Vince v Associated Newspapers Ltd

The Claimant, Mr Vince OBE, is a prominent businessman, political donor, and environmental campaigner. He sued the Defendant media outlet over an article concerning him, and a separate Labour Party donor about whom allegations had been made of sex-based harassment.

The article, subsequently amended, bore the headline “Labour repays £100,000 to ‘sex harassment’ donor”, with two photographs of Mr Vince (one with his face circled) beneath it, captioned “Road blockers: Dale Vince in London yesterday, and circled as he holds up traffic with Just Stop Oil”. On this basis Mr Vince claimed that the article conveyed the innuendo meaning that he was the donor about whom such allegations had been made.

The Defendant’s case was that the claim had to be struck out because when read in its entirety, the article could not convey the meaning that the Claimant was the donor about whom the harassment allegations had been made. The rule in Charleston v News Group Newspapers [1995] 2 AC 65 (a House of Lords authority) required that the article be considered in its entirety – including its text, as well as the headline and any photographs – for the purpose of determining its meaning.

The Claimant accepted that if the entire article was read by the hypothetical reader, the article bore no defamatory meaning and the claim would fail. He argued that there was a class of “innuendo reader”, who would only have looked at the article’s headline and the pictures of the Claimant beneath it, and would have concluded that he was the “‘sex harassment’ donor”. The alleged extraneous facts known by such readers were to the effect that the headline and pictures in newspaper articles accurately summarise those articles, such that the readers of an article do not need to read the whole article to gather its meaning. Charleston did not prohibit a claim based on an innuendo meaning succeeding in this case.

The usual test on strike out applications applied. The judge referred in particular to Hughes & Ors v Richards (t/a Colin Richards & Co) [2004] EWCA Civ 266 at [22], and to HRH The Duchess of Sussex v Associated Newspapers Limited [2020] EWHC 1058 (Ch) at [32] – [33].

The chief issue in the case was whether Charleston required (so as to satisfy the strike out test) the court to consider what meaning the words complained of would be understood to bear by the hypothetical reader reading the whole piece, even when there was a pleaded innuendo meaning;  or whether the Charleston principle applied only where the claimant relied on a  “natural and ordinary” meaning.

The rule in Charleston applies where an innuendo meaning is pleaded. A hypothetical (class of) reader who does not read the whole publication is not “reasonable” and cannot determine the meaning of that publication, even where such reader is alleged to have special knowledge leading them not to read the whole publication ([33] – [41]). On that basis the article bore no defamatory meaning of the Claimant and was struck out. The rule in Charleston was not held to be uncertain or developing such that the claim should otherwise be allowed to continue.

This decision was made on the basis that the meaning pleaded by the Claimant was in fact an innuendo meaning, though HHJ Lewis doubted that it was ([46] – [48]). He agreed with the Defendant that a plea of innuendo meaning requires knowledge of certain facts by the innuendo readership to be pleaded. Here, the “facts” were that headlines and photograph captions accurately summarise the articles in which they feature: the Judge appears to have accepted that these were in fact opinions, not the requisite facts capable of determination.

The Judge further accepted the Defendant’s argument that the innuendo “facts” were in any event clearly wrong, and thus could not support an innuendo meaning: headlines and photograph captions do not always accurately summarise the articles in which they feature (as exemplified by the article in question itself, and the publication in Charleston) ([49] – [51]).

The decision that the rule in Charleston applies equally to innuendo meanings may not be seen as controversial.

The Defendant argued that, if the claim continued (and was successful), it might effectively provide a “workaround” of the rule in Charleston, whereby claimants, in any case, could plead innuendo meanings excising parts of publications complained of to pursue their claims ([30]). The judgment did not directly address this argument, but had the claim progressed, behind the attempt to limit the application of Charleston might have lain an oblique challenge to the integrity of the single meaning rule in libel itself. Whether this bore on the Judge’s decision is unclear, but any such challenge in this case has (subject to any appeal) been curtailed by this decision.