Alex Jones ordered to pay another $45m to parents of Sandy Hook massacre victim

Twenty children and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook in Connecticut in 2012 in what remains the deadliest school shooting in US history.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been ordered to pay another $45.2m (£37.4m) to the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim, a jury has ruled.

He was ordered to pay $4.1m (£3.3m) in damages by a jury on Thursday to the parents of six-year-old Jesse Lewis, who was killed in the school massacre in 2012.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis successfully sued Jones and his media company, Free Speech Systems, for defamation in October 2021.

The Infowars radio programme host had repeatedly claimed the deadliest school shooting in US history was a hoax and staged by gun-control activists using actors.

Twenty children and six adults were shot dead by gunman Adam Lanza, who then killed himself.

Jones has now been ordered to pay $45.2m in punitive damages by a jury in Texas, though this is lower than the $75m (£62m) the family had requested before the ruling.

Punitive damages are those over and above the basic compensation amount, designed to punish the defendant.

Source: https://news.sky.com/story/alex-jones-ordered-to-pay-another-45m-to-parents-of-sandy-hook-massacre-victim-12666589