Katie Hopkins loses libel case

[Megatherium]

www.theguardian.com/media/2017/mar/10/jack-monroe-wins-twitter-libel-case-against-katie-hopkins

Hooray! That's definitely cheered me up for the weekend.

Ha awesome! Nice one Jack!

Excellent news.

and I'm assuming that as it was in Twitter and not the daily mail so she'll have to pay up herself.

Oh I do hope she has to pay. She is utterly vile and getting worse with every article.

This verdict has cheered me up no end. Jack Monroe is my hero for taking that vile troll on.

Very happy!!!

Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Doubt it'll keep her quiet though.

That has cheered me up no end
KT is a vile troll

I really doubt she'll love having to pay costs of over £300k. That's a fuck ton of books to sell.

And that's just the claimant's costs. She'll have to pay something similar for her own costs - so she's potentially down around £500K.

The judge went to some trouble to point out that she could have settled very quickly at an early stage by withdrawing, apologising and paying £5K to charity. That's a very expensive piece of arrogance on her part.

She has to pay £24,000 to compensate for the libel, but she has to pay costs for both sides (i.e. Solicitor fees, court fees etc) for both sides because she lost the case. Given the case has been 21 months in the making, that's...a lot of money. HA! Good news at last.

This has made me very happy

I dislike KH so happy she has lost.
I dislike JM too so not happy she won but i dislike her less than KH so it balances out

KH won't personally be paying costs, both parties were being represented on a 'no win, no fee' basis according to that article. The only cost KH will personally pay is the £24,000 awarded to JM.

No, she'll have to pay the other side's costs, unless she had insurance - which is highly unlikely.

Ah thanks for clarifying that Meg, so an expensive tantrum indeed.

YES!

Has Jack Monroe ever actually earned a penny in her life? Obscene amount of money for a couple of tweets sent by a woman who loves attention, to a woman who loves attention.

She has to pay an intermin costs payment of 107k in the next 28 days, more may be added to that.

So glad she's had to put her money where her mouth is . She needs to be hit where it hurts .

Jack Monroe has earned several pennies in her life. She worked initially in a chip shop, then for the fire service. More recently she has earned money as a journalist, writing columns for national newspapers, and from her books.

The only reason damages were so high was that Hopkins chose to ignore a number of requests to withdraw her tweets and apologise at an early stage. It's a high price to pay for supreme arrogance, and no-one's fault but hers.

Best news I've heard all week.

No, she'll have to pay the other side's costs, unless she had insurance - which is highly unlikely

Why is it highly unlikely? Most lawyers offering no win, no fee arrangements strongly recommend that clients take out insurance to cover the other side's costs if they lose.

I didn't think lawyers would defend a libel case on a no-win no-fee
Maybe any lawyers here, could correct me on this.

Damages would not normally be awarded to the defendant in a libel case, just their costs, which their client would otherwise have to pay.
So, no chance of a large payout to lawyers who successfully defend: they just get their usual fee.

No-win no-fee makes financial sense for lawyers only where they have a decent chance at a % of large damages.
Usually when suing a large firm or public body for injury

Monroe's lawyer was quoted, e.g.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/katie-hopkinsdefeated-by-jack-monroe-in-libel-caseukk_58c28bf5e4b054a0ea69df05

"“The price of not saying sorry has been very high.

Hopkins has had to pay out of her own pocket a six figure sum in damages and costs

for a tweet that should have been deleted within minutes as soon as she was told it was wrong.
On this occasion, the cost of renting that gob was particularly high."