Published: Saturday, 27th June, 2009 5:00pm

Have-a-go hero wins libel case over council

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A HAVE-A-GO-HERO who was branded a potentially violent trouble maker by council chiefs after bravely standing up to a destructive drunken yob has won a hefty High Court payout.

Jane Clift, 42, was awarded £12,000 after being left humiliated by Slough Borough Council"s decision to add her name to a blacklist and issue a warning to its staff to only approach her in pairs following an incident in August 2005 where she had told a small boy to stop trampling a flower bed in Sheffield Road only to be confronted by an abusive drunk.

Ms Clift told the jury how her life in Slough had become unbearable because of the stigma attached to the blacklisting and felt forced to relocate to Birmingham after her name was distributed to numerous health and government agencies in the area.

Her QC, Hugh Tomlinson, claimed that his client was unfairly labelled a trouble maker by Slough Borough Council after becoming a 'thorn in its side" by pursuing complaints against its staff.

He said: 'The council was so irritated by her persistence that they thought the way to deal with this was by putting her on the violent person"s register because nobody would then take her seriously.'

Slough Borough Council are now expected to be counting the costs of a potentially devastating defeat after an expensive week-long trial which leaves a legal costs bill approaching half-a-million pounds.

Council chiefs have responded by claiming that they acted in good faith throughout their dealings with the former care worker, who told the court how she felt physically intimidated by the man who joined in to trample the flowers threatening to 'smash the lot".

A spokeswoman for Slough Borough Council said: 'The jury found that what we recorded about Ms Clift was not true, but they were not prepared to find that we acted in bad faith.

'With regards to court costs, these will be met by our Insurers who defended the case in court. The council will only pay an excess of £2,000.'