On 8 October 2026, The Independent apologised to the British filmmaker Beau Kerouac in the case of Kerouac v Independent Digital News & Media Ltd through the making of a joint Statement in Open Court, (which can be found here), before Mr Justice Eardley, as well as publishing an agreed apology on their website.

The Facts

On 4 February 2025, a legal claim was issued in the New York State Supreme Court against Beau Kerouac alleging serious fraudulent activities in respect of the production and distribution of a documentary film titled: “RAWI – The Storyteller”.

The allegations made in respect of Beau Kerouac were false and he believed they had been made maliciously and with the intention of damaging his good reputation and standing in the film industry.

On 7 February 2025, The Independent published an article on its website entitled: “‘Aspiring Artist’ Accused of Faking Hollywood Career to Swindle Movie Investors out of $500K”.  The natural and ordinary meaning of the article was that it was reasonably suspected that Beau Kerouac had committed a large-scale fraud.  This was not true.

Subsequently, on 17 June 2025, the legal claim that had been brought in New York was voluntarily discontinued by the claimants.  As a result, all claims against Beau Kerouac were formally dismissed by the court and the legal proceedings were brought to an end.

On 4 July 2025, Beau Kerouac wrote to the reporter at The Independent who had written the original piece five months earlier and notified him that the legal claim had been discontinued voluntarily and asked that the article containing these false allegations about him be taken down from their website, or at the very least updated to reflect the accurate position.

The “Update”

On 21 July 2025, The Independent added the following wording to the article, which they continued to publish on their website:

“Update: The case against Beau Kerouac was dismissed on 6/17/25.  As the case was dismissed at an early stage, the court did not make a finding in favour of either party in terms of liability”.

This “update” was not accurate.  It suggested there may be some substance to the allegations, but the court had not been afforded the opportunity to consider them.  This misrepresented the position.  The “update” should have informed readers that the legal claim had been discontinued by the claimants voluntarily and it should have made clear that no findings of liability, fraud or wrongdoing had been made against Beau Kerouac.

Dissatisfied with the action taken by The Independent, Beau Kerouac contacted them and made a formal complaint.  Their response was that the article was a fair and accurate report of the court proceedings in New York and as such was protected by the defence of qualified privilege.  They also said they would be relying on an exemption under the right to be forgotten, although the basis for this reliance was not explained or immediately apparent.

The Independent made it clear that should legal proceedings be issued they would be defended vigorously.  In light of their response, Beau Kerouac sought specialist legal advice.

The Libel Claim

On 4 February 2026, Beau Kerouac issued libel proceedings against Independent Digital News & Media, the publishers of The Independent newspaper.

A point of interest for legal practitioners is that although one of the central issues to Beau Kerouac’s complaint was that the “update” which was added to the article in July 2025 was inaccurate and misrepresented the legal position, from a limitation perspective it was arguable that time started to run upon publication of the original version of the article, in February 2025.

In his claim, Beau Kerouac relied on the case of Qadir v Associated Newspapers Ltd, which relates to the reporting by the press of litigation, legal statements of case and court hearings.  In Qadir, it was held that the Mail on Sunday could not rely on the defence of qualified privilege on the facts of that case, because what they had published in respect of the court hearing and the documents that had been filed at court did not amount to a ‘fair and accurate’ report.

Applying Qadir to the facts of Beau Kerouac’s case, once the claim in New York had been voluntarily discontinued, this should have been reported accurately in the “update”.  In fact, arguably the article could have been taken down in its entirety once the claim had been discontinued; why should The Independent continue to publish such serious allegations about Beau Kerouac in these circumstances?

Following negotiations, the claim was resolved in Beau Kerouac’s favour with the above-mentioned public apology made in the High Court in which The Independent apologised to Beau Kerouac for the considerable distress and embarrassment caused to him by the article.  In addition, they agreed to pay him damages, his legal costs and to remove permanently the article from their website, which is perhaps something they ought to have considered doing in July 2025.

Beau Kerouac was represented by Alex Cochrane, Partner, and Lucy Agombar, Trainee Solicitor, at Edwards Duthie Shamash Solicitors and we instructed William Bennett KC and Sam Rowe, both of 5RB.