Supreme Court rules reports of alleged corruption were justified
The Times was justified in reporting that a Met police sergeant was being investigated for alleged corruption, the Supreme Court has held.
In Flood v Times Newspapers Ltd [2012] UKSC 11, the justices dismissed a libel claim against The Times brought by police sergeant Gary Flood.
In 2006, The Times reported that Scotland Yard was investigating whether Flood accepted bribes from high-profile Russian exiles to reveal confidential information about extradition requests against them, via a security firm, ISC Global (UK).
The investigation did not recommend that any criminal or disciplinary proceedings be brought against Flood.
The Court of Appeal refused to uphold the defence of “Reynolds privilege”—that it is in the public interest to report the story.
The justices allowed the newspaper’s appeal but declined to lay down general principles on how courts should treat a Reynolds privilege defence.
Lord Phillips said: “How, and in particular whether within or outside this spectrum, an issue of Reynolds privilege should be addressed is a matter on which I would wish to hear oral argument in a context where it mattered before reaching any conclusion.”
Lord Brown said the news story related to “a matter of obvious public importance and interest, and may justifiably appear to the journalists to be supported by a strong circumstantial case”; therefore Reynolds privilege applied.
However, he pointed out that “not every anonymous denunciation to the police” would attract the defence.
