Jury award Captain Sharma £85k over Standard's sexual harassment claims
The jury in the trial of a libel action brought by an Air India executive over a 2006 Evening Standard article entitled ‘Sex Shame of Airline Chief’ returned its verdict this afternoon, finding in favour of the Claimant and awarding him £85,000 in damages.
During the trial, which began last Monday, Associated Newspapers, which publishes the London evening newspaper, along with the journalist who wrote the article, had sought to defend the allegations in the article as true, but the jury today rejected that defence. The allegations were that the Claimant, a UK manager for the airline, had been forced to step down from his job as a result of sexual harassment claims made against him by female colleagues. The article had also claimed that Captain Singh had been under investigation by the police.
5RB‘s Andrew Monson (instructed by Stewart-Moore Solicitors) acted for the Claimant.
Links
- Air India executive libel trial begins – 5RB.com
- Sharma v Singh & Associated Newspapers – 5RB.com
- AI official files libel case against UK paper – Business Standard
- India fights ‘sex-pest’ slur – Calcutta Telegraph
- Air India executive wins libel case against London newspaper – The Hindu
- Air India executive wins libel action against London newspaper – Economic Times