Former MP Allason wins new trial over `Mirror' story

FORMER Tory MP Rupert Allason has been granted the right at the Court of Appeal to a new trial in his battle for damages from the Mirror newspaper over what he claims was a malicious story which cost him a lucrative book contract.

The former MP for Torbay, who writes as Nigel West, sued the newspaper for malicious falsehood over an article in 1992 which claimed that 50 MPs had challenged him to demonstrate his concern for Maxwell pensioners by giving them the estimated pounds 250,000 libel damages he had just won from the newspaper in another defamation action. That action was dismissed with costs in the High Court.