Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones should pay 965 million dollars (£869 million) to people who suffered from his false claim that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax, a jury in the US decided on Wednesday.
The verdict is the second big judgment against the Infowars host over his relentless promotion of the false conspiracy theory that the 2012 massacre never happened, and that the grieving families seen in news coverage were actors hired as part of a plot to take away people’s guns. It came in a claim filed by the relatives of five children and three teachers killed in the mass shooting, plus an FBI agent who was among the first emergency services at the scene.
A Texas jury in August awarded nearly 50 million dollars (£45 million) to the parents of another murdered child. Some plaintiffs hugged in the courtroom after the verdict was read.
