Krause v Newsquest Media Group Ltd & Anor

A libel claim may be struck out where it is an abuse of process because it seeks to relitigate criminal convictions and can achieve no practical benefit. The court assesses defamatory meaning by reference to the hypothetical reasonable reader, reading the publication as a whole and rejecting strained interpretations. An allegation must also pass the threshold of seriousness required for defamation. A passage which is incapable of lowering reputation, or is admitted to be true, cannot found a libel claim. The court may consider whether a litigant in person could reformulate the claim in harassment, but should strike out the proceedings where no viable claim or useful remedy is apparent.

The claimant brought two libel actions against Newsquest Media Group Ltd and, in the first action, the Chief Constable of Cheshire Police. The claims concerned newspaper reports of the claimant’s criminal convictions for breaching a restraining order, statements attributed to a senior police officer, and a report of the Court of Appeal’s later reduction of her sentence.

The defendants applied to strike out the claims or obtain summary judgment. The central issues were whether the pleaded meanings were defamatory, whether privilege applied, whether the claims constituted collateral attacks on the convictions, and whether the proceedings could achieve any benefit.

1. The first action was an abuse of the process of the court. It sought to relitigate matters relied on unsuccessfully in the claimant’s attempt to appeal her criminal convictions. Since the convictions stood, no remedy could be obtained in respect of passages reporting the convictions and related statements.

2. Passage (A), stating that the claimant was legally a woman but had formerly been a man, was unrelated to the offences. It was nevertheless incapable of lowering the claimant’s reputation in the minds of right-thinking people. In any event, its truth was undisputed. The court also considered whether the claimant could plead harassment, but identified no viable basis for such a claim.

3. For the second action, the court applied the principles stated in Jeynes v News Magazines Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 130. Meaning is determined by reasonableness, from the standpoint of the hypothetical reasonable reader, reading the publication as a whole. The court must reject a strained or forced interpretation and should not select a defamatory meaning where a non-defamatory meaning is available.

4. The court also applied the seriousness threshold identified in Thornton v Telegraph Media [2010] EWHC 1414 (QB). No reasonable reader could think materially worse of the claimant because she had successfully appealed against a sentence on the ground that the unpaid work was physically onerous. The pleaded meaning was therefore not defamatory.

5. The court declined to strike out on the basis that absolute privilege was bound to succeed, because it could not determine on the papers whether the lawnmower reference had been made in court or outside court. That issue did not affect the result. Even if the meaning had been defamatory, the convictions meant that the second action could achieve nothing of possible benefit to the claimant. Both actions were struck out as wholly without merit.