Former GB News presenter to pay £50,000 in costs after losing Ofcom legal battle

Former GB News presenter Mark Steyn has been ordered to wage £50,000 successful ineligible costs aft losing a High Court conflict with Ofcom up of the afloat magnitude owed being decided.

Mr Steyn took ineligible enactment against the regulator implicit its decisions successful 2023 that 2 of his shows successful 2022 amounted to breaches of its rules, claiming they “killed” his career.

In a ruling successful July, Mrs Justice Farbey dismissed the case, stating that Ofcom was “entitled to conclude” that the shows breached its rules and that its reasons for its decisions were “detailed and comprehensive”.

On Tuesday, the aforesaid justice ordered that Mr Steyn wage £50,000 to Ofcom by November 19, with remaining costs taxable to a “detailed assessment” astatine a aboriginal date.

But she said it was “unsatisfactory” that the 2 sides had failed to scope an statement connected costs, and that “doubtless had wiser heads prevailed” the substance would person been agreed.

A proceeding successful June was told that the regulator’s decisions related to 2 broadcasts of Mr Steyn’s primetime amusement connected GB News, which began with a monologue called The Steyn Line.

In an occurrence connected April 21 2022, Mr Steyn gave a monologue connected the rollout of Covid vaccines, based connected UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) data.

Ofcom ruled connected March 6 2023 that the amusement breached its rules arsenic it gave a “materially misleading interpretation” of the figures, which risked “harm to viewers”.

A 2nd amusement connected October 4 2022 featured an interrogation with writer Naomi Wolf, which the watchdog said included her likening the vaccine rollout to a “mass murder” which was comparable to the actions of “doctors successful pre-Nazi Germany”.

The regulator ruled connected May 9 past twelvemonth that GB News failed to instrumentality “adequate steps to support viewers” from “potentially harmful content”, labelling Dr Wolf’s comments arsenic promoting “a superior conspiracy theory”.

Mr Steyn, who nary longer works for the broadcaster and present lives successful the United States, had asked the justice to quash some decisions, with his lawyers claiming that they had “killed his career” and had an “obvious chilling effect”.

Barristers for Ofcom said determination was nary “realistic basis” to assertion it had “obviously gone wrong” successful its reasoning, with the justice uncovering that it was “not ‘obviously wrong’”.