Key Facts
- •Two secondary school teachers (Claimants) sued four defendants (including trustees and governors of Stanborough School) for libel, misuse of private information, and negligent misstatement.
- •The defendants provided a reference stating 'some safeguarding issues' during the claimants' employment.
- •The claimants deny any safeguarding issues and claim the reference led to withdrawn job offers.
- •The court heard a trial of preliminary issues concerning the meaning of the statement, whether it was defamatory, and whether it was fact or opinion.
- •The disputed statement was contained within an email chain related to a reference request form that included a question about allegations or concerns relating to the safety and welfare of children.
Legal Principles
Determining the single natural and ordinary meaning of words; the meaning a reasonable reader would understand.
Jones v Skelton [1963] 1 WLR 1362, Koutsogiannis v Random House Group Ltd [2019] EWHC 48 (QB)
Chase levels of meaning in defamation: (1) guilt of the act; (2) reasonable grounds to suspect guilt; (3) grounds to investigate.
Chase v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2003] EMLR 11, Brown v Bowyer [2017] EWHC 2637 (QB), White v Express Newspapers [2014] EWHC 657 (QB)
Repetition rule: a publication conveying rumour or allegation doesn't bear a lesser defamatory meaning than the original.
Stern v Piper [1997] QB 123, Brown v Bowyer [2017] EWHC 2637 (QB)
A statement is defamatory if it would tend to lower the plaintiff's estimation in the eyes of right-thinking members of society.
Skuse v Granada Television Limited [1996] EMLR 278
Contextual factors considered when assessing meaning: common knowledge, part of the publication, directly available context.
Riley v Murray [2020] EWHC 977 (QB)
Outcomes
The court found the statement 'During the time when she worked at the School, she did something that gave rise to a safeguarding issue...' to be the natural and ordinary meaning of the reference.
The court rejected the claimants' more serious interpretation of 'proven abuse' and the defendants' less serious interpretation of 'concerns or allegations'. The court considered the context of the email chain and concluded that the reasonable reader would understand the statement to mean that something happened causing harm or risk of harm to a child.
The court found this meaning to be defamatory at common law.
It met the threshold of lowering the claimant's estimation in the eyes of right-thinking members of society.