"People often think that we have a law that protects free speech here. We don’t. We have a law that protects reputation,” says Caroline Kean, a partner at Wiggin who represented the journalist Catherine Belton when she was sued by multiple Russian billionaires. “Getting stories out like this may sound easy to people who watch a lot of crime dramas, but it’s actually incredibly difficult.”
In England and Wales, the subjects of unwanted stories can sue for libel if they believe their reputation has been damaged. The responsibility is on the party taken to court, not the subject of the allegations, to prove the story is “substantially true” on the balance of probabilities, while other defences include that the story was in the public interest, or an honestly held opinion backed up by facts. Developments in privacy laws in the last 25 years have made it more difficult to publish, according to experts.
Which is probably why, as Louisa Compton, the head of news at Channel 4, explained on the BBC Radio 4’s Media Show this week, the teams had “really spelled out how we managed to verify what we have”. Journalists had reportedly interviewed hundreds of sources and seen private emails, texts, medical and therapists’ notes as well as submitting freedom of information requests, scrutinising Brand’s books, interviews and broadcasts to corroborate allegations.
