Movie News
Smith wins damages over Hitler allegation
Friday 22 February 2008
The High Court heard that the Oscar-nominated actor was left deeply distressed and acutely embarrassed over the wrong story published by an entertainment newswire service.
Judge David Eady was told that Smith's comments, originally published in the Scottish Daily Record newspaper, were then "wholly misrepresented" by the London-based World Entertainment News Network (WENN).
The agency, which says on its website that it provides information to more than 1,000 media outlets in 25 countries, picked up the interview and then wrongly published worldwide a story headlined "Smith: Hitler was a good person".
Reuters reports that Smith's lawyer Rachel Atkins said in court: "The article alleged (Smith) had declared in an interview that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was a good person. It wholly misrepresents (his) actual words."
The lawyer said that Smith, who was not in court, actually thought Hitler was "vile and heinous".
"The allegations that he could think otherwise is deeply distressing... and has caused him acute embarrassment," she said.
WENN retracted the story and issued a correction and an apology, but no media published it, leaving the libel "at large", according to Atkins.
She said the undisclosed compensation WENN had agreed to pay would be donated to an unnamed charity. It also will meet Smith's legal costs.
John Melville Smith, defending WENN, said his client apologised for the story, which they now admitted was wrong.
He said: "(WENN) offers its apologies to (Smith) for any distress and embarrassment caused by this article."
"(It) accepts that the allegations concerning (him) were misleading and published in error."
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