University tutor wins libel damages over student protest articles

A University of Sussex tutor has won significant libel damages over newspaper stories that linked him with the violence at the student protests in London last year.

Luke Cooper, 27, was today awarded £60,000 in libel damages from the Daily Mail and London Evening Standard.

The High Court decided Cooper's reputation had been "badly tarnished" by the articles, which portrayed him as a ringleader in the attack on Conservative Pary headquarters at London's Millbank Tower in 2010.

The 12-strong jury said that the Evening Standard must pay Cooper £35,000 and the Daily Mail must pay him £25,000.

In a statement issued to The Guardian after the verdict, Cooper said: "My only wish throughout these proceedings was the repudiation of the allegations made against me after the Millbank occupation.

"Today's verdict is an important vindication for me personally and means I can draw a line under the affair.

"The jury verdict demonstrates that they saw through the falsehoods both papers peddled about me and the anti-cuts movement, which continued right up until yesterday."

Cooper's libel trial was viewed as significant as it was the first such action to be heard before a jury in three years, but also expected to be among the last.