Trinity Mirror shares have fallen by over 3% or 14½p this morning, as condemnation of the Sunday Mirror for publishing an interview with the father of the victim in the Leeds footballer trial continues to mount.
Both the defence and the prosecution in the trial of Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate for affray and GBH had kept the issue of racial prejudice out of their submissions. The article in the Sunday Mirror, an interview with the victim’s father, raised the issue of race in such a way that proceedings had to be halted in case the publicity affected the jury’s ability to reach a fair verdict. The money wasted as a result could be up to £8m in the cost of the trial, in addition to police investigation, solicitors’ and CPS costs.
The newspaper could now face a charge of contempt, for which the High Court has power to impose an unlimited fine, sequester the paper’s property or even impose jail sentences on senior figures such as editor Colin Myler.
Despite the financial wobble this morning, analysts at ABN AMRO have said that the Trinity Mirror group remains a good option to buy. The analysts pointed out that even if the worst case scenario of the company being made to repay the £8m lost in trial costs was imposed, this would only represent a one-off payment of around 4% of estimated profit before tax for this year, and dismissed the fall as an overreaction.
