Arron Banks loses libel case over journalist Carole Cadwalladr’s Russia claims
Carole #Carole
Arron Banks, the multimillionaire Brexit campaigner, has lost a libel action case against the investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr in what has been seen as a victory for press freedom.
Banks, founder of the pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU, sued the freelance reporter, who writes for The Guardian and The Observer, personally for defamation over comments she made about his relationship with the Russian state.
Cadwalladr suggested he was lying about his links with Russia in a TED talk in April 2019 and a tweet she later posted which included a link to the talk.
After a five-day hearing in January the High Court has ruled that the comments were not defamatory.
Writing on Twitter, Cadwalladr said that the news “hasn’t sunk in yet”. She added: