

At a Nato meeting in Brussels, Mr Williamson said: “Jeremy Corbyn has never had Britain’s interests at heart.”

The news came after Britain publicly blamed the Russian government for a cyber attack which targeted Ukraine and spread across Europe last year.

The NotPetya attack’s primary targets were the Ukrainian financial, energy and government sectors but it was designed to spread further and affected other European and Russian firms in June 2017.

Ukraine has been locked in a simmering conflict with Russianbacked separatists since Moscow annexed Crimea in 2014. Foreign Minister for cyber security Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon said the UK’s decision to identify the Kremlin as responsible to the attack underlines the fact the Government will not tolerate “malicious cyber activity”.

He said: “The UK Government judges that the Russian government, specifically the Russian military, was responsible for the destructive NotPetya cyber attack of June 2017.

“The attack showed a continued disregard for Ukrainian sovereignty. Its reckless release disrupted organisations across Europe costing hundreds of millions of pounds.

“The Kremlin has positioned Russia in direct opposition to the West yet it doesn’t have to be that way.”

Mr Williamson added: “Russia is ripping up the rulebook by undermining democracy, wrecking livelihoods by targeting critical infrastructure and weaponising information.”