Lawyer's hard fight to rebuild reputation after he was libelled by Shropshire 'troll'

Will Richmond-Coggan, who represented Colorado-based lawyer Timothy Bussey, said his client still did not know who was ultimately behind the online attack.

Jason Page, from Telford, was hit with a £100,000 legal bill after anonymously posting a review online which described Mr Bussey as a "scumbag" and accused him of paying for his firm's online reviews – although he denied the accusations saying his account was hacked.

Mr Richmond-Coggan said: "Because we still have not got to the bottom of who put Mr Page up to it, my client has not been able to completely put all this behind him. But he is delighted with the result and to have obtained a decision of the court which has established beyond doubt the review that was published was untrue.

"I think this was an underhand commercial strategy by someone to attack and damage my client's business.

"That is the way we see it and that is what the court thought on balance happened. That sort of underhanded strategy of attacking people by paying for fake reviews to build up their own business is not something the courts will tolerate, and this decision shows if you have suffered from that there are remedies and ways to take action and protect your business."

He said Mr Bussey was more concerned about rebuilding his reputation and establishing who was ultimately behind the posts, rather than the £50,000 damages he will receive.

He said: "It has been firstly extremely expensive for him but also it has been very stressful and he flew over to England to give evidence in the trial because of how important it was for him and how upset he was. The judge took a lot of notice that he actually came and gave evidence."

He added: "I was contacted by Mr Bussey at the beginning of 2014 but by that point it had already been going on a year. The post was anonymous so he first had to get disclosure of Google's records in the United States and that process took quite a long time and only then did he realise it had happened in England."

The trial failed to establish why Mr Bussey's law firm was targeted and by whom. Mr Page denied posting the review on The Bussey Law Firm's Google Maps profile so any motivation behind the fake review could not be established.

Mr Richmond-Coggan said: "But the judge's conclusion is the most likely explanation was he had been paid to do it by persons unknown."