Gangmaster sues Guardian

We are currently writing an essay in our law module on the reasons why libel cases have fallen off in recent years,the title suggests that it may be due to the Reynolds defence.

I was therefore interested to see Press Gazette reporting this morning that the gangmaster Andris Tiltnieks has launched a £3.7 million libel claim against the publishers of The Guardian.


He has issued the writ in person without the backing of a legal team.It concerns an article back in 2006 which alleged that his company

illegally employed and exploited Bulgarian workers, who were forced to live like pigs on scraps, scavenging vegetables from fields where they worked, and were housed in dirty caravans. The story also claimed that workers had not been paid for 34 days, and that Baltic Work Team had its gangmaster licence revoked for abuses of employment law.

Will the paper claim the public interest defence?

Legal rulings

Kevin Marsh writing on the BBC editors blog,brings our attention to the case of Graeme Mc Laggan,whose book Bent Coppers was the subject of a legal action by a former flying squad officer

An appeal by the publishers succeeded on the basis of the "Reynolds defence" a legal precedent that gives investigative journalists under which according to Guardian media


" journalists can claim the right to publish material in the public interest even if they cannot prove its accuracy or it turns out to be untrue."

Of course this is no carte blanche excuse for journalists to write what they want.

The law lords ruled in 2001 that

1.the writing had to be of sober intent.
2.its subject should be important
3.of urgent public interest.