BRITAIN:ROBERT MURAT, the British expatriate property consultant libelled in more than 100 articles in the British tabloid press over the disappearance in May last year of Madeleine McCann from Praia da Luz, the Portuguese resort where he lived, accepted more than £600,000 in damages from 11 UK national newspapers yesterday.
At a hearing in the high court in London lasting less than seven minutes, the media organisations (the Daily and Sunday Express and Daily Star from Express Newspapers; the Daily Mail, Evening Standard, and Metro of Associated Newspapers; the Daily and Sunday Mirror and the Scottish Daily Record of the MGN group; and News Group's Sun and News of the World acknowledged that the stories they had run about Mr Murat were entirely untrue.
Similar acknowledgements were made about articles libelling Michaela Walczuch, an ex-business partner and friend of Mr Murat, and Sergey Malinka, an IT consultant and friend of the two, who will also receive six-figure damages. Among the allegations, many spread luridly across front pages, were claims that Mr Murat, who had offered to help the police investigation and translate for journalists, was himself involved in the girl's disappearance, that he and his friends had been part of a paedophile ring, that they had lied to the police, and that DNA evidence of Madeleine had been found in his house.
The lawyer for the three, Louis Charalambous, said: "Until now Robert Murat has had to watch silently as the worst elements of the British media have gone about destroying his good name and reputation. The behaviour of the tabloid journalists and their editors has been grossly irresponsible, demonstrating a reckless disregard for the truth. - (Guardian service)