William Hay v Nina Cresswell
[2023] EWHC 882 (KB)
Dale Vince OBE v Associated Newspapers Limited
15 July 2024
[2024] EWHC 1806 (KB)
High Court
Someone sued the Daily Mail for libel, claiming a headline and pictures implied they were accused of something bad, even though the full article didn't say that. The court threw out the case, saying you have to look at the whole article, not just the headline, and that the claim was based on a bad assumption.
Key Facts
- •Dale Vince, a green energy industrialist and activist, sued Associated Newspapers (publisher of the Daily Mail) for libel.
- •The Daily Mail published an article about Labour Party donations, mentioning Vince's donation and his participation in a protest.
- •Vince claimed libel not based on the article's natural meaning but on an innuendo meaning.
- •The innuendo claim focused on the headline, photographs, and caption, arguing that they implied Vince was accused of sexual harassment.
- •Associated Newspapers applied to strike out the claim.
- •Vince's claim relied on the assertion that a significant number of readers only read the headline, photos, and caption, and not the article itself.
Legal Principles
In libel claims, the meaning of a publication is determined by how the ordinary, reasonable reader would understand it, considering the publication as a whole (bane and antidote).
Charleston v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1995] 2 AC 65
Innuendo meaning requires proving extrinsic facts known to some readers which give the statement a defamatory meaning not apparent from the words themselves. The hypothetical reader must reach a reasonable conclusion, not mere conjecture.
Grubb v Bristol United Press Ltd [1963] 1 QB 309; Morgan v Odhams Press Ltd [1971] 1 WLR 1239
A libel claim cannot be founded on a headline, photos, or captions in isolation from the related text. The readership cannot be partitioned into groups based on what parts of the article they read; the reasonable reader is assumed to have read the whole article.
Charleston v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1995] 2 AC 65
On a strike-out application, the court must be certain the claim is bound to fail. If the court is not certain, the case should not be struck out, particularly in areas of developing jurisprudence.
Hughes & Ors v Richards [2004] EWCA Civ 266; Barrett v Enfield London Borough Council [2001] 2 AC 550
Outcomes
The defendant's application to strike out the claim was granted.
The court found the claimant's innuendo argument was based on an unprovable and inherently flawed premise that headlines, photographs, and captions always accurately summarise an article. The court held that the principle in *Charleston* applies equally to innuendo claims, requiring the entire article to be considered. Therefore, the claim, even if considered an innuendo case, was bound to fail as the article as a whole was not defamatory.