Benji “The Binman” Pell has been awarded £125,000 in an out of court libel settlement with the Sunday Express.
The paper will also pay his costs, estimated at £250,000, after wrongly accusing Pell of giving the IRA the names of British soldiers involved in the 1972 Bloody Sunday killings.
Pell formerly made a living rummaging through the dustbins of celebrities, their lawyers and accountants to find stories to sell on to national newspapers.
He sued for libel following two articles in the Sunday Express in February 2002 which alleged he had obtained a list of 17 soldiers linked to the killing of 13 civilians on Bloody Sunday in Derry.
The paper published a picture of Pell with the headline: “This grubby snooper found the names of Bloody Sunday paras in a lawyer’s dustbin. Now the IRA know just who they are.”
Pell had also sued the newspaper for slander after the same allegation was made by a reporter outside Pell’s synagogue in North London.
by Dominic Ponsford
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