Press Gazette
29 July 2011

By PA Mediapoint

Joanna Yeates's landlord Chris Jefferies today accepted "substantial" undisclosed libel damages from eight newspapers over allegations made against him over her death.

The retired schoolmaster was not at London's High Court for the settlement of his actions against the publishers of the Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Daily Mail, the Daily Record, the Daily Express, the Daily Star and the Scotsman.

His solicitor, Louis Charalambous, told Mr Justice Tugendhat that "in recognition of the immense distress and damage" caused, they had all agreed to apologise for the "seriously defamatory" allegations made in the wake of the landscape architect's December 2010 death and pay substantial damages.

Charalambous, of Simons Muirhead & Burton, said the newspapers had acknowledged the falsity of the allegations in question which were contained in over 40 articles published in late December 2010 and early January 2011.
**********************

Sometimes you see these mad tabloid tales unfolding and you know instinctively that they are collectively heading for a banana skin. Why don't the hacks ?