The Shooting Times has been forced to publish an apology to Chris Packham for its inaccurate reporting of Chris’s libel win against Fieldsports Channel Ltd and one of its journalists, Andrew (Ben) O’Rourke:
Chris won his libel case (here) on 6 November 2023 after Fieldsports Channel Ltd admitted it was responsible for false and defamatory publications about Chris and submitted an apology to the court for publishing such “baseless and damaging allegations of dishonesty” that “fell far below the standards expected of responsible, impartial journalists” (see here) and agreed to pay Chris £30,000 in damages and costs, £10,000 of which had already been paid in October.
This was a related but separate libel claim to the proceedings Chris won earlier this year against Dominic Wightman and Nigel Bean for defamatory material published by Country Squire Magazine between 2020-2021 (see here).
The Shooting Times stupidly published a news article in its 22 November 2023 edition, claiming that Chris ‘could face a legal bill of £150,000’ because he had ‘sued the wrong company’ in his libel action against Fieldsports Channel Ltd:
The apology has been published in this week’s edition of Shooting Times (6th December 2023).
If the fake news story sounds familiar, it’s because it’s based on the same fake news story published by the Daily Mail on 7th November 2023, for which it, too, had to apologise (see here).
The fake news story was also published in Sporting Gun and an apology is expected in that paper when it goes to press later this month.
Raptor Persecution UK 
All very well but the apologies are never the same size as the original article. They should be. It’s a bit like hearing an apology from our Boris.
That is because Cameron ditched the Leveson report findings.
There seems to be an unpleasant thread of dishonesty running through the field-sports community.