Granada Pays Out £2 Million For Libel

Granada Television, the company which part owns ONdigital with Carlton, is in the headlines today after having reportedly paid out £2 million in a libel settlement.

Granada’s World In Action programme wrongly accused three police officers of perjury and fabricating evidence in the case involving the death of Patrick Quinn, who was killed in police custody in December 1990 after he had been arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Quinn’s cell-mate, Malcolm Kennedy, was convicted for the murder of Quinn, but the conviction was later quashed and a re-trial saw Kennedy eventually convicted for Quinn’s manslaughter.

The programme, called ‘Time To Kill’, was broadcast in April 1992, and the High Court was told that the three police officers suffered very great distress and sustained damage to their reputations by what they regarded as implications by the programme that one of them killed Mr. Quinn. Each officer was awarded £100,000 damages by Granada Television, which also had to pay the legal bills for both sides. The settlement is believed to be the biggest libel settlement ever for a television company.

Granada issued the following comments on the case: “World In Action investigated this case with painstaking care over several months and came to the view based on new evidence that there were serious doubts about Malcolm Kennedy’s conviction for murder.

“It was almost 18 months after the programme – during Mr. Kennedy’s first retrial – that the prosecution discovered for the first time a critically important police document which contradicted the evidence uncovered by World In Action.

“What the programme said was that these officers had given false evidence or fabricated documents and we now know those assertions were wrong. We are therefore apologising.”

Granada denies that the figures in the settlement were so high, and costs are expected to be more in the region of 1.2 – 1.5 million, according to a company spokesperson.

Granada: 0161 832 7211