The MP Andrew Bridgen has been ordered to pay Matt Hancock greater than £40,000 in authorized charges after an early stage of their libel battle.
The MP for North West Leicestershire is bringing a libel declare in opposition to the previous well being secretary relating to a January 2023 message on X that adopted Bridgen posting a remark about Covid-19 vaccines.
The excessive court docket in London beforehand heard that Bridgen wished to “clear his title” after allegedly being accused of antisemitism in a “malicious” social media publish by the previous I’m a Movie star … Get Me Out of Right here! contestant.
On the earlier listening to, a decide was advised that Bridgen shared a hyperlink to an article about information on deaths and different adversarial reactions linked to Covid vaccines, and acknowledged: “As one advisor heart specialist stated to me, that is the largest crime in opposition to humanity because the Holocaust.”
Hours later, Hancock wrote on X that “disgusting and harmful antisemitic, anti-vax, anti-scientific conspiracy theories spouted by a sitting MP this morning are unacceptable and have completely no place in our society”.
Bridgen believes “each particular person studying the tweet knew it was about me”, that it was “critically defamatory and unfaithful” and supposed to trigger “grievous hurt” to his status, the court docket was advised.
Hancock’s legal professionals argued that the declare in opposition to him must be thrown out because it didn’t have a “life like prospect of success” and due to the “lack of a correctly articulated case”.
In a ruling final week, Mrs Justice Steyn “struck out” sure components of Bridgen’s case however didn’t dismiss the entire declare, as an alternative giving the unbiased MP an opportunity to make amendments and “treatment the deficiencies”. Bridgen was ordered to pay £44,300 in authorized prices to the MP for West Suffolk in a court docket order on Thursday.
After the court docket order was made public, Hancock wrote on X: “Glad the court docket has awarded prices in opposition to Mr Bridgen at this stage of his absurd libel motion, and explicitly acknowledged that I used to be the profitable occasion, opposite to Bridgen’s ridiculous claims on the time.
“Mr Bridgen ought to cease losing the court docket’s time and drop this case now.”
Steyn added that if Bridgen, a former Conservative MP, didn’t present the main points of his amended declare or didn’t efficiently make the required utility, the libel declare could be thrown out solely.
