News In Focus

First legal aid award for defamation case

8 October 2012

The first award of legal aid in a Scottish defamation case has been made to a man seking to sue a local authority for describing him as a convicted killer, the Herald reports today.

It has taken Danny Wilson two years of applications and challenges to the Scottish Legal Aid Board, but he has finally achieved a grant for a type of claim from which legal aid was effectively barred until 2010.

Mr Wilson has been attempting to sue Edinburgh City Council for nearly six years after the false description appeared in social work files, and resulted in him and his partner being refused fertility treatment after the information was passed to the NHS.

His solicitor, Cameron Fyfe, said the value of the claim would reflect the psychological difficulties that resulted from Mr Wilson then breaking up with his partner and having to give up his business.