Court dismisses libel claim against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner

Knowles J at the High Court has dismissed a libel claim against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner over the publication of a press release relating to the outcome of the claimant’s criminal trial. The court accepted the Commissioner’s defence that the release was substantially true, pursuant to section 2 of the Defamation Act 2013.

The court also rejected the claimant’s argument that he had suffered serious harm to his reputation, on the basis that he was unable to demonstrate that it was the publication of the release which had caused serious harm, in the context of widespread press attention on his criminal trial, which covered the same issues, and his lack of evidence on this issue.

Background

Spicer v Metropolitan Police Commissioner [2021] EWHC 1099 (QB) arose out of the claimant’s prosecution for causing death by dangerous driving and causing serious injury by dangerous driving. He was acquitted of these offences, but convicted of careless driving.

On the day of the verdicts, the Metropolitan Police published a press release on its website entitled ‘Two guilty of killing a woman while racing their cars’. In the body of the press release, it was made clear that the claimant had been acquitted of the more serious charges, and had only been convicted of careless driving.

The claimant brought a libel claim against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner as the individual legally responsible for the publication of the release.

Preliminary hearing

At an earlier preliminary hearing, it was determined that the meaning of the press release was, in summary, that the claimant had taken part in a car race with another driver, that he was reasonably suspected of being jointly responsible with that driver for causing the death of a pedestrian, and he was arrested for, charged with, tried for and acquitted of those charges, but was found guilty and convicted of careless driving. In his judgment ([2019] EWHC 1439 (QB)), Warby J referenced the established legal principle that the meaning of a published article must be assessed on the basis of the article as a whole, and that a claimant cannot bring a libel claim in respect of a defamatory headline, in circumstances where the headline is “neutralised” in the body of the article. In this case, the impact of the headline was found to be “blunted” by the rest of the piece, which made it clear that the claimant had been found not guilty at trial.

The racing allegation was held to be at the most serious ‘Chase Level one’ of meaning, pursuant to the leading case, Chase v News Group Newspapers [2002] EWHC 1101. Warby J held that the report of the claimant’s arrest, charge and acquittal of the offences was a ‘Chase Level two’ imputation that there were reasonable grounds to suspect guilt of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving.

The issues for trial

The Commissioner argued that:

1. the meaning of the press release as determined by the court was substantially true, for the purposes of section 2 of the 2013 Act;
2. it was protected by absolute (or, alternatively, qualified) privilege as a fair and accurate report of proceedings in court, pursuant to sections 14 or 15 of the Defamation Act 1996; and
3. the claimant had not suffered serious harm as a result of the publication, as required by section 1 of the 2013 Act.

Truth of the allegations

The Commissioner’s defence of truth was upheld. The case was an interesting example of the sifting of the elements of the sting of the defamatory allegation into:

• those which went to the substance of the allegation; and
• those which were on the periphery.

For example, the element that the claimant was “racing” when the accident occurred (and not just driving carelessly) went to the substance, whereas whether the purpose of the driving was specifically in order to determine who had the fastest car was peripheral. As defendant, the Commissioner had to prove only those elements which went to the substance of the allegation.

On that basis, the Commissioner’s defence of truth was upheld.

Privilege

Knowles J stated that he did not need to address the issue of privilege in order to decide the case, but commented that had he been required to do so, he would not have upheld the defence of privilege in respect of the press release as a whole. However, the paragraphs which reported on the court proceedings did so fairly and accurately and would have been covered by absolute privilege, pursuant to section 14 of the 1996 Act. These paragraphs did not lose the protection of privilege as a result of any extraneous material included elsewhere in the press release which was not privileged.

Serious harm: Importance of establishing causation

The claimant was unsuccessful in establishing that he suffered serious harm to his reputation as a result of the publication of the press release, in the context of extensive media coverage of the criminal trial, dealing with the same issues as the release.

The claimant pleaded that various individuals shunned him following the publication of the press release, and that others had re-tweeted the release and therefore considered it to be true. However, the claimant himself was his only witness on harm, and Knowles J criticised the claimant’s evidence on this issue as being at a “high level of generality”. He emphasised the importance of specific and direct evidence on the issue of serious harm, for example by way of witness evidence from the individuals the claimant mentioned.

Comment

This was a very substantial judgment running to 379 paragraphs. Much of this addressed the rather involved factual issues which arose in the case, but there was also a reasonably detailed analysis of three aspects of contemporary defamation law, that is the defences of truth and the privilege which arises from the reporting of court proceedings, and also the ever-complex issue of the serious harm test.

As regards the latter, the approach the judge took in respect of the wider media coverage raises an important issue, namely, how does a claimant in a libel action where there has been media reporting about them across many publications show that any individual publication was likely to cause them serious harm when taken in the context of the other reporting?

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