Housing chief awarded £100,000 libel payout

Apr 4 2008 by Paul James, The Journal

SUNDERLAND housing chief Peter Walls was yesterday awarded £100,000 damages over a “malicious and relentless” campaign of libel and harassment from the now defunct DadsPlace website.

Mr Walls, chief executive of Gentoo, formerly Sunderland Housing Group, accepted the sum – thought to be the biggest compensation payout in an internet defamation case – in settlement of his claims against Wearside businessman John Finn and his company Pallion Housing Limited.

Mr Walls’ QC, Hugh Tomlinson, told Mr Justice Eady at the High Court that Mr Finn was the sole shareholder, owner and one of two directors of Pallion, a landlord in Sunderland providing commercial and residential properties to businesses and individual tenants.

The legal action took around three years to complete, and after the hearing Mr Walls called for changes in the law to allow victims of internet abuse quicker justice. Mr Tomlinson told the judge that Gentoo’s claim for libel and Mr Walls’ claim for libel and harassment arose out of the activities of an anonymous group of individuals calling themselves “Dads Place”.

It was responsible for the publication of a “seriously defamatory, abusive and scurrilous anonymous website”, with an associated chat forum, newsletter and leaflets, called the “Dads Place Publications”.

Mr Tomlinson said: “Over a period of two years from April, 2004, to about mid-July, 2006, from behind their cloak of anonymity, Dads Place used their publications and in particular the website to conduct a malicious, unpleasant and relentless campaign of libel and harassment against Gentoo and various persons associated with it, in particular Mr Walls.”

He said Mr Walls was “forced to withstand an almost daily barrage of anonymous allegations, threats and abuse and suffered very serious damage to his professional and personal reputation”.

He told the judge that Mr Finn and Pallion had repeatedly denied any responsibility for Dads Place, but last October they “capitulated”, admitting responsibility.

Earlier Mr Finn and Pallion agreed to pay £5,000 compensation to Gentoo and £14,000 to a group of employees.