Countdown’s Riley ‘in fear after Corbyn aide’s tweet’
COUNTDOWN host Rachel Riley feared a ‘vigilante attack’ when she was criticised in a tweet by a former senior aide to Jeremy Corbyn, a libel trial was told.
The 35-year-old Channel 4 television presenter said a ‘concerted campaign’ was initiated to get her fired from her job and that she had received ‘a great deal of abuse’ as a result of the tweet.
In a statement, Ms Riley said she was being ‘sarcastic’ in a post that provoked the response from Laura Murray and had not called Mr Corbyn a Nazi.
Ms Murray is disputing the libel claim at the High Court in London.
The trial heard she posted the tweet on March 3, 2019, after an egg was thrown at Mr Corbyn – then the Labour Party leader – by a Brexit supporter when he was visiting Finsbury Park Mosque in north London.
She had been responding to a post by Ms Riley, who had initially retweeted a January 2019 tweet by Guardian columnist Owen Jones, about an attack on ex-British National Party leader Nick Griffin. Mr Jones had said: ‘I think sound life advice is, if you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi.’
Ms Riley had added ‘Good advice’, with emojis of a red rose and an egg.
Later, Ms Murray tweeted about the mosque visit, writing: ‘Rachel Riley tweets that Jeremy 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.’
Ms Riley said the tweet contained ‘defamatory statements’ and that she was afraid the ‘false allegation’ that she had ‘encouraged a violent attack’ made her a target for ‘vigilantism’. She told the judge she had taken steps to improve personal and home security.
But William McCormick QC argued that Ms Murray’s tweet was ‘true’.
In a written case outline, he told Mr Justice Nicklin: ‘The claimant (Ms Riley) chose to tweet to her 625,000-plus followers about a violent attack in a manner which was both stupid and dangerous. It was obvious that her tweet would provoke hostile reactions of the kind that did in fact emerge.’
The trial continues.