Following my film for Channel 4's Dispatches broadcast in January 1995 in which I exposed the involvement of British companies in the export of instruments in the use of torture, Michael Heseltine issued letters libelling the undercover and investigative work we had undertaken.
Accordingly, I instructed Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC to sue the Treasury and the case went uncontested with £40,000 damages awarded. That amount would be worth about £70,000 now, almost 20 years later.
I believe I remain the only person to have successfully sued the British Government for libel. When I came to investigate the death of Diana, Princess of Wales three years later, if I had found any evidence that implicated the British or any other government in her death, I would have had no hesitation in exposing it too.
Report from the BBC One O'clock News on Friday 28 July 1995.
21 окт 2024
