Dingemans J considered the effect of s 1 of the 201 Act: ‘first, a claimant must now establish, in addition to the requirements of the common law relating to defamatory statements, that the statement complained of has in fact caused or is likely to cause serious harm to his reputation. ‘Serious’ is an ordinary word in common usage. Section 1 requires the claimant to prove as a fact, on the balance of probabilities, that the statement complained of has caused or will probably cause serious harm to the claimant’s reputation. It should be noted that unless serious harm to reputation can be established an injury to feelings alone, however grave, will not be sufficient.
Secondly it is open to the claimant to call evidence in support of his case on serious harm and it is open to the defendant to call evidence to demonstrate that no serious harm has occurred or is likely to do so. However, a Court determining the issue of serious harm is, as in all cases, entitled to draw inferences based on the admitted evidence. Mass media publications of very serious defamatory allegations are likely to render the need for evidence of serious harm unnecessary. This does not mean that the issue of serious harm is a ‘numbers game’. Reported cases have shown that very serious harm to a reputation can be caused by the publication of a defamatory statement to one person.
Thirdly there are obvious difficulties in getting witnesses to say that they read the words and thought badly of the claimant, compare Ames v The Spamhouse Project [2015] EWHC 127 (QB) . . This is because the claimant will have an understandable desire not to spread the contents of the article complained of by asking persons if they have read it and what they think of the claimant, and because persons who think badly of the claimant are not likely to co-operate in providing evidence.
Fourthly, where there are publications about the same subject matter which are not the subject of complaint (because of limitation issues or because of jurisdictional issues) there can be difficult points of causation which arise: see Tesla Motors v BBC [2013] EWCA (Civ) 152 and Karpov v Browder and others [2013] EMLR 3071 (QB); [2014] EMLR 8. The decision of the House of Lords in Associated Newspapers v Dingle [1964] AC 371 does not prevent these difficulties. That decision was not a decision on causation. The decision in Dingle prevents a defendant from relying in mitigation of damages for libel on the fact that the same or similar defamatory material has been published in other newspapers about the same claimant. Dingle does not address the issue of whether a publication has caused serious harm.
Fifthly, as Bingham LJ stated in Slipper v BBC [1991] QB 283 at 300, the law would part company with the realities of life if it held that the damage caused by publication of a libel began and ended with publication to the original publishee. Defamatory statements are objectionable not least because of their propensity ‘to percolate through underground channels and contaminate hidden springs’ through what has sometimes been called ‘the grapevine effect’. . . ‘
Dingemans J
[2016] EWHC 66 (QB), [2016] EMLR 12
Bailii
Defamation Act 2013 1
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Economou v De Freitas QBD 27-Jul-2016
Failed action for defamation on rape allegations
The claimant had been accused by the defendant’s daughter of rape. He was never charged but sought to prosecute her alleging intent to pervert the course of justice. She later killed herself. The defendant sought to have the inquest extended to . .
Cited – Turley v Unite The Union and Another QBD 19-Dec-2019
Defamation of Labour MP by Unite and Blogger
The claimant now a former MP had alleged that a posting on a website supported by the first defendant was false and defamatory. The posting suggested that the claimant had acted dishonestly in applying online for a category of membership of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Defamation
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.559169
