Allen v Times Newspapers Ltd

In determining the natural and ordinary meaning of allegedly defamatory words, the court must assess the publication as a whole through the eyes of the hypothetical reasonable reader. The reader is neither naïve nor avid for scandal. An inference based on extraneous facts, personal values or emotional reaction is not necessarily an implication conveyed by the words. Context may support an implication, but it cannot supply an unreasonable meaning absent from the publication.

A claimant is not ordinarily permitted at trial to advance a substantially different meaning from the pleaded case without a timely formal application. The court may identify a different meaning within the same general class or range, subject to procedural fairness. A publication suggesting that a person remained on a public advisory committee despite an apparent conflict between public duties and private employment may convey defamatory misconduct, even without expressly alleging corruption or personal responsibility for the underlying disaster.

The claimant, an architect and senior employee of Saint-Gobain, brought a libel claim against the publisher of The Times concerning an article about the Grenfell Tower fire. The article identified him as a technical director of the company associated with Celotex insulation and as a member of the Building Regulations Advisory Committee.

Following an order for preliminary issues, the court had to determine the natural and ordinary meaning of the words complained of and whether that meaning was defamatory at common law. The claimant advanced meanings alleging responsibility for the insulation and an improper conflict of interest. The defendant advanced a substantially less serious meaning.

1. The court rejected the claimant’s first proposed meaning. The article did not suggest that he was responsible for the design, specification or manufacture of the insulation, or that there were grounds to suspect him of culpable conduct connected with the fire. Such a conclusion would require an unreasonable inference from the claimant’s employment, the product withdrawal and the reference to the police investigation.

2. The court distinguished an implication conveyed by the words from an inference reached through deductive reasoning based on extraneous facts or personal values. The natural and ordinary meaning must emerge from the words themselves in their context. Emotional reactions to the subject matter could not supply an imputation absent from the article.

3. The court was not confined absolutely to the meanings pleaded by the claimant. However, a party should not ordinarily advance at trial a substantially different case where there has been ample opportunity to formulate it. Any substantive modification should be made in writing and pursued by a formal application in good time.

4. The article’s single meaning was that the claimant misconducted himself by remaining on the Building Regulations Advisory Committee when it discussed the Grenfell fire, despite his senior role in the company that made the relevant insulation boards. His conduct placed him in a situation of conflict between his public duty as a committee member and his duty or interest as a senior executive of Saint-Gobain.

5. That meaning arose principally from the headline and the first four paragraphs, especially the contrast introduced by “but” and the fact that the claimant remained on the committee when it met to discuss Grenfell. The absence of any suggestion that he had declared his interest or recused himself reinforced the implication. The meaning was defamatory at common law because it imputed misconduct crossing the seriousness threshold identified in Thornton v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [2010] EWHC 1414 (QB).