Three policemen, accused in a television programme of fabricating evidence against a prisoner charged with killing his cell-mate, yesterday won a libel settlement which may cost Granada Television £2 million.
Granada apologised and agreed to pay "very substantial" damages - believed to be £100,000 each - to the three, plus their estimated £1.2 million legal costs, over allegations in a World in Action programme broadcast in April 1992. A High Court judge in London heard that the three were caused "very great distress" and damage to their reputations by what they saw as a suggestion that they were involved in a cover-up to conceal the fact that a prisoner, Mr Patrick Quinn, was killed by a police officer - possibly one of them.
The programme asserted that the officers had perjured themselves at the trial of Mr Quinn's cell-mate, Malcolm Kennedy, leading to his conviction for murder. Kennedy's conviction was later quashed on appeal, but a retrial was ordered and he was eventually convicted of Mr Quinn's manslaughter.
There was "no truth whatever" in any of the allegations against the officers, said Mr Barton Taylor, solicitor for Sgt Peter Bleakley and PC Emlyn Welsh, of the Metropolitan Police, and former PC Paul Giles, now retired. Mr Quinn was killed at Hammersmith police station in west London on December 24th, 1990.
World in Action regarded aspects of Kennedy's murder conviction as unsafe. Following the broadcast, the Court of Appeal quashed his conviction and ordered a retrial. The retrial was aborted after the discovery of a police computer-aided dispatch report which supported the police account of timings and contradicted the central thrust of the programme, said Mr Taylor.
At a second retrial, Kennedy was convicted of Quinn's manslaughter and his subsequent appeal was dismissed.
The TV company did not challenge that conviction and "they now accept without reservation that the officers did not lie or commit perjury and were in no way involved in any falsification of evidence or in misleading the court at any stage", a spokesperson said.
Ms Claire Posner, for Granada, said the programme was made in good faith and there was never any intention to suggest the officers were involved in the killing or a cover-up.