Prostitute? Interpreter? All the same to the Sindo!

Oh I"m very happy about this. Not only were Liam Lawlor's poor family put through the horror of tabloid hacks at their worst, but that poor woman was besmirched and her reputation sullied by the rags. 'A teenage prostitute' I believe she was described.
From the indo, hee....

Ukrainian woman Julia Kushnir has settled her libel action against all five newspapers over their reporting of the Liam Lawlor Moscow car crash which she survived.

A number of apologies have been read out in court on behalf of the papers accepting that the articles wrongly referring to the translator as "hooker" should not have been written.

The 31-year-old, who lives in Prague, was working as an interpreter for Mr Lawlor in October 2005 when the car they were travelling in crashed between Moscow Airport and the city centre.

The former Fianna Fail TD and his Russian driver were killed.

Articles appeared in a number of papers over the following days referring to the girl who was travelling with Mr Lawlor as a prostitute.

She settled her action against The Observer at an earlier date for €100,000.

Ms Kushnir sued the Irish Independent, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday Tribune, the Sunday Mirror and the Sunday World for libel.

The latter was due to start this morning, but the jury was told that all cases had been settled.

Apologies were read out stating that the articles, including one which was headlined "Lawlor smash girl is a hooker", were totally false and grossly unfair to her and her family and that she had never worked as a prostitute.

She has also received substantial damages thought to be in excess of €500,000.