Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd

In determining meaning in a defamation claim, the court applies the perspective of the reasonable reader of the relevant newspaper. The exercise is not confined by the meanings pleaded by the parties. The court may identify inferential meanings arising from the words and their context.

Where a publication contains separate and distinct defamatory statements, a defendant cannot justify an unselected statement merely by proving its truth. Allegations attributed to relatives remain subject to the repetition rule: truth requires proof of the underlying allegation, not merely proof that it was made. Domestic abuse may be understood as a continuum including controlling behaviour, verbal abuse and physical violence.

The claimant brought two libel actions against the publishers of articles in The Independent and the Evening Standard. The articles concerned allegations about his conduct towards his former wife and their child, custody proceedings in Dubai, and an alleged kidnapping prosecution.

The parties agreed that the court should determine meaning at a preliminary stage. The court considered the claimant’s pleaded meanings and the defendants’ Lucas-Box meanings, including whether additional defamatory imputations were conveyed and whether they were separate and distinct for the purposes of a defence of truth.

1. The court determined the natural and ordinary meanings of both articles by applying the reasonable-reader test. The exercise was not limited by the parties’ pleaded meanings: [1968] 2 QB 157. The court was entitled to identify meanings conveyed by inference and context.
2. For The Independent, the articles conveyed meanings including that the claimant had been violent, abusive and controlling; had caused his former wife to fear for her safety; had taken steps resulting in her passport being confiscated; had obtained custody on a false basis; and had initiated a false abduction prosecution exposing her to imprisonment in the UAE.
3. For the Evening Standard, the articles additionally conveyed meanings that the claimant had assaulted his former wife during custody visits, attempted to snatch the child, threatened her adult sons with police action, and used Emirati law and its enforcement system, which discriminated against women, to deprive her of custody and access.
4. Under the rule in Polly Peck (Holdings) Plc v Trelford [1986] QB 1000, where a publication contains two or more separate and distinct defamatory statements, a claimant may select one for complaint and the defendant cannot justify the others merely by proving their truth. The pleaded meanings had to be assessed to determine whether they were conveyed and whether they were separate and distinct.
5. The court considered domestic abuse to be capable of constituting a continuum including controlling behaviour, verbal abuse and physical violence. If the allegation of physical violence failed, other established forms of abuse could still support what was formerly described as partial justification: Pamplin v Express Newspapers [1988] 1 WLR 116.
6. The court also held that the repetition rule had not been impliedly abrogated by the Defamation Act 2013. Where defamatory imputations were attributed to family members, a defence of truth required proof of the substantive allegations, not merely proof that the allegations had been made.
7. The court made preliminary findings of meaning, leaving issues including serious harm, the adequacy of the pleaded particulars and public interest to be determined later.