“There were grounds to investigate the Claimant for suspected involvement in furlough fraud, money laundering, misuse of “Bounce Back” and “Funding Circle” loans and for taking advantage of temporary staff by forcing them into arrangements involving the use and establishment of limited companies without their knowledge or consent.”
“[16] … the following material can be taken into account when assessing the natural and ordinary meaning of a publication: i) matters of common knowledge: facts so well known that, for practical purposes, everybody knows them; ii) matters that are to be treated as part of the publication: although not set out in the publication itself, material that the ordinary reasonable reader would have read (for example, a second article in a newspaper to which express reference is made in the first or hyperlinks); and iii) matters of directly available context to a publication: this has a particular application where the statement complained of appears as part of a series of publications – e.g. postings on social media, which may appear alongside other postings, principally in the context of discussions. [17] The fundamental principle is that it is impermissible to seek to rely on material, as "context", which could not reasonably be expected to be known (or read) by all the publishees. To do so is to "erode the rather important and principled distinction between natural and ordinary meanings and innuendos": Monroe -v- Hopkins [40]. When I considered this principle very recently, I explained that the distinction was between "material that would have been known (or read) by all readers and material that would have been known (or read) by only some of them. The former is legitimately admissible as context in determining the natural and ordinary meaning; the latter is relevant only to an innuendo meaning (if relied upon)" (emphasis in original): Hijazi -v- Yaxley-Lennon[2020] EWHC 934 (QB) [14].”
“It is perhaps unrealistic to proceed on the basis that every reader will follow all the hyperlinks, but everything depends upon its context. For example, if in a single tweet there is a single statement that says, "X is a liar" and then a hyperlink is given, it is almost an irresistible inference to conclude that the ordinary reasonable reader would have to follow the hyperlink in order to make sense of what was being said. At the other end of the spectrum, a very long article could contain a very large number of hyperlinks. Only the most tenacious or diligent reader could be expected to follow every single one of those hyperlinks. Such a reader could hardly be described as the ordinary reasonable reader. How many links any individual reader would follow would depend on an individual's interest in or knowledge of the subject matter or perhaps other particular reasons for investigating each of the hyperlinks in question.”
“… I need to refer to what are called the Chase levels of meaning. They come from the decision of Brooke LJ in Chase –v- News Group Newspapers Ltd [2003] EMLR 11 [45] in which he identified three types of defamatory allegation: broadly, (1) the claimant is guilty of the act; (2) reasonable grounds to suspect that the claimant is guilty of the act; and (3) grounds to investigate whether the claimant has committed the act. In the lexicon of defamation, these have come to be known as the Chase levels. Reflecting the almost infinite capacity for subtle differences in meaning, they are not a straitjacket forcing the court to select one of these prescribed levels of meaning, but they are a helpful shorthand.”
“… when determining whether the words complained of contain allegations of fact or opinion, the court will be guided by the following points: (i) The statement must be recognisable as comment, as distinct from an imputation of fact. (ii) Opinion is something which is or can reasonably be inferred to be a deduction, inference, conclusion, criticism, remark, observation, etc. (iii) The ultimate question is how the word would strike the ordinary reasonable reader. The subject matter and context of the words may be an important indicator of whether they are fact or opinion. (iv) Some statements which are, by their nature and appearance opinion, are nevertheless treated as statements of fact where, for instance, the opinion implies that a claimant has done something but does not indicate what that something is, i e the statement is a bare comment. (v) Whether an allegation that someone has acted ‘dishonestly’ or ‘criminally’ is an allegation of fact or expression of opinion will very much depend upon context. There is no fixed rule that a statement that someone has been dishonest must be treated as an allegation of fact.”
“Although an inference may amount to a statement of opinion, the bare statement of an inference, without reference to the facts on which it is based, may well appear as a statement of fact: see Kemsley v Foot[1952] AC 345 . As Sharp LJ, DBE, pointed out in Butt at [37], not every inference counts as an opinion; context is all. Put simply, the more clearly a statement indicates that it is based on some extraneous material, the more likely it is to strike the reader as an expression of opinion.”
“There were strong grounds to suspect that the claimant a) was run by a disqualified director guilty of VAT evasion and its directors were a front for him; b) was involved in furlough fraud, money laundering and misuse of “Bounce Back” and “Funding Circle” loans; and c) took advantage of staff by forcing them into arrangements involving the use and establishment of limited companies without their consent, knowledge or understanding.”