Father and daughter seriously injured in Manchester bombing win case against conspiracy theorist
Two Manchester Arena bombing survivors have won their High Court harassment case against a conspiracy theorist who claimed the terror attack had been staged.
Martin Hibbert (pictured above) was left with a spinal cord injury following the attack in May 2017, while his daughter Eve sustained a catastrophic brain injury.
Former TV producer Richard Hall had produced videos and a book which claimed several of those who died in the event were living abroad or dead before the attack. He told the court he believed that no-one was “genuinely injured” in the bombing.
He also filmed Eve outside her home, claiming that this was in the public interest as a journalist. He believed “millions of people” had “bought a lie” about the attack, there BBC reports.
Twenty-two people were killed and hundreds more injured in the attach perpetrated by Salman Abedi detonated a homemade bomb at an Ariana Grande concert.
Mrs Justice Steyn said the Hibberts had won their harassment claim; but the data protection claim element of the case is not yet decided.
The judge said Hall was “unreflective and insensitive to the level of distress likely to be caused by his persistent attempts to discredit what those who have suffered so tragically in the Attack say about it”.
He “abused media freedom” to publish false allegations based on the “flimsiest of analytical techniques, and dismissing the obvious, tragic reality to which so many ordinary people have attested”.
Mr Hibbert described the ruling as a “comprehensive victory” that he hoped would help “protect others from what we have been put through in the future”.
He said he planned to talk to his legal team following the ruling with the aim of “establishing a new law in Eve’s name”.
“I don’t want to make much more comment until the final terms of the judgment are agreed in terms of settlements, and hopefully an injunction being imposed.”
The judge said there was “powerful evidence that Mr Hall’s course of conduct caused Mr Hibbert to suffer alarm, distress and anxiety”.
The Hibberts’ barrister Jonathan Price said the bomb had changed his clients’ lives “in every conceivable way”.
“They have both suffered life-changing injuries from which they will never recover,” he said.
