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Friday, October 10, 2008, 07:30
Duncan Fairhurst was sexually abused by his father for ten years.
In 2004 Clifford Fairhurst was jailed at Lincoln Crown Court for 11 years after he was convicted of indecent assault and rape.
Duncan Fairhurst then wrote about the abuse and investigation in his autobiography Our Little Secret.
In it, police handling of the case is criticised and detective constables Kevin Gooch and Alison Smith are identified as officers dealing with the investigation.
Now Mr Fairhurst and publisher Hodder & Stoughton have been forced to pay an undisclosed sum of money to DCs Gooch and Smith after they brought libel proceedings against them.
At the High Court Jeremy Clarke-Williams, solicitor for DCs Gooch and Smith, said: "Both Mr Fairhurst and Hodder & Stoughton acknowledge that DC Gooch and DC Smith were not in anyway incompetent in their conduct of the investigation."
Another part of the book, which was published in 2007, focuses on whether or not Mr Fairhurst's father left a suicide note when he attempted to kill himself by taking an overdose.
The impression is then given, the court heard, that DC Alison Smith lied or set out to mislead Mr Fairhurst about the existence of such a note.
DCs Gooch and Smith said: "We are very satisfied with the successful outcome of our libel proceedings.
"We are pleased that there has been an unreserved withdrawal of the implications made about us in the book and accept the apology given."
Duncan Fairhurst and Hodder & Stoughton declined to comment.
For more on the High Court case, see Friday's Echo
Duncan Fairhurst.
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