Libelous Book Review Nets Author/Sociologist Judgment in U.K. High Court

Cover of Seven Days in the Art WorldCanadian sociologist Dr. Sarah Thornton, author of Seven Days in the Art World, has been awarded damages of 65,000 pounds ($106,535) and attorneys' fees for a defamatory book review by Lynn Barber in The Daily Telegraph, published by the Telegraph Media Group, according to an article in The Guardian.

Mr. Justice Tugenhadt, the most senior media judge of England's High Court, criticized Barber's review of
Seven Days as "an attack on Dr. Thornton's honesty." Thornton's libel suit focused on two paragraphs that appeared in the November 2008, Telegraph review, one in which Barber alleged she had not been interviewed by the plaintiff for her book in which Barber appears and another suggesting the author gave interviewees in her book "copy approval,' both of which the High Court found to be malicious falsehoods. 

The defendant is expected to appeal, according to The Guardian article.