A DISENDORSED Family First candidate’s attempts to sue columnist Andrew Bolt over an email sent to two people has backfired with a judge ordering him to pay $500,000 in legal costs.

David Barrow, a former Family First candidate, refused several settlement offers including an early offer that he walk away without paying anything to finalise the long-running matter, but is now facing financial ruin after the matter went to trial.

Justice Terence Forrest this morning delivered a robust judgment before ordering Mr Barrow to pay $500,000 toward the legal costs of Mr Bolt and his employer, the Herald and Weekly Times.

Mr Barrow consented to the award of costs against him.

“The defamatory imputations were trivial and obviously made under qualified privilege. If the claim was the first salvo in Mr Barrow’s threatened ‘innovative stormwave of defamation claims’ against Mr Bolt, then it has failed conspicuously,” Justice Forrest wrote in his judgment.

Mr Barrow claims that Mr Bolt defamed him in the email because of his long-time criticism of the columnist.

The email at the centre of the case was sent in February 2012 by Mr Bolt to a managing editor in response to a Press Council complaint lodged by Mr Barrow.

In the email, Mr Bolt said Mr Barrow was in his opinion a vexatious litigant who wanted to stifle debate.

Lawyers for Mr Bolt conceded the email was defamatory, but successfully argued it was protected by qualified privilege.

Prior to the email, Mr Barrow says he had written to the Herald Sun nine times to ­complain about Mr Bolt, complaints he says caused five ­articles to be taken down.