BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE tour manager, Mark Strickland has been awarded ?40,000 libel damages by the High Court over a claim he was caught masturbating at work. Mark Stickland said he was portrayed as a "sexual deviant" in the January 2006 edition of music magazine Kerrang!

Publisher Emap Metro had argued the claim, made in an interview with the band Bullet For My Valentine, was true.

Stickland denied the incident, adding the article made him feel "angry, humiliated, hurt and upset".

The article in which the allegation was made warned readers to "prepare to be disgusted" by the "sickest interview ever" with Bullet For My Valentine. It included a comment from the band's drummer Moose - real name Michael Thomas - in which he claimed the band's tour manager in Germany in December 2005 was found masturbating at his desk. Although Mr Stickland was not named directly, he was the band's tour manager at the time.

William McCormic, counsel for Stickland, told the judge that the incident never happened. "What's being said is that when he should have been at work, he engaged in activity which was lewd, sexual and, effectively, he could not control his sexual impulses," McCormic said.

Emap Metro said it was an allegation of clandestine and ordinary sexual behaviour which was not defamatory, and was also true.

Stickland, who has worked for bands in Europe, the US and in Australia, said: "I felt very awkward picking up the phone and asking people for work. The bands I work with are all heavy metal bands and, in the heavy metal business, everyone reads Kerrang!"

The publisher was refused permission to appeal after the unanimous jury verdict, although it can apply directly to the Court of Appeal.