Innocent Rotherham youth worker wins £40,000 in libel damages against former Bristol UKIP chairman

At the High Court this morning (Wednesday), Zair Monir was awarded libel damages against the former chairman of Bristol UKIP, Steve Wood.

Mr Monir had sued over a Tweet posted on the Bristol UKIP Twitter account — three days before the General Election on May 4, 2015.

The Tweet consisted of a photo of Rotherham MP Sarah Champion, together with two men, one of whom was Zahir Monir.

The text of the Tweet read: “Sarah champion labour candidate for Rotherham together with two suspended child grooming taxi drivers DO NOT VOTE LABOUR.”

High Court judge, Mr Justice Nicklin said: “It needs to be stated clearly — Mr Monir is completely innocent. He has been seriously libeled. He has been forced to fight a libel claim all the way through to trial with every single conceivable point being taken against him.”

Following the tweet, the community worker was subjected to abuse outside his child’s school, his house was egged and vicious comments were posted about him online.

Mr Monir (39) has been awarded £40,000 damages and his costs after successfully suing Wood, claiming that, although he did not personally write the tweet, he was legally responsible.

Wood (57), who has since left his post, denied any responsibility for the publication, blaming his former campaign manager, John Langley.

The tweet was only deleted weeks later when police phoned the chairman.

Mr Monir’s lawyers said in a statement: “The Tweet had actually been written and posted by self-styled 'maverick' John Langley, who at the time was vice-chairman of Bristol UKIP."

Lawyers said Wood had set up the Bristol UKIP Twitter account and Mr Langley was appointed as the campaign manager for the branch under instruction not to publish anything racist or too contentious.

"Mr Monir brought his libel action against Mr Wood because there would have been no prospect of obtaining vindication or recovering damages from Mr Langley," the statement added.

“This was, therefore, an unusual and important case because it had to examine who is legally responsible for publication of social media posts.”

After a seven-day trial, Mr Justice Nicklin found that Mr Langley “was quite clearly acting as the agent of Wood when he was posting material to the Bristol UKIP Twitter account including the May 4 Tweet”.

He also found that Wood — who was UKIP’s parliamentary candidate for the Bristol South constituency in the May 2015 General Election — had been put on notice of the Tweet in a phone call from Mr Monir on May 8, 2015, and so in any event he was liable for the continued publication of the Tweet thereafter.

The Judge said the tweet had “transformed the life of Mr Monir and his family for the worse” and blasted Wood’s refusal to apologise and withdraw the allegation.

He said if the libel had been published in a national newspaper “an award of £250,000 or more could easily have been justified”.

After judgment had been handed down, Mr Monir’s solicitor Jeremy Clarke-Williams, of Penningtons Manches, said: “The publication of the vile and baseless Tweet for cynical political reasons has caused huge damage and distress to Zahir Monir and his family. 

“This judgment provides him with the complete vindication he deserves. He has had to endure more than three years of suffering and stress to achieve this victory and the failure of the defendant to apologise for, or retract, the allegation is, as the judge noted, ‘on simply a human level…a difficult stance to understand’.

“From a legal point of view, the judgment is extremely important and every organisation will need to read it carefully to appreciate the potential liability of those who set up social media accounts but then delegate others to send out publications on their behalf and for their benefit.

"If you are responsible for letting a maverick genie out of the bottle then you are likely to face the legal consequences — and in the era of fake news that presents a real risk.”