Infowars host Alex Jones ordered to pay $473m more to Sandy Hook families

Conspiracy theorist must pay punitive damages on top of nearly $1bn jury verdict for falsely claiming 2012 shooting was hoax

The conspiracy theorist Alex Jones must pay $473m in punitive damages on top of a nearly $1bn verdict handed down last month for his defamatory claims about the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting, a Connecticut judge ruled on Thursday.

The ruling comes a month after a jury in Waterbury, Connecticut, found Jones must pay more than a dozen relatives of Sandy Hook victims $965m in compensatory damages for falsely claiming they were actors who staged the shooting as part of a government plot to seize Americans' guns.