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 national newspapers yesterday.
At a hearing in the high court 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 - which together have a combined print circulation of 15m copies) acknowledged that the stories they had run about Murat over nine months were entirely untrue, should never have been made and were unreservedly withdrawn.
Similar acknowledgements were made about articles libelling Michaela Walczuch, an ex-business partner and friend of Murat, who was also in court, and Sergey Malinka, an IT consultant and friend of the two, who will also receive six-figure damages.http://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/jul/18/medialaw.pressandpublishingMurat trio win £800,000 in damages.
http://metro.co.uk/2008/07/17/murat-trio-win-800-000-in-damages-286190/