Mirror Newspapers Ltd v Harrison

For the reasons which Mason J. has given, I agree that the article pleaded is incapable of supporting either of the imputations which are here in issue. Though I would join the Chief Justice in reserving for future consideration the question whether a report stating merely that a person has been arrested and charged by police with a particular offence is capable of bearing an imputation to the ordinary reasonable reader that the police officer who made the arrest had reasonable cause for suspecting that the person arrested had committed that offence, the article complained of in this case is not so limited in its text. As Lord Devlin observed in Lewis v Daily Telegraph Ltd. [26] :

it is the broad impression conveyed by the libel that has to be considered and not the meaning of each word under analysis. A man who wants to talk at large about smoke may have to pick his words very carefully if he wants to exclude the suggestion that there is also fire; but it can be done. One always gets back to the fundamental question: what is the meaning that the words convey to the ordinary man: you cannot make a rule about that. They can convey a meaning of suspicion short of guilt: but loose talk about suspicion can very easily convey the impression that it is a suspicion that is well founded. 1. [1964] A.C. 234, at p. 285.