Cases

Dee v Telegraph Media Group Ltd (No 2)

Facts

C sued in respect of an article published in the Daily Telegraph under the heading "World's worst tennis pro wins at last".  The article, on the front page, described C as having suffered 54 defeats in a row. It referred to the full story being published on "S20", in the sports supplement to the newspaper. No complaint was made about the article on S20.

It was common ground that C had in fact lost 54 straight matches in world ranking tournaments. C had however participated in domestic Spanish tournaments in which he had secured some victories, but those tournaments did not attract world ranking points. The second article on S20 made reference to the Spanish tournaments. D applied for summary judgment on the basis either that (i) the words complained of were not defamatory when read with the second article, as they should be; or (ii) C had no real prospect of successfully rebutting the defences of justification and/or fair comment that D relied upon.

Also