Defamation is a dangerous game

Defamation is a civil tort meaning it is a dispute between two parties. This is where something which affects a person’s reputation in a negative way is published in a permanent form. It only has to ‘tend’ to defame them, which is tested upon the ‘balance of probability’. For example “Headmaster X, who lives in Town Y, hits his students.”

There are three requirements:

1)      Identification- This has to be positive identification, such as a photograph

2)      Publication- Must be in a permanent from shown to a third party

3)      Defamation- Exposes them to hatred, ridicule or contempt. It causes them to be shunned or      avoided. Discredits them in their trade or profession. Lowers them in the eyes of right thinking people.

Now Headmaster X would go running to his solicitor the minute he saw that published and they would begin to plot how to take you for every penny they can. Unfortunately for you, unless you can prove that ‘Headmaster X hits his students’ is a fact (the defence of Justification), then you can wave goodbye to a hefty sum of money.

However if you were to publish ‘Katie Price is the ugliest woman to grace the screens of our televisions,’ and that is your genuine and honest opinion, then you’re safe as houses!  This is the beauty of ‘fair comment’, if it’s your honestly held opinion, and it’s free from malice, then you’re free to rant and rave away. However it’s always best to throw a bit of positive in there too, just to be safe.

There are countless celebrity defamation claims, this is just one of them :
http://www.nowmagazine.co.uk/celebrity-news/268198/kerry-katona-wins-libel-case/1
In 2008 the Sunday Mirror took the gutsy decision to publish an article claiming Kerry Katona had previously been a prostitute, claiming this was information supplied in a book to be published in Sue Katona’s book. A claim which was revealed to be ‘entirely untrue’, supplying Kerry with a undisclosed 5figure sum and a public apology from the tabloid.