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News of the World faces Big Brother legal challenge

Claire Cozens, press and publishing correspondent
Tuesday May 10, 2005

Former Big Brother contestant and property developer Ahmed Aghil is to sue the News of the World over allegations that he "bullied" a tenant and forcibly evicted him.

Lawyers for Mr Aghil, a refugee from Somalia who appeared in the Channel 4 series last year, are demanding an apology, a retraction, a "substantial sum" in damages and the payment of his legal costs.

Mr Aghil's lawyers wrote yesterday to the News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, warning him legal proceedings would begin within 14 days if they did not hear from the paper.

The article, published on July 18 2004 under the headline "Ahmed's a bully landlord", alleged Mr Aghil had let a derelict property to a frail pensioner, forced him to renovate it and then sought to evict him - all of which Mr Aghil denies.

Mr Aghil is being represented on a no win, no fee basis by David Price, the media law specialist that acted for the alleged Beckham kidnap plotter Alin Turcu in his failed libel action against the News of the World.

Turcu, an illegal immigrant from Romania whose real name is Bogdan Maris, claimed he had been libelled by a front-page story in the News of the World that claimed the newspaper had foiled a plot by an international terror gang to kidnap Victoria Beckham.

Last week, high court judge David Eady ruled that although there had been "a bit of creativity" in the News of the World's story, the allegations about Turcu were "substantially true".

Mr Justice Eady used his judgment to highlight how no win, no fee deals for libel actions are putting newspapers under pressure.

The judge said Turcu had been able to pursue his claim purely because Mr Price was prepared to act on his behalf on the basis of a no win, no fee arrangement.

He described the position of the News of the World, which claimed to have run up £400,000 in legal costs, as "wholly unenviable".

A spokesperson for David Price said: "We have won a large number of conditional fee agreement cases against the News of the World. This was the first CFA case that we have lost against the News of the World and only the second CFA case we have ever lost against a newspaper."

A News of the World spokeswoman said: "The matter is in the hands of our lawyers."

Media Guardian