UUP peer Lord Elliott has contrasted the sums of money handed out to bereaved relatives of murder victims with the sum allotted to Gerry Adams in his recent defamation case.

The former MLA and MP was reacting to the news last week that former Sinn Fein president Mr Adams had been awarded 100,000 Euro – roughly £84,000 – after winning a libel battle against the BBC in Dublin.

The case centred on the BBC's airing of a claim in a Spotlight documentary that Mr Adams had sanctioned the killing of police informer and senior Sinn Fein man Denis Donaldson.

Mr Adams denied this, and denies ever having been a member of the IRA.

placeholder image — Former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams was awarded 100,000 euro (£84,000) in damages after winning his libel action against the BBC

The claim came from a man using the name ‘Martin’, who was described by the BBC as an informer within the IRA.

The BBC claimed it had another five sources – republicans and intelligence figures – who supported the claim, but a jury in Dublin found against it.

The libel case was heard in Dublin on the basis that, while mainly broadcast in Northern Ireland, the Spotlight show had been seen by 16,000 viewers in the Republic, while an accompanying website article was read by 700 people there.

Mr Elliott said: “Clearly [for] veterans – and indeed a lot of people in Northern Ireland, civilians as well – it's not going to change their view of Gerry Adams. I think the fact is they're just going to see this as somewhat of a very narrow case just around the issue of whether he ordered the murder of Denis Donaldson or not. It's not going to make them think 'Gerry Adams is a good person to us'.”

He added that “they're going to be very concerned that someone that has so much of a background in republicanism is awarded those sort of damages – particularly given that a lot of [families of] police officers, civilians, and soldiers have got very derisory amounts of money whenever their loved one was murdered”.

Lord Elliott added that “I know families that only got a matter of a few thousand pounds for a loved one when they were murdered, so that's a hugely frustrating position for them”.

He cited one case of the widow of a police sergeant, killed in the mid-1970s, who got roughly £3,000.

That would translate into about £23,000 today – or just over a quarter of the sum awarded to Mr Adams.

Lord Elliott had previously sued then-MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Phil Flanagan over a tweet which asked if Lord Elliott would “reveal how many people he harassed or shot as a member of the UDR” (Lord Elliott served in the regiment, and its successor the Royal Irish Regiment, from 1982 to 1999), and was awarded £48,750.

He said that although the award was nine years ago “I never had any money, even though I've tried a number of occasions different methods”.