Cases

Curistan v Times Newspapers Ltd

Held

(1) It was wrong in principle to approach meaning by removing the arguably privilege words from the assessment. The meaning of the article had to be assessed by reading the whole. If privilege were to be upheld in relation to the particular words sought to be protected by the Defendant, then this would be an exercise relevant only to the assessment of damages.

(2) The article alleged that the Claimant through his companies was associated with IRA "dirty money" and was thereby guilty of IRA money-laundering and financial malpractice; and

(3) The privilege was upheld. The words identified by the Defendant were a fair and accurate report of the MP's remarks. The privilege was not lost because the Defendant had reported extraneous material. The additional parts of the article were connected with but extricable from the rest of the article.

Also