Jack Monroe begins £50,000 WW2 libel case against Katie Hopkins
Jack Monroe has begun libel proceedings against controversial columnist and broadcaster Katie Hopkins.
Food blogger Monroe is reportedly suing Hopkins for £50,000 on the grounds of defamation.
Ms Hopkins, a MailOnline columnist, is said to have made inferences in a Tweet about the vandalisation of a war memorial.
Last May, after a war memorial was vandalised with the words “f**k Tory scum”, Hopkins tweeted Monroe asking them: “Scrawled on any memorials lately? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom? Grandma got any more medals?”
Monroe tweeted to Hopkins saying they would not sue if she paid £5,000 to a charity supporting migrants, and issued an apology.
Rather than apologising, Hopkins deleted her original tweet and admitted that she had meant to tweet writer Laurie Penny, who had written about the incident at the time.
Monroe claims the post meant they had either vandalised a war memorial, and “thereby desecrated the memory of those who fought for her freedom and had committed a criminal act”, or that they “condoned or approved” of the criminal vandalisation of a war memorial.
Lawyer William Bennett told Mr Justice Warby: “The claimant’s primary case is that by reason of the seriousness of the allegations and the scale of publication, serious harm to reputation has been caused.
“A widely published allegation that someone has either vandalised a war memorial or approved of such an act will inevitably cause serious damage to reputation.”
Defending Ms Hopkins, Jonathan Price told the judge in a written argument that the case was “relatively trivial dispute arose and was resolved on Twitter in a period of several hours”.
He argued that “no lasting harm, and certainly no serious harm”, to Monroe’s reputation resulted from it.
Monroe rejected his premise and told the court: “These proceedings have been a nightmare. It has been an 18-month, unproductive, devastating nightmare.
“I did not want to be here today. I have offered several times though my lawyer to settle these proceedings outside court. This is the last thing that I wanted to be doing.”
Monroe, who blogs for various publication including the Guardian, revealed their decision to come out as nonbinary transgender on Twitter last year.
They were later honoured with a ‘woman of the future’ award.
