Andrew Bridgen MP has been ordered to pay more than £40,000 in legal costs in the early stages of his defamation battle against Matt Hancock.
The north-west Leicestershire MP is bringing a defamation claim against the former health secretary over a message to X in January 2023 after Mr Bridgen posted comments about coronavirus vaccines.
London’s High Court previously heard Mr Bridgen wanted to “clear his name” after being accused of anti-Semitism over “malicious” social media posts by the former I’m A Celebrity. Contestant.
At a previous hearing, the judge was told Bridgen had shared a link to an article about data on deaths and other side effects related to coronavirus vaccines, and said: Holocaust. “
Hours later, Hancock told wrote.
Bridgen believes that “everyone who read the tweet knew it was about me” and that it was “materially defamatory and false” and caused “significant damage to his reputation”. ”, the court said.
Mr Hancock’s lawyers argued that the claims against him had no “realistic prospect of success” and should be thrown out for the “lack of a properly articulated case”.
In last week’s judgment, Mrs Justice Steyn “struck out” certain parts of Mr Bridgen’s case, but did not dismiss the claims in their entirety, instead giving independents the opportunity to make amendments and “rectify the deficiencies”. Ta. Mr Bridgen was ordered to pay £44,300 in legal costs to the West Suffolk MP in a court order on Thursday.
After the court order was made public, Hancock wrote of X: “I am pleased that the court has awarded costs at this stage of Mr. Bridgen’s absurd defamation action and declared me the prevailing party, contrary to Mr. Bridgen’s absurd claims at the time.”
“Mr. Bridgen should stop wasting the court’s time and drop this case now.”
Mr Steyn added that if Mr Bridgen, a former Tory MP, did not provide details of an amended claim or the required application was unsuccessful, the defamation claim would be thrown out in its entirety. .
