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June 6, 2007

Jon Snow accepts apology from Mail on Sunday

By Press Gazette

Jon Snow has said he took ‘the speediest action possible’in accepting an apology from the Mail on Sunday, after the newspaper falsely alleged he had an affair with a woman and smoked cannabis with her.

Speaking to Press Gazette, Snow said: ‘If you are not going to got to court this is the best you can hope for,’adding that he did not believe in journalists suing journalists ‘if at all possible”.

The newspaper printed an apology on page two of this weekend’s edition below a picture of Snow, who, in a statement, had described the allegations and their aftermath as ‘one of the most upsetting and difficult experiences of my life”.

Snow said that the stories, which ran over two weeks in the MoS were ‘entirely fabricated and caused myself, my family and my friends considerable distress”.

The MoS declined to comment further than its weekend apology, which read: ‘Over the last two Sundays we published stories claiming that TV news presenter Jon Snow had an affair with a writer called Precious Williams, and that they smoked cannabis together. There is no truth in these allegations.”

The apology followed the paper’s initial claim, on 20 May, that Snow had had an affair with Berlin-based Williams for the past six years. A second article, published on 27 May, carried a double-page spread in which Williams alleged that the two had smoked cannabis together.

Press Gazette understands that no damages have been paid.

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