FIVE solicitors in the Belfast firm which acted for paratrooper Lee Clegg were awarded libel damages of £130,000 yesterday over a newspaper's coverage of the handling of his defence.
The damages were awarded against the Daily Telegraph by a jury in the High Court in Belfast. The paper also has to pay the legal costs of the six day action, estimated at £200,000.
The solicitors Mr Bernard Turkington, Mr Damien Breen, Mr Ernest Telford, Mr Gerald McVeigh and Mr Michael Bennett are partners in the firm of McCartan Turkington Breen. Afterwards, they declined to comment as they have similar actions pending against the BBC and four other newspapers.
A spokesman for their solicitors, Elliott Duffy Garrett, said "The decision vindicates absolutely the position which they have always maintained, that the serious allegations made against them concerning the defence of Private Lee Clegg were unwarranted and unsustainable."
The action followed a front page report in the Telegraph of a press conference called by the Free Lee Clegg campaign after the House of Lords rejected his appeal gains conviction for murdering Ms Karen Reilly, a passenger in a stolen car, in west Belfast in 1990.
The report alleged that "highly relevant evidence was either glossed over or omitted" at the trial with the result that Clegg was wrongly convicted. The Daily Telegraph admitted the report was defamatory but claimed qualified privilege. Its counsel argued the report was a fair and accurate account of a public meeting.
That defence was rejected by Lord Justice Carswell who said a press conference did not qualify as a public meeting within the meaning of the law. He told the jury the only issue it had to decide was the amount of damages.
The judge said the jury was entitled to take into account that although a retraction and apology had been demanded at the out set it was only that morning the Telegraph had apologised in court.
Mr Mervyn Morrow QC, for the partners, said the allegations went to the very core of their integrity as solicitors. "There is nothing worse that could be stated about a firm of solicitors in a case of murder", he said. The jury was out for just over an hour before awarding the partners the equivalent of £26,000 each.