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May 27, 2004updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

MoS pays out in freelance dispute

By Press Gazette

A freelance journalist has received a five-figure payout from the Mail on Sunday after a lengthy dispute.

The writer, who asked not to be named, was paid £15,000 on April 27 for a story which he supplied last August regarding four suspicious suicides involving soliders at Deepcut army barracks in Surrey.

The story centred around an interview with a pathologist who was investigating the deaths and it made a double-page spread.

The freelance got involved in a protracted legal dispute because the story also appeared in the Sunday Express the same day.

The MoS claimed its payment was conditional on the story being an exclusive, although there is no suggestion that the freelance also sold the story to the Express.

After getting his lawyers involved, the journalist settled for £15,000, which he said was £5,000 less than the originally agreed sum.

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