Noel Anthony Clarke v Guardian News & Media Limited

The claim was for libel and breach of the Data Protection Act 2018/GDPR arising from eight Guardian articles. The court conducted a preliminary issues trial (meaning, whether each publication was defamatory and whether it conveyed fact or opinion) without contested evidence. Applying the Koutsogiannis approach and the repetition rule, the judge held that context is decisive: where allegations by third parties are reported the repetition rule ordinarily imports the underlying allegation, but any denial or other contextual material (the "antidote") must be read with the allegation (the "bane").

Having read each article in full, the judge found that each of the first seven articles conveyed that there were strong grounds to believe the claimant had engaged in various forms of sexual harassment, unwanted touching/groping, bullying and related misconduct (a high Chase-level meaning), and that the eighth article conveyed only that there were grounds to investigate the allegations (a Chase level 3 meaning). In each instance the statements complained of were defamatory at common law and amounted to statements of fact rather than expressions of opinion.

The claimant, a public figure in film and television, sued the defendant for libel and for breaches of data protection arising from eight articles published online (and in some cases in print) by The Guardian between April 2021 and March 2022. The defendant applied for a trial of preliminary issues and, with the claimant's consent, the court directed a trial limited to (1) the natural and ordinary meaning of the statements complained of in each article, (2) whether they are defamatory at common law, and (3) whether they are statements of fact or opinion.

The judge followed leading authorities on meaning (including Koutsogiannis and the repetition rule). Key legal points were:

• the repetition rule ordinarily requires that published third-party allegations be read as statements of the alleged underlying fact unless the context indicates otherwise;
• the "bane and antidote" principle requires the court to assess allegations and denials together, in context;
• Chase levels (1–3) provide a convenient shorthand for degrees of defamatory meaning from an allegation of guilt to grounds for investigation;
• the ultimate question is the impression conveyed to the hypothetical reasonable reader, read as a whole.

Applying those principles to each article individually, the court found that although the first seven articles recorded the claimant's denials prominently, the combination of the number of complainants, detail and corroborative material left the reasonable reader with the impression that there were strong grounds to believe the claimant had engaged in repeated sexual harassment, unwanted touching/groping, bullying and related misconduct. The eighth article, published much later, reported the Metropolitan Police decision not to investigate and the dismay that caused; the court considered that article to convey only that there were grounds to investigate (Chase level 3).

The judge also addressed subsidiary points: the words "sexual predator" in the first article did not alter the holistic meaning; the reported interim responses of third parties (for example BAFTA, ITV, Sky) did not add a separate finding of fact beyond what the articles themselves conveyed; and there was no difference in meaning between online and print versions for the articles in issue. The court also made directions for further case management, noting that the preliminary rulings were not findings on the truth of the allegations.

The court determined the preliminary issues. It held that each of the first seven articles conveyed that there were strong grounds to believe the claimant had engaged in sexual harassment, unwanted touching or groping, bullying and related misconduct (a meaning at the higher end of the Chase spectrum), and that the eighth article conveyed that there were grounds to investigate the allegations (Chase level 3). In each case the statements complained of were defamatory of the claimant at common law and were statements of fact rather than mere opinion. The court applied the Koutsogiannis framework and the repetition rule, reading allegations and denials together and assessing the overall impression on the reasonable reader.