Caplin v Associated Newspapers Ltd

On a meaning application in a defamation claim, the court must read the publication as a whole and assess the impression conveyed to the ordinary reasonable reader. Prominent headlines and captions may create a defamatory implication which the accompanying text does not neutralise. The court must consider the relative prominence and presentation of the material, and should reject only meanings that require a strained or unreasonable interpretation. A reader may draw an implication of reasonable grounds for suspicion from the publication as a whole. The conduct rule used in justification does not govern the separate question of meaning. At the interlocutory stage, the court should not require an elaborate distinction between levels of suspicion. The article was capable of conveying that the claimant might disclose the Blairs’ marital and sexual secrets for substantial financial reward, and that her massages of Tony Blair involved sexual activity.

The claimant brought a libel action concerning a Daily Mail article, its headlines, photographs and captions, and the corresponding online publication. The defendant applied under CPR Practice Direction 53 paragraph 4.1 for a ruling that the words were incapable of bearing the meanings pleaded and were incapable of being defamatory.

The pleaded meanings included that the claimant might disclose the Blairs’ sexual secrets for money, that massages given to Tony Blair involved sexual activity, and that disclosure might damage the Blairs’ marriage. The central issues were the range of meanings reasonably capable of being conveyed, the effect of prominent headlines and the accompanying text, and the appropriate level of suspicion.

1. The defendant’s meaning application was refused. The words were capable of conveying defamatory meanings, leaving the trial tribunal to determine what they actually meant in context.
2. The governing approach was to read the publication as a whole and give it the natural and ordinary meaning it would convey to an ordinary reasonable reader reading it once. The reader is neither naïve nor unduly suspicious, may read between the lines and indulge in some loose thinking, but is not avid for scandal. Over-elaborate analysis must be avoided. The court must consider the bane and any antidote together, including the mode of publication and the relative prominence of the material.
3. The prominent front-page and article headlines, captions, photographs and repeated questions were capable of creating the impression that there was a suspicion that the claimant would disclose information about the Blairs. The text did not, at this stage, make it perverse for a reader to reach the opposite conclusion. The possibility that the gym might not belong to the claimant, and her previous silence, did not necessarily neutralise the impression created by the article as a whole.
4. The analogy with the conduct rule applicable to justification was rejected. The legal question of what implication a lay reader may draw from the words differs from the question of evidence and proof required to establish a justified plea.
5. The highest permissible level of suspicion was reasonable grounds to suspect, rather than strong grounds to suspect. The article was capable of conveying that the claimant would disclose the Blairs’ marital and sexual secrets for substantial financial reward. In context, the references to massages, sexual secrets, and sexual innuendo were also capable of conveying that the massages given to Tony Blair involved sexual activity. The related pleaded meanings concerning disclosure and damage to the marriage were likewise capable of arising, subject to that lower level of suspicion.

First-instance meaning application in a libel action. The judgment does not state any subsequent appellate history.