THE TIMES has been forced to apologise and pay damages of £30,000 over a defamatory article that the complainant said showed hostility towards Muslim activists.

The newspaper also paid the legal costs of the Cage organisation and its outreach director Moazzam Begg over the story published in June, which was online for less than 24 hours before being pulled.

The Times had wrongly suggested that Cage – which aims “to empower communities impacted by the war on terror” – and Mr Begg were supporting a man who had been arrested on suspicion of carrying out the Reading knife attack on June 20 this year, in which three men were murdered.