Dale Vince ‘seriously defamed’ by Daily Mail article, High Court told
When a ‘newspaper’ runs a headline about one person with a picture of someone else, that’s clearly misleading, in my view.
When the headline is about a ‘sex offender’ and the someone else pictured is an ‘eco protester’ – it’s very clearly a smear, in my view. I’ve taken this case against the Daily Mail to try and establish the point in law – that people don’t always read the whole article and in fact, often just read the headline and look at the picture – and believe they know what’s going on in the story. The DM know this of course, but the law as it stands allows them the defence of saying we told the actual (true) story in the following paragraphs – and everybody reads that.
The hearing yesterday was their attempt to have the case dismissed without being heard, we think they will lose and we will proceed to a full hearing. If that happens they will likely offer to settle using their ‘slush fund’ (through which they pay for their many ‘errors’). But I won’t accept that. This is an important point of principle, what they did should not be allowed and it should be clear the courts will not allow it – that way it won’t happen anymore.
