Journalist wins libel case in her Twitter ‘echo chamber’

CAROLE CADWALLADR, an investigative journalist, has won a libel case against the prominent Brexit supporter Arron Banks, who sued her, after successfully arguing that her Twitter account was an “echo chamber”.

Mr Banks sued Ms Cadwalladr for libel after she claimed in a 2019 TED Talk that he had told “lies” about “his covert relationship with the Russian government”.

Ms Cadwalladr later posted a tweet which included a link to the talk and Mr Banks, who has always strongly denied the allegations, sued for libel because the statements were “false and defamatory”.

High Court judge Mrs Justice Steyn dismissed Mr Banks’ claim, concluding that Ms Cadwalladr held a “reasonable belief ” that her comments were in the public interest. The judgment concluded that when Ms Cadwalladr posted the link to her talk, she was sharing it with her Twitter followers who “are likely to be persons within her own echo chamber” and “it’s probably right that they wouldn’t have thought very much of [the claimant] by that time”.

“In my judgment, those within the jurisdiction to whom the tweet was published are likely to consist of people

‘It’s probably right that they wouldn’t have thought very much of [the claimant] by that time’

whose opinion of the claimant was of no consequence to him,” Mrs Justice Steyn ruled.

Mr Banks stated he will likely appeal, tweeting: “The judge felt sorry for Carole is how I would sum it up. Defamatory but no serious harm. I suppose falsely accusing someone of taking Russian money for Brexit doesn’t cut the ice.”