The Eye concludes: 'London's libel lawyers won't be going hungry any time soon.'
However, only last January Ms Anna Turley was claiming on twitter that:
At that time Guido Fawkes reported these developments on his Blog:'Unite and Skwawkbox have failed to pay the damages and costs following my libel trial last month as ordered by the court. My solicitors are starting enforcement proceedings in the morning.' pic.twitter.com/pS8wpwIekF— Anna Turley (@annaturley) January 16, 2020
'In the latest development, the former MP has published a letter from her solicitors declaring given Unite’s failure to pay up, “The only conclusion we can draw is that your clients have deliberately chosen to cause further distress to Ms Turley or they are incompetent. Which is it?”, going on to say'
“We have prepared enforcement papers that will permit bailiffs to attend at your clinets’ premises to enforce the two final judgements. We shall issue these when the Court opens on Monday morning if the full judgement debts, together with ongoing interest, have not been satisfied.”Guido Fawkes claimed:
This is much more entertaining than the Labour leadership contest…
UPDATE: Unite and Skwawkbox have finally coughed up
And Private Eye described the squabble as 'even by Labour's internecine standards it was a vicious fight.'
And then Ms. Turley was to announce on twitter:
The judgement of Justice Nicklin J held that Unite was responsible for the defamatory statement because its Director of Communications sent the Second Defendant [Skwawkbox] a press summary fully aware that he intended to publish an article which would identify the Claimant and contain substantially the same defamatory sting about her 'being dishonest'.'Unite & Skwawkbox have belatedly paid the damages and costs as ordered by the court. Proving after all that they are not above the law. What an avoidable waste of members’ money. Lesson is... don’t break the law.'— Anna Turley (@annaturley) January 21, 2020
The Defendant's Unite and Skwawkbox had claimed the Claimant “should have known” she was ineligible for Unite Community membership, but his Lordship emphasised that, even if that had been so, “negligence is unlikely to provide an objective basis upon which to reasonably suspect dishonesty” [134].
Skwawkbox the website that published the offending report had claimed that Turley, then Labour MP for Redcar, had called the leader of Unite an 'arsehole' and had joined Unite at cut price rate reserved 'exclusively for the unwaged' so she could 'undermine Jeremy Corbyn'. Steve Walker, who runs Skwawkbox according to the Mail Online 'Mr Walker, .... is the sales director and CEO of a company called Foojit, which provides mailing solutions to the NHS.'
Meanwhile Ms. Turley managed to lose her Redcar seat at last December's general election when the Labour Party backers Unite had declared in the High Court that she was 'not fit to be an MP'. The £84,500 paid to Turley in aggravated damages, should help ease the pain of this defeat. Probably Unite and its leader, Len McCluskey, now wish they had settled out of court when Turley's solicitors offered a settlement last June, if Unite agreed to pay her £25,000. Now because the union refused this compromise it must now pay interest of 8% on the costs. By rejecting this offer, it also lost the right to demand that Turley's legal advisors prove their costs were reasonable.
Ms Turley, MP for Redcar before losing her seat in the General Election, has said she was 'thrilled and relieved' after winning the case
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