The couple arrested and released without charge in relation to the Gatwick drone incident could win at least £75,000 from the newspapers who identified them, according to a leading libel lawyer.

Mark Stephens, head of media law at Howard Kennedy, said they had a strong legal case if they wished to pursue legal action. “Absent of a compelling reason and the police saying you can, you may no longer identify people who have been arrested.

“The damage is likely to be in the region of £75,000 to £125,000. It could be more when you total all of the news outlets, because each one is going to pay something for the damage it caused. I don’t see any lawyer who wouldn’t take it on a no-win-no-fee basis.”

Stephens said the case is the first major test of privacy law since Sir Cliff Richard’s landmark privacy victory against the BBC earlier this year, which set a higher bar for naming individuals who have been arrested but not charged.

The couple were taken in for questioning on Friday, with Sussex police confirming only that a 47-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman from Crawley had been arrested in relation to the incident, which saw one of the world’s busiest airports effectively shut down for 36 hours in the run-up to Christmas.

They were identified in many newspapers and the Mail on Sunday ran the couple’s picture on its front page next to the headline: “Are these the morons who ruined Christmas?”

Later that day, while the newspapers were still in the shops, Sussex police announced they had released the couple without charge.

Not all parts of the media named the couple, with most broadcasters and some national newspapers, including the Observer, deciding to stick to the police statement.

The couple later identified themselves as Paul Gait and Elaine Kirk, making a public statement outside their home on Christmas Eve in which they said they felt “completely violated” by the arrest and subsequent coverage.

“Our home has been searched and our privacy and identity completely exposed,” said Gait. “Our names, photos and other personal information has been broadcast throughout the world.”

Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan has already apologised for calling the pair “clowns” and suggesting they were “terrorists”.

It is unclear whether the couple are currently planning legal action, but a spokesperson for the Hacked Off press reform campaign group said the incident showed the need for tougher press regulation.

“Once again, innocent members of the public have been subjected to appalling accusations in a newspaper over a crime they did not commit,” they said. “Almost eight years to the day since Christopher Jefferies was vilified in the press for a murder he had no part in, the targeting of this couple shows that when it comes to press standards at some titles, nothing has changed since the Leveson Inquiry.”

The Sun’s former political editor Trevor Kavanagh has defended newspapers’ decision to name the couple, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday that the information came from neighbours of the couple and publication helped “hasten the process of the law”.

“Were it not for the press, I don’t think the police would have been so quick to discover this particular suspect had a cast-iron, watertight alibi,” he said.

The broader media handling of the Gatwick drone incident has descended into farce, with a Sussex police officer on Sunday raising the “possibility” that there never had been a drone in the first place.

By Monday, the police had backtracked, blaming “poor communications” in a phone call with government ministers and insisting that there had definitely been a drone.

In an attempt to get a grip on the incident, security minister Ben Wallace issued a statement insisting the government could cope with another drone incident, although he did not give details about the technology involved. “The huge proliferation of such devices, coupled with the challenges of deploying military counter measures into a civilian environment, means there are no easy solutions.

“However, I can say that we are able to now deploy detection systems throughout the UK to combat this threat.”

Gatwick has offered a £50,000 reward through Crimestoppers to individuals with information on the real perpetrators of the disruption, with the charity’s boss Lord Ashcroft offering a further £10,000.