Souness takes huge cut in libel award

RHYS WILLIAMS

Graeme Souness, the former Liverpool and Glasgow Rangers manager, has agreed to a massive reduction in the pounds 750,000 libel damages he won from Mirror Group Newspapers last June.

Mr Souness sued the People after it ran a front-page interview with his first wife, Danielle, in which she accused him of behaving like a "dirty rat", telling her to "get stuffed" when she asked for money to feed and clothe their children.

Following an eight-day High Court hearing during which the paper was accused of acting with "all the courage of a dead chicken and less decency than an elderly skunk", Mr Souness received the highest award by a British jury against a national newspaper - the pounds 1m Elton John won from the Sun in 1988 was an out-of -court settlement.

Mr Justice Morland, who told the jury not to award "extravagant" damages, ordered a stay on pounds 500,000 of the settlement pending an appeal by the Mirror Group, due to have been heard at the High Court next week.

In a statement issued through his solicitors, the former Liverpool star - who now manages the Turkish club Galatasaray - said he was content to settle for pounds 100,000, plus costs thought to amount to between pounds 350,000 and pounds 400,000.

Mr Souness added: "I have been advised that because of legal precedent, it would be sensible to accept a more moderate sum. My sole purpose has always been to clear my name."

Gerard Cukier, Mr Souness's solicitor, said yesterday that the Court of Appeal had a history of substantially reducing high awards by juries and that pounds 100,000 broadly represented the figure the judges would have had in mind. "We accept that pounds 750,000 was a large sum and probably was excessive, but ... it reflected what the jury felt about the newspaper's treatment of Graeme Souness."