Some defamation common sense
The singer, represented by solicitors Carter Ruck and, in court, by William McCormick, claimed that the article suggested that John's commitment to the charity is so insincere that he hosts the ball knowing that only a small proportion of the money raised will go to the charity, and that he uses the event "as an occasion for meeting celebrities and/or self-promotion".
It was also suggested that Hyde acted maliciously, as she was aware that the sponsors covered the costs of the ball and all the money raised - between £6.6m and £10m - went to the charity. In Hyde's "diary" she suggested that "once we've subtracted all these costs, the leftovers go to my foundation. I call this care-o-nomics." The Guardian, represented in court by Gavin Millar QC, denied John's claims and argued that the article had to be taken in context. It was also argued that no reasonable reader would have believed that the words were meant to be taken at face value. The judge agreed.
"The transparently false attribution is irony," said Tugendhat, in a 17-page judgment. "Irony is a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used ... The attribution is literally false but no reasonable reader could be misled by it." The judge added: "Irony is not always a form of sarcasm or ridicule."
For the Guardian, Millar submitted that the words used were "obviously a form of teasing" and the judge accepted this. "The words complained of ... could not be understood by a reasonable reader of the Guardian Weekend section as containing the serious allegation [that only a small proportion of the money raised went to charity].
"If that was the allegation being made, a reasonable reader would expect so serious an allegation to be made without humour, and explicitly, in a part of the newspaper devoted to news."
The judge suggested that "if the Guardian were to expose a fraud of the kind that is alleged ... then such a reasonable reader could be sure that the exposure would be written without any attempt at humour". He added: "It is common ground that the meaning of words, in law as in life, depends upon their context."
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