Libel claim brought by a member of the boyband group One Direction, in respect of articles published in the Daily Star and on the Daily Star website and on what was described as the Daily Star YouTube channel. Mr Horan claims that the articles were defamatory of him because, either in their natural and ordinary meaning or by way of true innuendo, ‘the articles meant and were understood to mean that during an evening spent with Justin Bieber and Cody Simpson the Claimant had used hard drugs, namely crystal meth or crack’. The defendants denied that the words bore the meanings claimed. The court now heard an application as to whether the words are capable of bearing a defamatory meaning (not whether the meaning was so carried).
Held: ‘the statement is capable of having the meaning attributed to it in the Particulars of Claim, and that the statement is capable of being defamatory of the Claimant.’
Dingemans J
[2015] EWHC 3550 (QB)
Bailii
England and Wales
Defamation
Updated: 07 January 2022; Ref: scu.556488
