A claim in respect of an article critical of views expressed by the Claimant on a blog was, on the unusual facts, bound to fail, as a jury would be perverse to find that the blog did not itself justify the defamatory meaning that the Claimant had stated that the killing of British and American troops in Iraq was justified.
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A charitable trust’s claim for defamation was struck out because as an unincorporated association a charitable trust it lacked the capacity to bring a claim for defamation; neither could its trustees bring a claim on behalf of the trust in order to vindicate its reputation.
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Malice plea not struck out where reasonable prospect of success and late amendment refused where vague
A former police detective sergeant and his employer, British Airways, were refused summary judgment on the issue of malice against the claimant, where the former detective sergeant had alleged that he had admitted theft when he had not. It was not possible to say that a jury would be perverse to find his admittedly untrue statement to be malicious. Proposed amendments to add publishees which did not identify individuals or state circumstances from which publication could be inferred were too vag ...
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A libel claim brought by a convicted murderer was struck out as (1) words meaning that he was a “grass” were not defamatory; (2) given his conviction for murder, the publication of allegations that he was the henchman of another criminal did not amount to a real and substantial tort and as such the claim was an abuse of process; and (3) the claim was in any event out of time and no application to disapply the limitation period had been made.
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An allegation in a book review that the Claimant author’s practice of “reflexive ethnography” amounted to the reprehensible practice of giving interviewees copy approval could be a comment rather than a statement of fact, but a defence of fair comment could not stand as the Defendant had no real prospect of establishing that the Claimant did allow interviewees copy approval.
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Claims for slander (in respect of words spoken at a company AGM and to a journalist) and for libel (in respect of words on a foreign website) were struck out as an abuse of process where the evidence was that publication within the jurisdiction was minimal and the Claimants would either achieve no vindication or any award of damages would be so modest as to be disproportionate to the costs and court resources required.
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Claimant accepting unilateral offer of amends entitled to make unilateral statement in open court
Although ss.2-4 of the Defamation Act 1996 did not provide for the making of statements in open court, paragraph 6.1 of the Practice Direction to CPR Part 53 provided that an application to read a unilateral statement may be made “where a party wishes to accept a Part 36 offer or other offer of settlement in relation to a claim for... libel.” There was no injustice to the Defendant in permitting Claimant on the facts to make a unilateral statement in order to draw the settlement to the attention ...
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While words complained of on the Defendant’s website could be considered comment, they related to a specific alleged breach of contract and could not be defended as fair comment under s.6 of the Defamation Act 1952 by relying on another earlier breach of contract which was not referred to in the words complained of.
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A newspaper report of a police investigation into the conduct of the Claimant was the product of responsible journalism on a matter of public interest and so was protected by Reynolds privilege. However the failure of the Defendant to report the Claimant’s exoneration by the Independent Police Complaints Commission rendered the continuing publication of the original report irresponsible and so not the subject of the privilege.
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Words capable of bearing defamatory meaning: The defendant newspaper group’s applications for rulings that that the words complained of were not capable of bearing either of the defamatory meanings contended for were rejected. Jurors would not be perverse to draw the inferences contended for, and there might be a very small class of readers with the knowledge to draw the inference of breach of the league rules contended for by the Claimant.
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