The case focused on articles published in March 2019, which labelled the claimants as "statin deniers" and accused them of spreading "deadly propaganda" and "fake news" about statins. The articles included highly critical statements from the then health secretary, Matt Hancock, which were scrutinized for their defamatory meaning.
Key findings from the judgment include:
- The dismissal of the public interest defence for both the original and continuing online publication of the articles;
- The dismissal of the statutory qualified privilege defence in respect of the Hancock Statement;
- Rulings on the meaning of the publications, determining whether they were expressions of opinion or statements of fact;
- The finding that the journalist did not hold the opinions that the court found the publications to bear; and
- The dismissal of the claimants' case on malice.
Specifically, the basis on which the Judge found that defence of public interest failed was founded on his analysis of the newspaper’s conduct before publication, including in how the Second Defendant treated the Claimants’ responses to the ‘Right of Reply’.
The court found that the failure to share the claimants' responses with the experts the journalist had worked with had rendered the right-to-reply process superficial, depriving the claimants of a real understanding of the enormity of what was about to be published about them. The right-to-reply emails contained omissions that prevented them from fully understanding the nature of the articles soon to be published. This had a direct impact on the responses provided by the claimants. Ultimately, the Court found that the defendants failed to demonstrate that they reasonably believed the publication was in the public interest.
The judgment also highlighted several key failings in the conduct of the journalist and the newspaper, including misleading use of the Hancock Statement and misrepresentation of a patient case study. The Court also found that the journalist did not believe that the claimants were dishonest, yet this was the core allegation made against them in the news articles. In fact, Justice Nicklin stated that it is not reasonable to believe that it is in the public interest to publish claims that a journalist or publisher does not himself, believe to be true.
The judgment emphasised the importance of engaging meaningfully with pre-publication enquiries and the consequences of editorial choices on the availability of defences in defamation cases.
