Paul Currie v Soho Theatre Company Limited

In determining meaning in a defamation claim, the court must identify how the publication would strike the ordinary reasonable reader, reading the words as a whole and in context. The exercise is highly fact-sensitive and should not be governed by prescriptive rules. A publication may convey both allegations of fact and expressions of opinion. The court must identify the single natural and ordinary meaning, including any distinct Chase level of allegation, and determine which parts are factual and which are evaluative. The basis of an opinion must be indicated if the statutory honest-opinion defence is to be available. References to police involvement may remain factual rather than expressing an opinion about criminality, depending on the words and context.

The claimant brought a libel claim concerning a press statement published on the defendant’s website and Twitter after the claimant’s performance at the defendant’s theatre. The parties agreed preliminary issues concerning the statement’s natural and ordinary meaning, whether it conveyed fact or opinion, and whether any opinion indicated its basis.

The defendant accepted that the meaning found would be defamatory at common law. The court therefore determined the meaning and the fact-opinion classification, without deciding the statutory serious-harm requirement or any substantive defence.

1. Meaning. The press release, read as a whole and in its website and Twitter contexts, conveyed that, following the claimant’s show, he had verbally abused Jewish audience members and aggressively demanded that they leave; that there were grounds to investigate whether his conduct constituted a criminal offence; and that the conduct was intimidating, antisemitic, appalling and unacceptable, inconsistent with the theatre’s values, and justified refusing him future performance opportunities.
2. Fact and opinion. The allegation of verbal abuse and demanding that audience members leave was a factual allegation, at Chase Level 1. The characterisations of the conduct as intimidating, antisemitic, appalling and unacceptable, and as inconsistent with the theatre’s values, were expressions of opinion. The reference to racism added nothing to the defamatory sting because the statement itself described antisemitism as a form of racism.
3. Context and criminality. The references to police involvement were factual statements about the aftermath of the incident. They did not express an opinion that the incident was potentially criminal or merited police investigation. The wording might have had a different effect if it had said that the incident was reported to the police.
4. Motive. The factual meaning did not allege that the claimant acted because the audience members were Jewish. That was an unwarranted gloss on the publication.
5. Opinion basis and result. The publication clearly indicated the factual basis for the theatre’s evaluative opinions. Accordingly, the requirement in section 3(3) of the Defamation Act 2013 was met if honest opinion were relied upon. The preliminary issues were determined on that basis; the court did not decide section 1 of the Act.

First-instance determination of agreed preliminary issues in a libel claim. No prior judgment or appeal is stated in the judgment.