Ben Stokes begins legal action against The Sun over 'family tragedy' story
10 October 2019, 18:58
England cricket start Ben Stokes and his mother have launched legal action against The Sun newspaper over a front page story published about a family tragedy.
Cricketer Ben Stokes has filed legal proceedings against The Sun after it published a front-page story about a family tragedy that happened more than three decades ago.
The cricketer lambasted the newspaper when it published "extremely painful, sensitive and personal details" about his family last month, condemning it as "utterly disgusting."
The front-page story on September 17 concerned a family tragedy involving the 28-year-old's mother, Deborah Stokes, some 31 years ago.
The case is listed as an intellectual property claim related to copyright.
In a post on Twitter - which received thousands of retweets, likes and supportive comments - Stokes said a reporter had turned up at his parents' home in New Zealand "out of the blue" to ask them about the tragedy.
The Sun responded that it had contacted Stokes before printing the article and "at no stage did he or his representatives ask us not to publish the story."
It reported in its story that the couple and the cricketer had declined to comment.
It comes after the Duke of Sussex announced legal action against the publisher of the Sun and and the Daily Mirror newspapers over alleged phone hacking.
