All posts tagged: Libel

Police statements about Allison Pearson were defamatory – judge

Police statements about Allison Pearson were defamatory – judge

Published by Sam Flores

Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson’s libel case against Essex Police is likely to go to trial after a judge said statements about her had been defamatory in meaning. Pearson sued Essex Police over press statements published in November 2024 about an investigation into a tweet posted by Pearson, saying she had been invited for a voluntary interview. She was not named in the statements but Pearson herself wrote about being visited by police over an alleged public order offence. Pearson also sued Roger Hirst, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, over an article he wrote for Conservative Home and an interview he gave on LBC about the case. The investigation into Pearson was dropped with no charges brought eight days after the press statement was posted online. High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain said the press statements meant that there were grounds to investigate a woman at an address in Essex for an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred via a post on social media, and that this was defamatory in common law to …

Jamie and Rebekah Vardy to be focus of new reality show on Leicester exit and libel battle

Jamie and Rebekah Vardy to be focus of new reality show on Leicester exit and libel battle

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Footballer Jamie Vardy and his wife Rebekah are set to star in a new ITV reality series. The programme will follow the striker’s departure from Leicester City after 13 years for a new life abroad, alongside Rebekah’s attempts to put the “Wagatha Christie” libel battle behind her. Kicking off with Jamie’s emotional final match and his 200th goal, the series will document the family’s preparations to move to Italy with their four children. Rebekah is expected to reflect on her “recent challenges in the UK”, a reference to the legal dispute where she was ordered to pay Coleen Rooney at least £1.4m in legal costs following their High Court battle in 2022. The show will cover Vardy’s 13-year career at Leicester and the fallout of Wagatha Christie (Getty) Promising “no-holds-barred, intimate access”, the show will capture the drama and chaos of …

Banker Crispin Odey drops £79m Financial Times libel case

Banker Crispin Odey drops £79m Financial Times libel case

Published by Sam Flores

Crispin Odey in February 2023. Picture: Aaron Chown/PA Media Former City banker Crispin Odey has dropped his £79m libel case against the Financial Times. The move comes almost two years after he filed the claim and three years after the FT and Tortoise Media jointly published accusations that he sexually assaulted multiple women. The FT planned to argue its reporting was substantially true and in the public interest. The FT received a letter from Odey’s lawyers on Friday afternoon stating that the 67-year-old had been “forced to accept” that the publication was “likely to succeed in establishing” its public interest defence. FT editor Roula Khalaf said: “This is a vindication for investigative journalism and for the victims whose stories of abuse we reported. “The FT was always confident in its reporting. This is a case that should have never been brought.” The paper said that two months ago it had served Odey with the “substantial” disclosure of evidence relating to its investigations into his behaviour that it had intended to rely on in court. The …

Guardian to appeal ruling which said ‘alt right’ description is defamatory

Guardian to appeal ruling which said ‘alt right’ description is defamatory

Published by Sam Flores

Book by Andy Ngo who is suing Guardian News and Media. Picture: Shutterstock/Dylanhatfield.com Guardian News and Media has been granted permission to appeal a pre-trial libel judgment that found it was defamatory to call an influencer an “‘alt-right agitator”. The Court of Appeal found it was “properly arguable” that attributing “far-right” beliefs to Andy Ngo “would not have a substantial adverse effect” on the way he would be treated by “right-thinking people. Ngo, an American influencer who lives in London, is suing GNM over a phrase in a brief music review published in The Observer and on The Guardian website in March last year, shortly before Tortoise Media took ownership of the Sunday title. The review of the Mumford and Sons album Rushmere said: “In the wake of the 2021 exit of banjo player (and son and co-founder of GB News) Winston Marshall, Mumford and Sons have reverted to a trio for their fifth album. “Marshall’s departure followed an outcry after he praised ‘alt-right’ agitator Andy Ngo. Yet listening to Rushmere, one wonders whether the world …

Mill Media journalist faces £10,000 county court bill after exposé

Mill Media journalist faces £10,000 county court bill after exposé

Published by Sam Flores

‘Claudio is scamming’ article over which Mill Media’s The Londoner is being sued A reporter for Mill Media has been hit with an unusual £10,000 county court judgment after being sued by a businessman whose alleged dishonest conduct they have reported on. Freelance journalist Cormac Kehoe is also being sued personally for £250,000 in libel damages alongside editor Joshi Herrmann and publisher Mill Media Ltd. The publisher of newsletter-based local news website The Londoner has been hit with a flurry of legal letters since writing about the alleged activities of Claudio De Giovanni. In a High Court claim form, De Giovanni, of Green Lanes in London, said the case centres on a 2 August 2025 article headlined “Claudio is Scamming”. He complained that it “accuses me of repeated criminal and dishonest conduct, alleging that I unlawfully sublet properties, earn ‘tens of thousands of pounds a month’ through deception and leave landlords with ‘electrocution, filth and broken furniture’.” He said the allegations are “entirely false”. The case has already cost the publisher around £20,000 in legal …

Case Study: How Not to Sue AI for Libel

Case Study: How Not to Sue AI for Libel

Published by Jenni Sidey

Imagine: A researcher uses ChatGPT to learn more about a pending federal court lawsuit. ChatGPT tells the researcher that your former employer is suing you for committing fraud, breach of fiduciary duty and embezzlement while you were Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. ChatGPT even provides a copy of the formal complaint filed in court. But then it turns out: The complaint ChatGPT provided verbatim is entirely and utterly false.  It spelled your name right but otherwise it falsely calls you a major wrongdoer, perhaps a criminal.  Can you sue OpenAI, which is the creator and host of ChatGPT, for libel? Image Credit: InfiniteFlow – Adobe Stock ChatGPT presented defamatory claims as true Practically this exact fact pattern underlay the lawsuit, Walters v. OpenAI, filed in Georgia state court in 2023. Frederick Riehl, a journalist, had deployed ChatGPT to try to find more details about the federal court case SAF v. Ferguson and get hold of a copy of the complaint. ChatGPT responded that Ferguson is “a legal complaint … filed against Mark Walters, who is …