Mail Online fires Katie Hopkins as they are forced to pay ‘substantial damages’ for false claims
Katie Hopkins (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)
Mail Online, the Daily Mail’s sister publication, has been forced to pay “substantial damages” for false claims by Katie Hopkins.
The publication has apologised to teacher Jackie Teale after she was accused of taking her class to a Donald Trump protest in Westminster by Hopkins.
It comes as the controversial right-wing commentator was fired from her post as a columnist with the website.
Ann Coulter (L) and Katie Hopkins at Politicon at Pasadena Convention Center
Mail Online admitted that Hopkins was wrong to state that Teale had taken her class to the protest.
They also admitted that she had actually taken a banner made by some of the 12-year-old pupils in her class.
“We apologise to Ms Teale for this error and have agreed to pay Ms Teale substantial damages and legal costs,” Mail Online said.
The apology comes a day after Hopkins was sacked after two years as a Mail Online columnist.
Katie Hopkins
The commentator caused a string of controversies, including calling for a “final solution” in the wake of the Manchester terrorist attack.
She was fired from her weekend radio show on LBC in May following the widely criticised comments.
She later deleted the reference, which echoed the Nazi term for the holocaust, changing it to “true solution” after public outcry.
Every previous post to her Twitter account, read by more than 800,000 people, was deleted.
Only a handful of retweets, including several retweets of Piers Morgan, remained.
She has since posted the apology to Ms Teale, and posted about a book she has released.
In a statement to Press Gazette, a Mail Online spokesperson said: “Katie’s contract was not renewed by mutual consent.”
Hopkins lost a libel case to food writer Jack Monroe earlier this year.
Monroe won the libel proceedings after Hopkins tweeted untrue claims about the vandalism of a war memorial.
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.
Hopkins had sought permission to appeal over the damages awarded, but Mr Justice Warby rejected her bid.
She was ordered to pay £24,000 in damages, but the legal bill for the case could mount into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
She also caused the Mail Online to pay £150,000 after she falsely accused a Muslim family of being extremists after they were refused entry to the US for a Disneyland trip.
