Manchester Arena attack survivors win £45,000 damages in harassment case (original) (raw)

Two Manchester Arena bombing survivors have been awarded £45,000 in damages after suing a former TV producer who claimed the attack was staged.

Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve sued Richard Hall for harassment over his claims in several videos and a book that the attack was a state-orchestrated hoax, with the pair involved as “crisis actors”.

The pair sustained life-changing injuries at the Ariana Grande concert in May 2017; Martin was left with a spinal cord injury and Eve faced severe brain damage.

Hall claimed his actions – including filming Eve outside her home – were in the public interest as a journalist, and that “millions of people have bought a lie” about the attack.

Richard Hall. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA

In a judgment last month, Mrs Justice Steyn ruled in favour of the Hibberts and described Hall’s behaviour as “a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom”.

At a hearing on Friday, the judge said Hibbert and his daughter would each receive £22,500 in damages.

Jonathan Price, representing the pair, said Hall’s behaviour was “towards the more oppressive end of the spectrum of harassing conduct”.

He continued in written submissions: “In a series of widely viewed videos, a print publication, as well as during in-person lectures, the defendant insisted that the terrorist attack in which the claimants were catastrophically injured did not happen and that the claimants were participants or ‘crisis actors’ in a state-orchestrated hoax, who had repeatedly, publicly and egregiously lied to the public for monetary gain.”

Price had said a total of £75,000 in damages for the pair should be awarded, as well as at least 90% of their legal fees.

Paul Oakley, representing Hall, said in written submissions that £7,500 each in damages “would be appropriate”, adding there was “no justification” for aggravated damages.

“There is no allegation of malice and that is really a fundamental point as far as damages are concerned,” he told the court. “Some of these harassment cases can get pretty nasty, but there was no vindictiveness.”

The barrister said in written submissions: “Mr Hall’s work was ‘not about’ the claimants, who featured only minimally in the entirety of his recorded and written output.

“At best, those parts of Mr Hall’s works which concern the claimants may be redacted but no more.”