Application to determine meanings.
Held: When asked to determine the meanings in a statement alleged to be defamatory, the court is not restricted to the meaning put forward by the parties: ‘The test is that of the ‘ordinary reader’. That concept is wide enough to embrace, in cases such as the present, the readers of a specialist publication, who are likely to bring a degree of specialist background knowledge to their interpretation. This factor is likely to be of particular significance when considering possible innuendo meanings. The court will not, of course, simply ignore the parties’ meanings or counsel’s submissions about them. It is, however, when these come to be addressed in the course of a judgment that the risk becomes most acute of being drawn into too much analysis – especially when explaining why any of those submissions are being rejected.’
Sir David Eady
[2014] EWHC 874 (QB)
Bailii
Defamation Act 2013 11
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Hamaizia and Another v The Commissioner of Police for The Metropolis QBD 21-Oct-2014
The two claimants, each convicted of serious offences of false imprisonment and violent assault, complained of a press release issued by the defendant which, they said accused them of involvement in a murder.
Held: The words complained of did . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Updated: 20 January 2022; Ref: scu.523306