03/02/2020 Godfrey v. Demon Internet Limited [1999] EWHC QB 244 (26th March, 1999) modern equivalent of the common law defence of innocent dissemination, recognising that there may be circumstances in which the unwitting contributor to the process of publication may have had no idea of the defamatory nature of the material he has handled or processed." "The amendment proposed by the noble Lord would, in effect, create an entirely new defence. It would give a defence to a person who was indeed aware, or on notice that he was contributing to a defamatory publication, but nevertheless chose to do so.".......... "It is imperative that we do not lose sight of the effect on plaintiffs of giving a defence to those who have in fact been instrumental in bringing material which has defamed the plaintiff to its audience". ......... "But in my submission it would not be right to deprive a plaintiff of his cause of action against a defendant who was aware that he might be wronging the plaintiff and misjudged the plaintiff's chances of succeeding in a defamation action" 24. Mr Barca, for the Defendants, submitted that at Common Law the Defendants did not publish the defamatory posting and there was no publication. 25. Section 17 of the 1996 Act reads:"Publication" and "publish", in relation to a statement, have the meaning they have for the purposes of the law of defamation generally, but "publisher" is specially defined for the purposes of section 1." 26. At Common Law liability for the publication of defamatory material was strict. There was still publication even if the publisher was ignorant of the defamatory material within the document. Once publication was established the publisher was guilty of publishing the libel unless he could establish, and the onus was upon him, that he was an innocent disseminator. 27. An early example of the application of this principle is Day .v. Bream (1837) 2 Moody and Robinson 54. 28. The facts were:"The libel complained of was a printed handbill, containing imputations on the plaintiff clearly libellous. The plaintiff lived at Marlborough; the defendant was the porter of the coach-office at that place, and it was his business to carry out and deliver the parcels that came by the different coaches to the office. For the plaintiff it was shewn that the defendant had delivered on the same day papers parcels, tied up, and containing a large quantity of the handbills in question, to two or three inhabitants of the place, to whom the parcels were directed" 29. Patteson J., a great master of Common Law, "in summing up, left it to the jury to say whether the defendant delivered the parcels in the course of his business without any knowledge of their contents; if so, find for him, observing, that prima facie he was answerable, inasmuch as he had in fact delivered and put into publication the libel complained of, and was therefore called upon to shew his ignorance of the contents." 30. In Pullman .v. Hill & Co [1891] 1.Q.B. 524 Lord Esher M.R. said at page 527:"The first question is, assuming the letter to contain defamatory matter, there has been a publication of it. What is the meaning of "publication"? The making known the defamatory matter after it has been written to some person other than the person of whom it is written" "If the writer of a letter shews it to his own clerk in order that the clerk may copy it for him, is that a publication of the letter? Certainly it is shewing it to a third person; the writer cannot say to the person to whom the letter is addressed, "I have shewn it to you and to no one else". I cannot, www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/1999/244.html 5/9