Adoption of defamatory statements

Galloway v Telegraph Group Ltd CA TLR 6 February

English libel law to date has treated a defendant’s adoption of defamatory statements made by others as fatal to a defence of qualified privilege. However, the question might arise in an appropriate case of whether the law should be more flexible. The tenor of the European Court of Human Rights’ decisions seems to support a more flexible approach in which the nature and extent of any adoption of the report would be no more than a factor, albeit an important factor, in deciding how the balance should be struck on the facts of a particular case. However, in the present case the defendant had published allegations which were seriously defamatory of the claimant, the sting of the libel being that the claimant used monies diverted from the Iraqi oil-for-food programme for personal enrichment. The newspaper did not seek to justify the defamatory statements as true: its case was that the public had a right to know the contents of the documents, even if they were defamatory of the claimant and irrespective of whether the factual content was true or not. The newspaper had not neutrally reported the contents of the documents: it had not only adopted the allegations in the documents, but embraced them with relish and fervour and even embellished them. The newspaper had no duty to publish the material to the effect that the claimant was an ‘MP in Saddam’s pay’ without putting that allegation to him and the judge therefore rejected the defence of qualified privilege. In any event, the balance of the parties’ rights fell on the side of the claimant and not the newspaper.