Allegations on the Sunday Herald’s online message board have led to the paper paying out £25,000 to politician Lord George Robertson.

The money was an out-of-court agreement reached after Lord Robertson had demanded £200,000 damages for defamation.

The anonymous message board contribution appeared in February 2003 in response to an article the paper ran on the 100-year rule being applied to documents relating to the Dunblane massacre.

Robertson himself alerted the paper, and the message boards were suspended while the offending material was removed.

He later began legal action, claiming that because of the worldwide audience the newspaper website had, he feared that “the effect of the allegations made would diminish his chances of obtaining a suitable position following his standing down from his Nato post at the end of 2003″.

The Herald said that part of the website had just 37 “hits” during the time the message was there, and decided to contest the claim.

But because it was an out-of-court settlement, the allegation – that the newspaper was responsible for defamation through an anonymous website posting – was never tested. It would have been the first time a Scottish court had ruled on such a matter.

The Defamation Act 1996 says the Sunday Herald would have had to establish that it was not the publisher of the comments and that it must not have known or had reason to know there was a defamatory statement on the website.

The paper’s case hinged on its defence of “innocent dissemination”, that it did not know it was circulating such a statement.

The paper’s legal advisor Peter Watson said: “The Sunday Herald became the victim of an anonymous contribution which they knew nothing about at the time it was made, but when alerted to it, they acted promptly.”

Lord Robertson said afterwards: “While I deeply regret that I was forced to seek legal redress, I am glad that the paper’s management has accepted their misjudgment through settling this action.”

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