Riley v Murray

The natural and ordinary meaning of an allegedly defamatory publication is assessed objectively. The publisher’s intended meaning and individual readers’ actual understanding are irrelevant to that exercise. In social-media cases, the ordinary reasonable reader reads a tweet impressionistically, but context is admissible only where it was common knowledge, formed part of the publication, or was directly available to readers. Material known only to some readers may support an innuendo case; it cannot alter the single natural and ordinary meaning.

An unqualified assertion that a person publicly said another deserved a violent attack is a statement of fact. A consequential characterisation of that person as dangerous or stupid may be opinion. The imputation of publicly supporting violence is defamatory at common law.

The claimant brought a libel claim concerning a tweet published by the defendant after an attack on Jeremy Corbyn. The tweet stated that the claimant had said Mr Corbyn deserved to be violently attacked because he was a Nazi, described her as dangerous and stupid, and urged readers not to engage with her.

At a preliminary trial, the court determined the tweet’s natural and ordinary meaning, whether it conveyed fact or opinion, whether it was defamatory at common law, and whether an alleged Twitter-specific innuendo added a distinct meaning. The defendant relied on surrounding tweets and events as context. The central issue was whether that external material could be treated as context for the objective meaning exercise.

1. The court determined the preliminary issues. The tweet meant that Jeremy Corbyn had been attacked at a mosque; that the claimant had publicly stated in a tweet that he deserved to be violently attacked; and that, by doing so, she had shown herself to be dangerous and stupid, risking the incitement of unlawful violence, so that people should not engage with her.

2. The allegation that the claimant had publicly made the statement supporting violence was a statement of fact. The description of her as dangerous and stupid, and the associated exhortation not to engage with her, was opinion. Political speech does not justify treating an ordinary factual allegation as opinion.

3. The assessment was wholly objective. Following Stocker v Stocker [2019] 2 WLR 1033 and Monroe v Hopkins [2017] 4 WLR 68, a tweet is read quickly and impressionistically in the circumstances of its publication. That does not permit evidence of material which only some readers may have encountered to affect its natural and ordinary meaning.

4. The surrounding events and tweets relied on by the defendant were neither common knowledge nor incorporated into, hyperlinked from, or directly available with the tweet. They lacked a sufficient nexus with it, would have been known to readers randomly, and the tweet was self-contained in followers’ timelines. They were therefore inadmissible as context. Material known to only some readers could instead be relevant to a pleaded innuendo.

5. The factual imputation that the claimant publicly supported a violent attack was plainly defamatory at common law. The alleged Twitter-specific meaning of “engage” added nothing material to the natural and ordinary meaning. The claimant’s evidence did not establish a distinct innuendo.

not stated in the judgment.