Defamation verdict stands, say judges

News Group loses appeal over Tommy Sheridan’s victory a decade ago

Judges have rejected an appeal by the owner of the now-defunct News Of The World to set aside former MSP Tommy Sheridan’s defamation victory a decade ago.

Mr Sheridan won the high-profile case against the newspaper after it printed allegations about the then-Socialist MSP’s sex life, which included claims he visited a swingers’ club.

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.

Mr Sheridan has always denied the allegations and launched an unsuccessful attempt to appeal against his conviction.

The case returned to the courts in May as News Group Newspapers (NGN) wanted to have the 2006 civil jury verdict set aside, but judges at the Court of Session in Edinburgh have now refused the application.

A written summary of opinion issued by Lady Paton, Lord Drummond Young and Lord McGhie said the reasoning of the jury “was not undermined by the perjury conviction”.

The judgment read: “It was noted that the verdict of a civil jury should be treated with considerable respect.

“Thus it was open to the jury to disbelieve some of Mr Sheridan’s evidence, to find certain evidence led on behalf of NGN established, yet still to conclude that Mr Sheridan had been defamed.”

Picture: Kim Cessford. Former MSP Tommy Sheridan.