Dad and daughter Arena bomb survivors awarded £45k damages after conspiracy theorist's vile harassment campaign

Two survivors of the Manchester Arena bombing have been awarded a total of £45,000 in damages at the High Court after they sued a conspiracy theorist who claimed the atrocity was staged.

The Manchester Evening News reported last month Martin Hibbert and his daughter, Eve, won a harassment case against Richard D Hall, a self-styled journalist and former TV producer.

A judge said in a ruling that Hall's 'oppressive and unacceptable' conduct in harassing them as they battled to recover from serious injuries was 'a negligent, indeed reckless, abuse of media freedom'. Hall, who believes the 2017 bombing in which 22 people died was a hoax, published 'false allegations based on the flimsiest of analytical techniques' about the atrocity in a book, in videos and in a film in what the judge said was done for 'commercial gain'.

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Judge Mrs Justice Steyn, who upheld the Hibberts' civil claim for harassment, said Hall claimed the Arena attack was 'an elaborate hoax, carefully planned by elements within the state' involving ordinary citizens - including the Hibberts - 'in the deception as crisis actors'.

Mr Hibbert was left with a spinal cord injury and Ms Hibbert facing severe brain damage. Hall claimed his actions – including filming Ms Hibbert outside her home – were in the public interest as a journalist, and that 'millions of people have bought a lie' about the attack.

At a hearing on Friday, the judge said Mr Hibbert and his daughter would each be awarded £22,500 in damages. Jonathan Price, for the pair, said Mr Hall’s behaviour was “towards the more oppressive end of the spectrum of harassing conduct”.

He continued in written submissions: “In a series of widely viewed videos, a print publication, as well as during in-person lectures, the defendant insisted that the terrorist attack in which the claimants were catastrophically injured did not happen and that the claimants were participants or ‘crisis actors’ in a state-orchestrated hoax, who had repeatedly, publicly and egregiously lied to the public for monetary gain.”

Mr Price had said a total of £75,000 for the pair in damages should be awarded, as well as at least 90 per cent of their legal fees. Paul Oakley, for Hall, said in written submissions that £7,500 each in damages “would be appropriate”, adding there was “no justification” for aggravated damages.

“There is no allegation of malice and that is really a fundamental point as far as damages are concerned,” he told the court. “Some of these harassment cases can get pretty nasty, but there was no vindictiveness.”

Mr Oakley later said that a suggested injunction was too wide, describing it as “a blanket ban” on all of Hall’s output, and called the Hibberts' estimated costs as “jaw dropping”.

The barrister said in written submissions: “Mr Hall’s work was ‘not about’ the claimants, who featured only minimally in the entirety of his recorded and written output.

“At best, those parts of Mr Hall’s works which concern the claimants may be redacted but no more.”

Mr Oakley also said Mr Hall should be awarded costs after a data protection claim from the Hibberts was not continued.