TV host wins £10k in libel damages
TELEVISION presenter Rachel Riley has been awarded £10,000 damages by a High Court judge after suing a former aide to Jeremy Corbyn for libel following an exchange on Twitter.
The 35-year-old, a numbers expert on the Channel 4 show Countdown, complained lained about a tweet that Laura ura Murray, who is in her er early 30s, posted more than two years ago.
Mr Justice Nicklin oversaw the High Court case in London in May and delivered a ruling yesterday.
The judge said Ms Riley was “entitled” “vindication” – but there had been a “clear element of provocation” in the tweet she had posted. He had heard that both women posted tweets after Mr Corbyn, who was then Labour leader, was hit with an egg while visiting a mosque in March 2019.
Ms Riley initially posted a screenshot of a January 2019 tweet by Guardian columnist Owen Jones about an attack on former British National Party leader Nick Griffin, which said: “I think sound life advice is, if you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi.”
She added “Good advice”, advic with emojis of a red rose and an egg.
Later, Ms Murray tweeted: “Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for Visit My Mosque
Day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer. Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently
because he is a Nazi. This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.”
Ms Riley said she was being sarcastic in her tweet, did not call Mr Corbyn a Nazi, and told the judge that Ms Murray’s tweet caused serious harm to her reputation.