GB wrote:
"peterwn" wrote in message


How much is the damages for falsely saying a teenager had been busted for
drugs? Not much, because there's a presumption these days that most
teenagers have tried some sort of drugs. The former president of the USA
admitted that he had!

This was 25 years ago and the defamatory statement did not reflect well
on father or son.


And there's always the possibility the radio station defends the action by
bringing in a whole host of people to say they have seen the lad smoking
dope, but agreeing he had not actually been arrested for it. Damage to the
Prime Minister almost as bad as the original libel/slander.

But this does not get round the 'sting' of the defamation - whether or
not he was smoking pot had nothing to do with it. The defendant would
have had to state a defence that the statement was true to avoid
summary judgement.


It was a high risk strategy, but he got away with it.

Low risk in this case - it was settled out of court. In any case the
broadcaster had no stomach to defend an indefensible defamation nor to
support an employee who had lied on air. Moreover it was dealt with by
the smartest defamation barrister in the business.
There are cases where the defamation may be so gross (ie completely
false and harmful) as to cause serious potential harm to the person
defamed, that there may almost be no option for the victim to sue, or
at least to take some form of legal action even if it is merely to seek
a retraction, apology and a donation to charity.

I don't agree. It's nearly always better simply to issue a denial. As an
example, the NOW apparently libelled a certain Scottish MP, but:
1. Most people didn't read the NOW article, whereas virtually everyone in
the country heard about the evidence in the libel action he brought
2. He only won by a small majority verdict of the jury
3. Many people are not convinced about the verdict.

Agreed to the extent that if there is 'smoke'. If however no smoke -
no fire, the victim can safely sue as in a case I had in mind (a
prominent harness racing personality was the victim of false and
unfounded allegations, and was awarded damages at the 'top end').