Actor wins libel case over bad review

Actor and singer David Soul won a libel case yesterday against a journalist who called a play Soul was in the worst he had ever seen - without having seen it.

Soul, best known as Detective Ken Hutchinson in 1970s television show Starsky and Hutch, sued Matthew Wright of the Mirror newspaper over a review of the 1998 play The Dead Monkey. Wright had sent a freelance journalist on his behalf.

Soul was awarded £20,000 ($70,000) in libel damages plus his costs, estimated by the newspaper at £150,000 ($525,000).