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Trouble at The Mill

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Cormac Kehoe

IN OCTOBER 2024 Mill Media launched The Londoner - describing it as “a new quality newspaper for London, delivered via email“. On 20 October 2025 it received notice that one Claudio Di Giovanni had filed a libel suit. This followed reporting in August of Di Giovanni's activities in the London property market - he has rented flats to let out on AirBnB and the like. Unusually, its contributor Cormac Kehoe also faces a personal claim for £250,000.

As Mill Media proprietor Joshi Herrman tells it, the pressure started three days before publication. when “Di Giovanni emailed us demanding that we disclose the sources and the documents we were relying upon, and threatened us with ‘immediate legal proceedings’ if we didn’t acquiesce. He offered no substantive responses to the claims in the story or the questions we had asked him.” Cormac jhad, he said, put these assiduously. Mill Media decided to publicise the claim on 30 January 2026.

A few days after publication Di Giovanni sent copies of papers that appeared to show that he had brought a personal claim for £5000 against Cormac in the county court; jusgment was entered agaisnt Cormac for £10,000 . Cormac and Mill Media are challenging this, saying among other things that the papers were not properly served.

The Freelance is waiting to hear from Mill Media and Cormac.