A former Welsh mayor became the first Briton to be ordered to pay libel damages over a Twitter entry after a political rival sued him in the high court, a report said on Saturday. Colin Elsbury, a former mayor in the south Wales town of Caerphilly had tweeted ahead of a council election that his independent challenger Eddie Talbot had been "forcibly removed" from a polling station by police before realising that it was a case of mistaken identity, The Times newspaper said.
Although Elsbury later tried to correct the tweet, Talbot took him to court in the Welsh capital Cardiff where a judge on Friday handed down a fine of £3,000 (about 3,500 euros) and ordered him to pay costs of around £50,000 as well as apologise publicly to Talbot on his Twitter feed.
"This was a genuine case of mistaken identity which I have acknowledged," Elsbury, a member of the Welsh nationalist Plaid Cymru party, said after the verdict. "This case will no doubt act as a warning to people, including politicians, to be extremely careful when using Twitter and other social media such as blogs."
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