Father and daughter win $58,000 in lawsuit against man who claimed the Manchester Arena bombing was a hoax

LONDON – A father and daughter paralyzed by a suicide bomber who killed 22 people after an Ariana Grande concert in England in 2017 were awarded 45,000 pounds ($58,000) on Friday in a case against a former television producer who claimed the tragedy was a hoax .

Martin Hibbert and his daughter Eve won their harassment case at the High Court in London last month against Richard Hall over videos, a film and a book he produced, which falsely claimed that the Manchester Arena bombing was staged using actors and that no one was injured or killed.

Hall, an independent producer, had claimed that “millions of people bought a lie” about the attack and defended his work, including covertly filming the daughter, as journalism in the interests of the public.

Judge Karen Steyn called Hall’s conduct a “negligent and even reckless abuse of media freedom.” She said he used the “weakest of analytical techniques” to dismiss “the obvious, tragic reality that so many ordinary people have testified to.”

Salman Abedi blew himself up with a bomb hidden in a backpack as fans left the Grande concert on May 22, 2017. In addition to the deaths, more than 260 people were injured and hundreds of others were left with “deep psychological wounds.” the police said.

Martin Hibbert was paralyzed from the waist down and his daughter, who was 14 at the time, almost died and has severe brain damage.

The Hibbert’s also won an injunction preventing Hall from committing further harassment, and Hall will have to pay 90% of their legal costs, which are currently estimated at 260,000 pounds ($335,000).

However, the award is meager compared to many won in US lawsuits. In a case that also involved denial of a major tragedy, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to parents of children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 for falsely claiming the hoax was.

Martin Hibbert said he never expects to see a cent of the prize, but the win wasn’t about money.

“It was about taking him down in public, in front of his own followers, that’s what I did,” he said outside court.

Hall said the trial was unfair and continued to insist the bombing had not occurred as he left court.