Daily Mail will pay Libel Settlement for Claiming Striped House Owner was Stingy with Husband's Inheritance - iMediaEthics

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The Daily Mail wrongly claimed a woman named Zipporah Lisle-Mainwaring “mistreated” and was stingy toward her late husband’s family. As a result of two articles that made that claim, the Mail has to pay a libel settlement, the Press Gazette reported.

The Mail also had to apologize to Lisle-Mainwaring, a property developer who lives in Switzerland. In an e-mail to iMediaEthics, Lisle-Mainwaring criticized the Mail’s reporting, commenting “an indifference to accuracy is the leitmotif of the paper.”

In a statement on the Mail‘s website, the newspaper said the lawsuit was filed in response to articles published April 15, 2015 and April 17, 2015 about Lisle-Mainwaring’s decision to paint her Kensington house in red and white vertical stripes. The Mail said:

“The articles, on April 15 and 17 last year, wrongly repeated untrue allegations made by her late husband’s son, Robert Lisle, and his wife that she had mistreated him and his family in relation to inheritance claims, including by unreasonably denying them money they claimed they had been promised.”

The Mail has since unpublished the two articles, the Guardian noted.

According to the Press Gazette, Lisle-Mainwaring “has separately lodged a claim against Associated Newspapers for ‘harassment’ over its coverage of her and for breach of copyright over its reproduction of watercolours and paintings.”

iMediaEthics has written to the Mail seeking comment on the lawsuit and asking why the newspaper included comments about inheritances in stories about her decision to paint her house.

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Daily Mail will pay Libel Settlement for Claiming Striped House Owner was Stingy with Husband’s Inheritance

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