Spicer v The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis

Defamatory meaning must be determined by reference to the publication as a whole, including its headline and body. A headline may be defamatory in isolation, but the body may neutralise or contradict its apparent sting. The question is one of the single natural and ordinary meaning conveyed to the ordinary reasonable reader. The court must act as fact-finder and exercise caution before concluding that an antidote has cured a defamatory headline. Where the article clearly identifies the claimant only in later text, that text cannot properly be severed from the headline or earlier passages. A headline which is inconsistent with the detailed body will not necessarily determine the article’s meaning.

The claimant brought a libel action against the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis concerning an article published on the Metropolitan Police website. The headline stated that two people had been found guilty of killing a woman while racing their cars. The article stated that the claimant had been acquitted of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving, but convicted of careless driving.

By consent, the High Court tried as a preliminary issue the natural and ordinary defamatory meaning of the words complained of. The central issue was whether the headline conveyed that the claimant had been found guilty of killing the deceased, despite the article’s later account of the verdicts and sentence.

1. Meaning determined from the publication as a whole. The court applied the single objective standard applicable to defamatory meaning. The headline, body text, layout and context had to be considered together. The claimant could not isolate the headline and selected passages while ignoring the text which identified him and explained the verdicts.
2. Headline neutralised by the article. Applying the bane and antidote principle discussed in Charleston v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1995] 2 AC 65, the article did not mean that the claimant had been found guilty by a jury of unlawfully killing the deceased. Paragraphs [2] to [4] made clear that the claimant had been acquitted of the dangerous-driving charges and convicted only of careless driving. The modest penalty reinforced that meaning.
3. Fact-finding role. Although the question had historically been treated as one for a jury, the effective abolition of jury trial by the Defamation Act 2013 meant that the judge determined the single meaning as fact-finder. The need for caution when deciding whether text has cured a headline remained.
4. Remaining defamatory meaning. The article conveyed that the claimant participated in a hazardous road race at speeds approaching 70 mph, did so to show off, failed to stop after the collision, was reasonably suspected of causing death and serious injury by dangerous driving, was arrested, charged, tried and acquitted of those offences, and was guilty of careless driving.
5. The preliminary issue was determined accordingly. Costs and consequential matters were reserved for written submissions.

First-instance determination of the natural and ordinary meaning of the publication as a preliminary issue. No appeal is stated in the judgment.