British Pakistani wins £1.2 million against DailyMail over false accusations
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LONDON - The Daily Mail, a British news publication, has reportedly reached an out of court settlement worth £1.2 million with a British Pakistani taxi licensing officer Wajid Iqbal after the former accused him of being a fixer for pedophile taxi drivers.
“Scandal of the mini-cab predators” authored by journalist David Rose was published in the Daily Mail on 14 May 2017. The story alleged that Wajid Iqbal was a part of an international pedophile ring.
Following the devastating effects the story had on the Wajid’s professional and personal lives, he decided to take Associated Newspaper Limited (ANL), the company that manages Daily Mail, Mail Online, and Mail on Sunday, to court.
Defamation law specialist Mark Lewis of Patron Law represented Wajid Iqbal in the defamatory case whose proceedings were set to begin in April 2020 at the London High Court. However, in November 2019, ANL started negotiating with Wajid Iqbal for an out of court settlement.
The clarification published by the Daily Mail on Sunday reads:
The Mail has apologized to a council worker who it wrongly accused of acting as a ‘fixer’ for cab drivers in Rochdale who were committing crimes against young girls.
An article on May 14, 2017, published in this newspaper and on the Mail Online website, headlined ‘Scandal of the mini-cab predators’, caused ‘huge and continuing distress’ to Mr. Iqbal, a council licensing officer.
The Daily Mail also apologized:
These allegations were false. They have caused huge and continuing distress to Wajid Iqbal. Therefore, ANL has agreed to apologize and pay Mr. Iqbal substantial damages.
