Court case[1940] 1 KB 377

The Daily Express published a report that "Harold Newstead, thirty-year-old Camberwell man", had been sentenced to nine months' imprisonment for bigamy. The report was true of a Harold Newstead, a barman of Camberwell. The plaintiff, another Harold Newstead, was also about thirty years old and also lived in Camberwell, where he worked as a hairdresser. He alleged that people who knew him understood the report to refer to him and sued for libel. The jury found that the words were reasonably understood to refer to him, but awarded him only one farthing in damages.

The Court of Appeal held that the newspaper was liable. Following E. Hulton and Co. v. Jones, the question is whether reasonable people would understand the words to refer to the plaintiff. Where a statement is true of one person but is reasonably understood to refer to another, the defence of justification is not available against the second person, because as to him the statement is false. The publisher could have avoided the risk by giving a fuller description (address, occupation). The court accepted that the result might be hard on newspapers, but said that the remedy, if any, lay with the legislature. The farthing damages reflected the jury's view of the merits, not the existence of liability.