MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
BBC pays £ 185.00 to leading Tory wrongly accused of child sex abuse
Lord Alistair McAlpine is a former treasurer of the Conservative party The BBC agreed to pay 185,000 pounds to a former treasurer of Britain's Conservative Party wrongly accused of child sex abuse as a result of one of its reports. The settlement came as media reports said one of the BBC's former stars had been arrested as part of an ongoing police investigation into sex crimes centred on the publicly funded broadcaster.
Lord Alistair McAlpine, an ally of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, was widely named on the internet as being the unidentified senior politician accused in a report by the BBC's flagship Newsnight program of abusing boys in social care.
The flawed film sparked one of the worst crises in the broadcaster's 90-year history and claimed the scalp of Director General George Entwistle, after the abuse victim central to the BBC investigation said McAlpine was not one of his attackers.
“I am delighted to have reached a quick and early settlement with the BBC,” McAlpine said in a statement.
“I have been conscious that any settlement will be paid by the licence fee payers, and have taken that into account in reaching agreement with the BBC.”
His lawyer warned others who had sullied his client's reputation to get in touch before they too faced litigation, a threat which could ensnare hundreds of Twitter users and bloggers who wrongly named McAlpine.
“We will now be continuing to seek settlements from other organisations that have published defamatory remarks and individuals who have used Twitter to defame me,” McAlpine said.
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Read all commentsThere seems something quite vindictiv in McAlpine's conduct here, if he's really going to sue hundreds of ordinary people on twitter who named him because (like the victim himself at the time, acting on what the police had told him!) they honestly believed he was guilty and being protected by a cover up. And even if he is innocent the original allegations were not just about one man
Nov 17th, 2012 - 09:56 am 0People named him on line has a paedophile, on the basis of on line gossip, a stupid, irresponsible and cowardly thing to do. He has every right to seek redress, perhaps it will make other people think twice before they do something similiar and save some poor other sod from going through the hell he has had to go through.
Nov 17th, 2012 - 04:09 pm 0“”“There seems something quite vindictive in McAlpine's conduct here,”“””
Nov 17th, 2012 - 08:23 pm 0how so?
(seriously, how so?)
I “honestly” believe a lot of things about you, it doesnt mean I can run around twitter saying them though with impunity though.
Not too mention that Sally Bercow deserves suing just for being born stupid...let alone legally inept and defamatory on the basis of rumours...crikey, the only shame is that it wont take out her idiot husband at the same time.
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