A city worker whose damaging email accusations smearing a Battersea mini cab firm cost it thousands of pounds, has been forced to publicly apologise.

ABC Cars' trade was slashed by 40 per cent after Helen Dawson, a marketing officer with the Chartered Institute of Managing Accountants (CIMA), claimed a woman driver had attacked an unnamed female friend.

She advised the 20 email recipients on October 29 last year to forward it to female friends in the Clapham area "who think they would be safer requesting a female driver".

But St John Hill-based ABC, whose business has had an outstanding reputation across south London, launched the landmark libel fight after the email spread like wildfire across London.

Though admitting an angry dispute over fares had arisen between Ms Dawson's friend and the driver, which had been resolved amicably on the night, the firm denied there was any attack.

No formal complaint about an alleged attack was ever made to police or the firm itself.

This week's settlement was brokered by an independent mediator after hours of intensive talks.

Agreeing to pay ABC's legal costs up until December, Ms Dawson has issued a public apology to ABC, which is to be circulated among the original recipients. She has already been internally reprimanded by CIMA.

She admits the email was sent after her friend said she had been attacked but it was never her intention to damage the firm's business.

"Everyone has been a victim and there hasn't been anyone involved with this who hasn't suffered," she says.

ABC's co-owner Sonny Rehal, who founded the firm with Peter Edwards in 1986, said he was relieved the case did not end up in a multi-hundred-thousand pound court case.

He said he wanted to thank customers who had stuck by the firm but said it would take years to build up the business again.

"A lesser company would have gone under.

"It's our good reputation which has carried us through this email storm."

Though no case over defamatory emails has ever reached court, existing legislation says the hundreds of people who forwarded the email could have been sued, together with any companies whose email system was used.

Mediator Rod Banner said: "People must ask themselves is there any way I'm potentially damaging someone's business is what I'm saying valid and accurate or is it an opinion I am passing around?'

"If it is, firms can sue for hundreds of thousands of pounds."

January 31, 2003 16:30