The prominent civil rights campaigner, journalist, broadcaster, author and lecturer, Marc Wadsworth, has won his libel claim against the publisher of The Jewish Chronicle.


Mr Wadsworth, who founded the Black-led Anti-Racist Alliance in 1991, Europe’s
largest movement of its kind, and is the editor of citizen journalism website, TheLatest.com, brought his complaint in relation to an article published in the 12
March 2021 edition of The Jewish Chronicle, a version of which was also
published on the newspaper’s website from 15 March 2021.


The article, the print edition of which included a prominent photograph of Mr
Wadsworth taken in 2016, falsely alleged that he was involved with a group of
Labour members, including individuals said to have been suspended or expelled
from the party, in an initiative to track down Jewish Labour activists at their
private addresses in order to ‘take care of’ them – that is, to intimidate, threaten
or harass them into silence. It was alleged that Mr Wadsworth had spoken at a
launch event for the group.


In fact, and as the Jewish Chronicle has now fully acknowledged, the allegations
were entirely untrue. Mr Wadsworth had never been involved in or supported the
appalling activities alleged by the article. Nor had he been a member of or
involved with the group to which the article referred, or attended its launch event.
In a Statement in Open Court, read today in the High Court before Mrs Justice
Collins Rice, the publisher, Jewish Chronicle Media Limited, acknowledged
through its solicitor that its allegations about Mr Wadsworth were entirely false,
and apologised for them. The Statement also recorded that an apology to Mr
Wadsworth had already been published both in the print edition of The Jewish
Chronicle and on is website, and that the publisher had agreed to pay him
substantial compensation for libel, in addition to his legal costs.

Mr Wadsworth said:
“I was deeply distressed that The Jewish Chronicle did not check its facts
or contact me before its article was written. Instead, it chose to publish
serious and unfounded allegations, linking me with potential criminality,
which go to the heart of my reputation as a journalist and long-standing
campaigner against racism.

I am pleased that the publisher has now apologised for these libels and
agreed to set the record straight, and in turn that I am now able to draw a
line under this matter.”

Mr Wadsworth was represented by Adam Tudor ([email protected]) and Dominic Garner ([email protected]) of Carter-Ruck.