baggers44 the publishers need to take effective steps taken to verify serious allegations
The standard for verify any claims for publication will surely not be as high as the standard of proof required to gain a conviction in a court of law though? This is also related to my point above that I thought I’d seen before that the press are able to provide the defence that they had taken reasonable steps to verify claims and considered them on the balance of probabilities reasonable, even if it turned out the information they had been fed which they’d “verified” had ended up being false. The Times may have enough to show the accusers knew Brand and don’t appear completely outlandish, but they can’t have behind the scenes footage of the events to demonstrate the accusations are with 100% certainty true.
baggers44 because of section 4(3) of the Defamation Act 2013 which creates the public interest defence for publishers : “If the statement complained of was, or formed part of, an accurate and impartial account of a dispute to which the claimant was a party, the court must in determining whether it was reasonable for the defendant to believe that publishing the statement was in the public interest disregard any omission of the defendant to take steps to verify the truth of the imputation conveyed by it
Well that just sounds like another kind of defence the publishers of the Brand stuff could surely use even if the accusers ended up being false?
baggers44 I dunno, I was not there. But the judge was …
The judge’s son worked for Rupert Murdoch…
It also just so happened to be the judge’s final case before retirement.
