Page 233 - Law and the Media

Law and the Media
12.2.2 Compliance

Once the order has been served or proper notice of its existence has been given, which can
be done by telephone, letter or fax, any failure to comply with its terms will be a serious
contempt of court, which could result in a substantial fine or even, in some cases, a sentence
of imprisonment. If the defendant believes that the injunction was wrongly granted, an
application should be made to discharge it. The injunction cannot be ignored.

12.2.3 The defendant

Injunctions are usually directed to specific defendants – the publisher, editor or journalist.
However, in some limited cases injunctions may be granted against the ‘whole world’ as
happened in Venables v News Group Newspapers Ltd (2001). In such cases, it will be a
contempt of court for anyone to publish the information covered by the injunction.

In other cases, injunctions are often served on the Press Association in order for the
information to be widely disseminated. It will be a contempt of court if a third party with
knowledge of the injunction publishes the information covered by the injunction. This is
because, even though the injunction is not directed at the third party, the publication of the
material means that the purpose of making the order was intentionally frustrated (A-G v
Times Newspapers (1992)). If a third party wishes to publish the information, an application
must first be made to discharge or vary the injunction.

12.3 Defamation cases

12.3.1 Applications for interim injunctions

The courts have always been extremely reluctant to restrain the publication of material that
is said to be defamatory. In order to obtain an interim injunction in a defamation case, the
claimant must show that:

The defendant intends to publish a statement
The statement is unarguably defamatory of the claimant
Any defence of justification on which the defendant relies is bound to fail, and
There are no defences that might succeed.

Intention to publish a statement
The claimant must not only show the general terms of the statement that he intends to
publish, but must also be able to set out with ‘reasonable certainty’ the actual words about
which he complains (British Data Management v Boxer Commercial Removals (1996)). In
practice, this requirement will be very difficult to satisfy unless a claimant has obtained an
advance copy of the publication complained of.
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