Matthew Peacock, estranged husband of glamour model Jodie Marsh, has launched a legal battle for libel damages of £100,000 from the Sunday Mirror.
Peacock, whose marriage lasted just two months before the pair separated, complains that a story headed: ‘Now I’ve got perfect new boobs I’ll be at it like a maniac”, was defamatory.
The story, with a photograph of the couple who are both models, was published in the Sunday Mirror and on the paper’s website in April.
Peacock argues that the story claimed he had violently charged at his wife, shoving her into a door and making her fall, before shaking her and screaming at her, before her father helped expel him from the marital home. The story has injured his reputation and caused him distress, humiliation and embarrassment, he says.
Related
Peacock is also seeking aggravated damages, saying the paper did not contact him before running the story, which contained serious allegations, which he denies.
Journalist Lynne Hyland recognised that Marsh had ‘never been averse to a bit of fakery”, had an ‘evil streak”, and bore considerable ill-will towards Peacock, he says.
Peacock, of Heaton Moor, Stockport, says he was especially upset to read the allegations about him after an earlier interview Marsh gave to Love It! magazine in which she made it clear he had not been violent. Peacock is seeking damages and an injunction banning publication of the allegations about him. The writ was issued by Carter-Ruck.
Content from our partners
Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog
