Case had been due to go to trial after judge ruled 2022’s The Lost King, which Coogan co-wrote, portrayed claimant as ‘smug, unduly dismissive and patronising’
Steve Coogan and two production companies will pay “substantial damages” to a university academic to settle a high court libel case over his portrayal in a film about the discovery of Richard III’s remains in a Leicester car park in 2012.
Richard Taylor, deputy registrar at the University of Leicester at the time of the find, sued Coogan, his production company Baby Cow, and Pathe Productions for libel over his portrayal in the 2022 film The Lost King, which follows amateur historian Philippa Langley and her search to find the king’s skeleton.
Taylor’s lawyers had asserted previously that he was portrayed in the film as “devious”, “weasel-like” and a “suited bean-counter”.
Judge Lewis had ruled previously that the film portrayed Taylor as having “knowingly misrepresented facts to the media and the public” about the find, and as being “smug, unduly dismissive and patronising”, which had a defamatory meaning.
