Gabby and Kenny Logan receive damages over false tax avoidance claims

TV presenter Gabby Logan and her husband will be paid a six-figure sum in damages by an accountant, a publisher and a former newspaper editor after the couple complained they were falsely accused of being paid to promote a tax avoidance scheme to celebrity friends.

The 50-year-old sports broadcaster and partner Kenny Logan (51), an ex-Scotland rugby player, have settled legal action brought against Gwilym Jones, the director of a litigation investment company, Associated Newspapers and former editor of The Sun Kelvin Mackenzie.

A hearing at the High Court in London on Friday was told that the couple’s complaints centred on an article published by the Mail Online – a website owned by Associated Newspapers – on February 28th which contained “false assertions”.

Ben Hamer, representing the Logans, said these included allegations that the pair were “paid commissions totalling more than £500,000 (€582,000) in return for introducing their friends to tax avoidance schemes marketed by Welbeck Solutions”.

The barrister also said the article amounted to a false allegation that there “were reasonable grounds to suspect that companies under Gabby and Kenneth Logan’s control tried to disguise some taxable income as loans in order that the companies might avoid paying tax on that income”.

“These allegations were wholly untrue, as the Mail Online has now acknowledged,” Mr Hamer said.

Mr Hamer told the hearing before Mr Justice Linden that Mr Jones, of Henderson & Jones Limited, a company that purchases and funds litigation and arbitration claims, was quoted in the article making a “defamatory” false claim that the husband and wife were “guilty of fraudulently misrepresenting income as loans to evade tax obligations” and “conspired with