Law lords cut Grobbelaar libel damages to just £1

The disgraced former Liverpool and Southampton footballer, Bruce Grobbelaar, was yesterday awarded derisory damages of £1 over newspaper allegations that he had taken bribes in return for fixing the results of matches.

The ruling, which has done nothing to repair his damaged reputation, leaves the Zimbabwean goalkeeper facing a legal bill of £1m.

The House of Lords said yesterday that although it had been proved that Mr Grobbelaar had accepted bribes, The Sun newspaper had failed to show that he had deliberately let in goals during matches.

In the judgment, the law lords accepted that the evidence showed he had acted corruptly but could not agree with the Court of Appeal's decision to quash the original jury's verdict and supplant it with one of its own.

Instead the court, in a majority verdict of four-to-one, decided they would reduce Mr Grobbelaar's damages from £85,000 to a token sum of just £1.

Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the senior law lord, explained: "It would be an affront to justice if a court of law were to award substantial damages to a man shown to have acted in such flagrant breach of his legal and moral obligations."

Lord Millett added it would be equally wrong if a man who accepted bribes to throw matches should obtain damages for the loss of reputation as a professional sportsman "merely because he cannot be shown to have carried out his part of the bargain."

He said: "By his own conduct, Mr Grobbelaar has destroyed the value of his own reputation, and this is sufficient to disentitle him to any but nominal damages."

Grobbelaar claimed damages for libel after The Sun published articles in November 1994 saying he had accepted bribes to fix matches.

A jury found in his favour and awarded him the damages but the Court of Appeal quashed the verdict as "perverse" and gave judgment for The Sun.

Yesterday, Lord Bingham said Grobbelaar, who lives with wife and two children in Rudgwick, West Sussex, had faced "formidable difficulties" in seeking to explain away the incriminating statements he made during recorded conversations with a former business colleague.

The law lord said evidence from the tapes showed that Grobbelaar was involved in corrupt agreements, which were all denied by him at the libel trial.

The Sun newspaper had been contacted in 1994 by Christopher Vincent, a former partner of Grobbelaar's in a failed business venture, who was described during the libel case as a "thoroughly dishonest man".

Lord Bingham said: "During the course of their meetings, Mr Vincent put corrupt proposals to the appellant who responded positively to them and also stated that he had acted corruptly in the past. At the last of the meetings, the appellant received £2,000 in cash in an envelope from Mr Vincent."

Lord Steyn, dissenting from the majority decision, said he was in full agreement with the Court of Appeal: "Having conspired with two different fraudsters, in return for bribes to attempt to fix football matches, it is an unjust result in the circumstances of this case, to affirm a verdict on liability in favour of Mr Grobbelaar."