Journalist Carole Cadwalladr Wins Libel Case Filed By Businessman Aaron Banks

Journalist Carole Cadwalladr who has worked for Guardian and the Observer has won the libel case filed against her by multimillionaire Aaron Banks. The case against Cadwalladr was criticised for being an attack on free speech. As per reports, Cadwalladr's lawyers argued that her win is in public interest.

As per reports, Banks funded the pro-Brexit Leave. He sued the journalist personally when she raised questions about the businessman's relations with Russian state twice. Once she made the remark during a Ted Talk and she posted about it again in a tweet.

Gavin Millar QC, Cadwalladr's lawyer argued in court that the case against her is an attempt to silence her and stop her from reporting on matters of highest public interest. The matters in context of European Union referendum such as social media messaging, personal data, foreign money among others were pointed out by the lawyer. If the businessman had won the case, the journalist would have been asked to pay about one million euros in damages. Cadwalladr's win is being celebrated by different quarters around the world.

The Ted Talk in question has been viewed more than four million times and its Youtube video has been viewed over a million times till December 31. The judge who gave verdict in the case, Mrs Justice Steyn said, "In the Ted Talk Ms Cadwalladr made a serious contribution to the discussion of a subject that was of real and abiding public interest at the time of publication. Moreover, the words complained of were themselves on an important matter of public interest." The judge also said that it was reasonable of the journalist to "regard those words as forming part of the story that she was telling about the potential for targeted political advertising on social media to undermine democracy."

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The judge further ruled that Aaron Banks “lied on more than one occasion about a secret relationship he had with the Russian government” and that “there are questions to be asked (i.e. grounds to investigate) whether the source of his donations was foreign funding, accepted in breach of the law on the funding of electoral campaigns”.