03/02/2020 Economou v David De Freitas (Rev 1) [2016] EWHC 1853 (QB) (27 July 2016) another way, when deciding the meaning of a statement "for the purpose of the law of libel a hearsay statement is the same as a direct statement": Lewis v Daily Telegraph [1964] AC 234, 284 (Lord Devlin). 16. Jeynes principle (5) was well expressed in the 2nd edition of Duncan and Neill on Defamation (1983). In a passage cited with approval by Lord Bridge in Charleston v News Group Newspapers Ltd [1995] 2 AC 65 the editors said: "In order to determine the natural and ordinary meaning of the words of which the plaintiff complains it is necessary to take into account the context in which the words were used and the mode of publication. Thus a plaintiff cannot select an isolated passage in an article and complain of that alone if other parts of the article throw a different light on that passage." 17. The fact that the ordinary reasonable reader is assumed to read the whole of the article or other publication complained of can cause complexities if, as in this case, the claimant sues a defendant for being a source of and causing a media publication. A media publication will often include some material for which the source bears responsibility and some for which he bears none. That is true of the first six of the publications complained of in this action. Such additional material is likely to affect the meaning of the publication. The additional material may make things worse, in which case the source cannot be blamed; or it may make the meaning less damaging, or even innocent, in which case the claimant must take the meaning as it emerges from the entire publication. A source or contributor cannot be sued for a defamatory meaning which only arises from part of the media publication to which he has contributed: see Monks v Warwick District Council [2009] EWHC 959 (QB) [12-14] (Sharp J). (4) Serious harm 18. Section 1 of the 2013 Act means that it is no longer enough to prove that the defendant published a statement which conveys a defamatory meaning about the claimant. By s 1(1), "A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant." In Sobrinho v Impresa Publishing SA [2016] EWHC 66 (QB), [2016] EMLR 12 Dingemans J identified a number of uncontroversial propositions that can now be stated about s 1: "46. …. first, a claimant must now establish, in addition to the requirements of the common law relating to defamatory statements, that the statement complained of has in fact caused or is likely to cause serious harm to his reputation. "Serious" is an ordinary word in common usage. Section 1 requires the claimant to prove as a fact, on the balance of probabilities, that the statement complained of has caused or will probably cause serious harm to the claimant's reputation. It should be noted that unless serious harm to reputation can be established an injury to feelings alone, however grave, will not be sufficient. 47. Secondly it is open to the claimant to call evidence in support of his case on serious harm and it is open to the defendant to call evidence to demonstrate that no serious harm has occurred or is likely to do so. However, a Court determining the issue of serious harm is, as in all cases, entitled to draw inferences based on the admitted evidence. Mass media publications of very serious defamatory allegations are likely to render the need for evidence of serious harm unnecessary. This does not mean that the issue of serious harm is a "numbers game". Reported cases have shown that very serious harm to a reputation can be caused by the publication of a defamatory statement to one person. 48. Thirdly there are obvious difficulties in getting witnesses to say that they read the words and thought badly of the claimant, compare Ames v The Spamhouse Project [2015] EWHC 127 (QB) at paragraph 55. This is because the claimant will have an understandable desire not to spread the contents of the article complained of by asking persons if they have read it and what they think of the claimant, and because persons who think badly of the claimant are not likely to co-operate in providing evidence. www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2016/1853.htm 5/58