Monday January 24, 2005
The Guardian

Mark Covell suffered twice over at the anti-capitalist demonstrations at the G8 summit in Genoa in July 2001. His first ordeal was physical: Covell, a journalist, was so savagely beaten by the Italian police that he lost consciousness, suffering serious injuries which included multiple broken ribs, a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. He was taken to hospital where he was given a blood transfusion and a chest drain was inserted to remove fluid from a lung. He was heavily sedated and his room was placed under armed guard.

Covell's second ordeal was journalistic. The day after the assault he awoke to find a man and a woman in his room. In his drugged state, he assumed the personable woman to be from the British embassy and therefore answered her questions, including the name, address and phone number of his mother. But he said he became suspicious when the man asked to take a picture of him and, at that point, the woman explained that she was Lucie Morris, a Daily Mail reporter. It transpired that the man was Nick Holt, a Mail photographer. Covell immediately asked them to leave.

Later that day Covell's mother, Janet, received a call from Morris at her home near Reading. She had no idea her son was in Italy, let alone that he had been injured. Morris told her to expect a visit from a Mail reporter and a shocked Mrs Covell soon found herself answering the door to two journalists who, she said, "kept trying to get me to say negative things about Mark". They also asked her for pictures of her son which, in her confused and distressed state, she handed over.

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Little did the Covell family realise the outcome of those interviews. The next day's Daily Mail front page was headlined "Armed guard on Briton who led rioters" with a picture of Mark at a family wedding, and inside there were two more pictures of Mark as a child. The story, under Morris's byline, accused Covell of "helping to mastermind" the Genoa riots by running "computer systems used to co-ordinate attacks ... by anarchist groups".

It detailed his injuries, mentioned his outrage at the police action and in cluded quotes from Mrs Covell in which she was alleged to have referred to her son as a "social misfit" who had "socialist ideals" with which she disagreed.

The central thrust of the story, that Covell had led a riot or even had anything to do with its organisation, was wildly inaccurate. He was operating computers for Indymedia, a journalistic collective of environmentalists which despises "the corporate media" but which took no part in the violent confrontations with police. Covell, who did not even attend the street protests, was one of many innocents attacked by the Italian police that night and he will soon be appearing as a witness in Italy following the prosecution of several policemen for their actions.

In the aftermath of the Mail story Covell was in no fit state, physically or mentally, to do much about the paper's character assassination, nor to contest what he believed to be an intrusion into his privacy. He spent 12 days in the San Martino hospital and it was some time before he felt able to instruct lawyers. When we met, months later, he was clearly still suffering from his injuries - he had few teeth left - and appeared highly strung. But he was plainly sincere and deeply upset at his treatment by the Mail. He was, he explained, too poor to sue for libel but his lawyers did advise him that he had cause for other actions for which he could obtain legal aid.

They pointed to a possible breach of his privacy under the European Convention on Human Rights and a similar article of the Italian constitution, not to mention a contravention of data protection laws. Morris appeared to have breached three clauses of the editors' code of practice, having invaded Covell's privacy, intruded into his grief and shock, and entered a hospital bedroom, where he surely had a reasonable expectation of privacy, without permission.

When asked for a formal response to Covell's allegations about Morris, the Mail's then managing editor, Lawrence Sear, said he knew nothing about them and that they seemed far-fetched. Morris, when contacted, said she was on her way to her doctor's and would call back. She did not, and further attempts to reach her failed. But Morris did explain herself, by email, to another inquiring journalist, arguing: "I went to great lengths, and [took] personal risks, in getting to Mr Covell's hospital bedside . . . so he could put his side across which, to me as a professional, objective journalist, is vital."

She did not say how her "objective" journalism had resulted in Covell being wrongly accused of leading a riot, nor how she managed to convince the police to allow her into his hospital room. Given Covell's fragile state, his lawyer's concern about unhelpful publicity and the Mail's tight lips, the story remained untold for a time. But Covell, who eventually went to another lawyer, fought on. He was particularly eager to win an apology on behalf of his mother who had contracted a virulent form of cancer (and is now in a hospice).

The Daily Mail's senior executives, legal advisers and Morris herself defended their actions, arguing that the hospital interview was justified in order to highlight that Covell had been badly beaten. They refused to acknowledge that Covell had a worthwhile case but, such was the force of his argument and the obvious central falsehood of the Mail's story, that the paper decided it could not face a court case.

After he was forced to issue proceedings, the Mail suddenly agreed to pay Covell damages and his legal costs and, in a major climbdown, even acceded to his request for a formal letter of apology. Its contents must remain private: the letter can be shown only to Covell, his close family and to the courts in Italy where the Mail article has previously been brandished by lawyers representing the police who have sought to undermine Covell's credibility. The letter will help him in his claim for injuries.

If Covell were to reveal the contents of the letter (to this newspaper, for instance) he could be sued by the Mail for the return of his damages and costs, which are expected to reach £40,000. Covell is giving a substantial amount of his damages to his mother and to charity. His concern all along has been with clearing his name rather than receiving money.

Covell's solicitor, Louis Charalambous, who has considerable experience of dealing with newspapers, says: "The conduct of the Daily Mail and Lucie Morris is the worst example of its kind I've ever come across."

So what has the Mail to say for itself? The Mail's apology was written by Charles Garside, the new managing editor, who was not with the paper when the story appeared. He says: "The Daily Mail highlighted Mr Covell's plight to his family and the British authorities and advised his mother to get in touch with the Foreign Office. If there was a hurt, it was completely inadvertent and, indeed, it was one we did not know about for nearly three years. My letter to Mr Covell and his mother was private and should remain so".

Morris did enter into online correspondence over Covell's distress in August 2001, when there was also substantial web traffic about the incident, but the paper did not regard this as a formal, legal complaint. But perhaps this saga does illustrate why anger about the "corporate media" is so prevalent.