Milly Dowler's family join anti-Jackson lobby

The Dowler family have called on David Cameron and Nick Clegg to halt their government’s reform of the ‘no win, no fee’ system.

The family warn the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will significantly weaken the ‘no win, no fee’ mechanisms they used to fight their recently concluded case against News International.

In their letter to Cameron and Clegg, the family of the murdered teenager write that they could not have afforded to fund the legal action against News International for the hacking by the ‘News of the World’ of the 13 year old’s phone.

Without being able to insure themselves against the risk of losing the case, the letter states that they would not have even been able to threaten to mount it.

“We could not have [reached a settlement] without a ‘no win, no fee’ agreement … We understand that the new law will affect thousands of people who want to sue News International and other newspapers.

“We had understood that you were on the side of the people not the press. Please do not change the law so that the ability to sue papers is lost …

“We are sure that you do not want to go down in history as the prime minister who took rights away from ordinary people so that large companies could print whatever they like and break the law without [anyone] being able to challenge them.”

Responding to the letter, Law Society chief executive Des Hudson said: “We welcome – and are humbled by – the intervention of the Dowler family in this debate. The only winners from the government’s proposed changes in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will be insurance companies and large corporations, that will now have to pay out hundreds of millions of pounds less when they commit negligence or other wrongs. The losers will be the victims of wrongdoing, who will in future be simply too intimidated by the financial risks to seeking redress.”

The Law Society has launched the Sound Off for Justice campaign in a bid to persuade the government to rethink its Jackson review-inspired reforms.