LONDON – A father and daughter crippled by a suicide bomber who killed 22 people after an Ariana Grande concert in England in 2017 were awarded 45,000 pounds ($58,000) Friday in a case against a former television producer who claimed the tragedy was a hoax.
Martin Hibbert and his daughter, Eve, won their harassment suit in the High Court in London last month against Richard Hall for videos, a film and a book he produced that falsely claim the Manchester Arena bombing was staged using actors and no one was wounded or killed.
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Hall, an independent producer, had claimed “millions of people have bought a lie” about the attack and defended his work, including surreptitiously filming the daughter, as journalism in the public's interest.
Justice Karen Steyn called Hall’s conduct a “negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom." She said he used the “flimsiest of analytical techniques” to dismiss "the obvious, tragic reality to which so many ordinary people have attested.”
Salman Abedi blew himself up with a bomb hidden in a knapsack as fans were leaving the Grande concert on May 22, 2017. In addition to those killed, more than 260 people were wounded and hundreds of others were left with “deep psychological injuries,” police said.
Martin Hibbert was paralyzed from the waist down and his daughter, who was 14 at the time, nearly died and has severe brain damage.
The Hibbert's also won an injunction preventing Hall from further harassment, and Hall will have to pay 90% of their legal costs that are currently estimated at 260,000 pounds ($335,000).
The award, however, is meager compared to many won in U.S. lawsuits. In a case that also involved denying a major tragedy, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 for falsely claiming it was a hoax.
Martin Hibbert said that he never expects to see a penny of the award, but the victory wasn't about money.
“What this was about was bringing him down in public, in front of his own followers, that’s what I’ve done," he said outside court.
Hall said the trial was unfair and continued to insist the bombing didn't happen as he left the court.