Media Relief As Reynolds Privilege Floods Back

On 21 March 2012, The Supreme Court unanimously overturned the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of Flood v. Times Newspapers Limited. The Court of Appeal had earlier ruled that Times Newspapers Limited ("TNL") was not entitled to rely on the public interest defence known as "Reynolds privilege" to protect its publication of a defamatory article concerning a member of the Metropolitan Police Service ("MPS").

Reynolds privilege takes its name from the case of Reynolds v. Times Newspapers Ltd [2001]. It is essentially a special type of defence, which protects the publication of defamatory material, provided:

Publication of the information is in the public interest; and The publisher acts responsibly in publishing the information (often referred to as the "responsible journalist test"). The present case concerned an article published by TNL in June 2006, which reported on possible police corruption within the Extradition Unit of MPS. In particular, following a tip-off, TNL published allegations that MPS employee Sergeant Gary Flood had disclosed confidential information concerning extradition proceedings to a security firm in return for payment.

MPS were not aware of this alleged misconduct until TNL contacted them in April 2006. Following subsequent internal investigations at MPS, however, Sergeant Flood was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing and sued TNL for defamation.

In October 2009, the High Court ruled that TNL's publication was protected by Reynolds privilege. This finding was, however, overturned by the Court of Appeal in July 2010. Thereafter, the matter was appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Court of Appeal had erred in overturning the High Court's decision at first instance. The Court of Appeal's primary reason for denying the appeal had been that, in their view, TNL had failed to meet the responsible journalist test by failing adequately to verify the allegations of fact contained in the article. The Supreme Court thought otherwise.

The court revisited the original Reynolds judgment and stressed that verification was but one of the relevant factors to be taken into account in establishing the applicability of...