Sentence examples for defamatory meaning from inspiring English sources
During the first stage of a libel trial over a tweet she sent last year, her barrister told the high court that it should be regarded as a random thought with no defamatory meaning.
In a ruling at the high court in London on Wednesday, Mr Justice Tugendhat agreed that the articles bore the defamatory meaning claimed by Cruddas.
But there is a middle ground where, though the words are not libelous per se, yet, in the light of the extrinsic facts averred, they are susceptible of being construed as having a defamatory meaning.
He said: "The words complained of are not capable of bearing the meaning attributed to them by the claimant in her particulars of claim or any other defamatory meaning of which she might complain".
However Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, said that while the article might not be wholly flattering, it did not convey the defamatory meaning Dell'Olio complained about.
He said in his judgment: "I find that the tweet meant, in its natural and ordinary defamatory meaning, that the claimant was a paedophile who was guilty of sexually abusing boys living in care.
This is an action on the case, brought by Timothy Gruaz, against Rudolph Bircher, to recover damages for the speaking and publishing of false, malicious, scandalous, and defamatory words, charging the plaintiff with being a thief, and with having stolen the money of the defendant, meaning the crime of larceny.
She pleaded that five defamatory imputations, or meanings, arose from those articles: she was a stripper, she was a prostitute, she was a woman of loose morals, she is a deluded person because she believes convicted killer Gittany is innocent, and she is a ridiculous person.
