BBC told to pay Taranissi £500 000 to cover costs of changing libel defence

The High Court this week ordered the BBC to pay the obstetrician and gynaecologist Mohamed Taranissi an estimated £500 000 (€620 000; $850 000) in costs after the corporation dropped part of its defence to a libel action he is pursuing against it.

Mr Taranissi’s claim centres on a Panorama television programme, IVF Undercover, broadcast in January 2007, which he argues damaged his reputation by making defamatory allegations about his in vitro fertilisation practice. The programme, he alleges, claimed that he had been offering unnecessary and unproved therapies and operating one of his clinics without a licence.

The BBC has abandoned its reliance …