Alex Jones ordered to pay £3.3m to Sandy Hook victim's parents

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, on Thursday, has been ordered to pay £3.3m in damages to the parents of a Sandy Hook shooting victim after falsely claiming that the 2012 massacre was a hoax.

BBC reported that a Texas jury awarded compensatory damages for the emotional distress that Alex's company caused when it suggested that the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was a hoax staged to justify gun control. There were 20 children and six teachers killed at the time.

Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, parents of Jesse Lewis, a 6-year-old killed at Sandy Hook, brought the defamation lawsuit. During testimony in the trial this week, Alex Jones disowned fabrications that his companies had actively promoted for several years.

The conspiracy theorist conceded that the deadliest U.S. school shooting was "100 per cent real" and not a "false flag" operation as he had previously claimed. Alex also expressed remorse for "unintentionally" hurting people's feelings.

Heslin and Lewis had requested as much as £146.6 million in compensation for 10 years of emotional torture. They claimed the death threats and harassment by strangers, who wrongly believed they faked their kid's death, made their lives a "living hell."

The Washington Post reported that Alex Jones, who hosts the "InfoWars" radio show and webcast, has been prohibited from major social media platforms for abuse and hate speech. However, his site continues to attract a significant number of audiences. As per Similarweb, InforWars hosted almost eight million visits in July.

The American conservative has already been found liable by default judgement in three lawsuits filed in Texas and Connecticut after failing to disclose relevant information the court requested. However, this is the first time the jury has agreed to financial damages.

A lawyer revealed, ahead of Thursday's decision, that Alex Jones' attorney had inadvertently sent him two years of texts from his client's phone. It added that a congressional panel investigating last year's U.S. Capitol riot had already requested access to the messages.

The committee has said Alex Jokes helped organise the rally that took place before the riot, according to NPR. Meanwhile, despite retracting his claims about Sandy Hook, the conspiracy theorist has continued using his platform to attack jurors and the judge in the case.