Topshop ordered to pay Rihanna's £1m legal bill after it sold T-shirts using image of her

Rihanna has won a permanent ban on Topshop selling T-shirts using her image - and an order that Sir Philip Green’s high street fashion chain must pay her estimated legal costs of almost £1million.

Topshop owners Arcadia Group were ordered by Mr Justice Birss at the High Court to pay £200,000 of this within 14 days, even though he found the size of her bill ‘startling’ and ‘somewhat surprising’.

The Chancery Division judge ruled in July that fans of the 25-year-old singer from Barbados, who was not in court, might have been deceived into thinking that she had endorsed the T-shirt.

Topshop had sold the garment - which bore an image of her taken from a photograph - between March and August 2012. The judge said sale of the T-shirt without her permission was ‘passing off’.

Today, in the latest hearing, Mr Justice Birss ruled that it was ‘right and fair’ that ‘style icon’ Rihanna should be granted an injunction to prevent any future similar wrong use of the 'unflattering' image.

He said Topshop could appeal to the Court of Appeal against his ruling.

But if his decision is upheld, he will then assess the amount of damages due to the singer - and how much is due in legal costs.

The judge said Rihanna's lawyers gave an estimated legal bill of £919,000 - ‘figures I find startling’.

He said he could not safely use those figures to decide what interim payment should be made today to Rihanna pending a full damages assessment. He eventually settled on a ‘reasonable’ £200,000.

Rihanna also sought the return of any unsold T-shirts, but the court in Central London heard that all 12,000 had been sold - and only five were left and kept for the legal action.

The judge had originally found that ‘a substantial number of purchasers are likely to be deceived into buying the T-shirt because of false belief that it has been authorised by Rihanna herself.’

Given her current tie-up with high street rivals River Island, the judge ruled that the Topshop T-shirt would be damaging to the style icon's goodwill and a loss to her merchandising business.