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McAlpine v Bercow was a landmark legal case in 2013 between Conservative peer Lord McAlpine and Sally Bercow, the wife of John Bercow, Speaker of the House of Commons. ==Background== Lord McAlpine alleged that he was defamed by comments implying that he was a paedophile published by Sally Bercow on Twitter, a social networking service. This followed the broadcast on 2 November 2012 of a report by BBC Two's ''Newsnight'' which falsely linked an unnamed "senior Conservative" politician to sex abuse claims. On 4 November 2012, Bercow tweeted "Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *innocent face *" When the allegations against McAlpine proved to be unfounded, Bercow was one of a number of people that the peer threatened with legal action. The BBC subsequently apologised and paid £185,000 to McAlpine in damages and the ITV television network paid him £125,000 in damages. McAlpine commenced legal actions against users of Twitter who had repeated the claims but users with fewer than 500 followers were allowed to settle the matter by making a donation of £25 to the ''BBC Children in Need'' charity.〔 McAlpine donated the libel damages from BBC and ITV to ''Children in Need'' and other charities. McAlpine's lawyers said that they would continue to pursue 20 "high profile Tweeters" (users with more than 500 followers) including Bercow, comedian Alan Davies and writer George Monbiot.〔 Acting on behalf of McAlpine, solicitor Andrew Reid announced: "Twitter is not just a closed coffee shop among friends. It goes out to hundreds of thousands of people and you must take responsibility for it. It is not a place where you can gossip and say things with impunity, and we are about to demonstrate that." In November 2012, Monbiot published ''"Lord McAlpine – An Abject Apology"'' on his personal website and apologised for acting "in an unprofessional, thoughtless and cruel manner." Monbiot also wrote personally to McAlpine and agreed to undertake charity work.〔 Davies apologised publicly and privately to McAlpine in November 2012. In contrast, Bercow "consistently denied that her tweets were libellous" and in December 2012 she appointed the law firm Carter-Ruck to defend her against the claim.〔 At the time that the tweet was made she had 56,000 followers, described by Sir Edward Garnier QC, for McAlpine, as "a bigger readership than many regional newspapers."〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「McAlpine v Bercow」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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