‘Mirror’ Pays £40,000 To Lord Boothby

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30513, 7 August 1964, Page 13

‘Mirror’ Pays £40,000 To Lord Boothby

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter— Copyright)

LONDON, Aug. 6. The International Publishing Corporation, owners of the “Daily Mirror” and “Sunday Mirror” newspapers, last night made a public apology to Lord Boothby. The corporation has paid Lord Boothby £40,000 in compensation. A statement, signed by Mr Cecil Harmsworth King, the corporation’s

chairman, said: “I am satisfied that any imputation of improper nature

against Lord Boothby is completely unjustified.

The statement said Lord Boothby would be paid £40,000 compensation and that I.P.C. would pay his costs. It added that Lord Boothby will donate £5OOO to the King Edward the Seventh Hospital, in London.

The statement said: “In its issue dated July 12, the ‘Sunday Mirror* stated: ‘A top level Scotland Yard investiga-

tion into the alleged homosexual relationship between a prominent peer and a leading thug in the London underworld has been ordered by Metropolitan Police Commissioner (Sir Joseph Simpson)’.

“Neither the ‘Sunday Mirror’ nor the ‘Daily Mirror’, in that or in subsequent issues, mentioned the name of Lord Boothby, but when Lord Boothby returned to London from France he found to his amazement —as he stater in his letter in ‘The Times’ of August I—that Parliament, Fleet Street, and other informed quarters in London were seething with rumours ‘that he had a homosexual relationship with a leading thug in the London underworld involved in a West End protection racket’, and of other matters deriving from the issues.

“The newspapers concerned communicated with Lord Boothby’s solicitors indicating that they were immediately prepared to take all steps to clear Lord Boothby’s reputation by the prominent publication of this statement.

“It is my own view, and

the policy of this group, that when a newspaper is wrong it should state so promptly and without equivocation. “I am satisfied that any imputation of an improper nature against Lord Boothby is completely unjustified. “In these circumstances I feel it my duty to sign this unqualified apology to Lord Boothby and to add the personal regret of myself and the directors of I.P.C. that the story appeared.”