header-logo header-logo

Tweet if you want to, but tweet softly

13 June 2013 / Nicholas Dobson
Issue: 7564 / Categories: Opinion
printer mail-detail
0fc_nlj_7564_coverimage

Nicholas Dobson considers the lessons we can learn from Sally Bercow’s mishap

As Irish poet W B Yeats never said, ‘Tweet softly for you tread on my reputation”. This, however, may be prudent advice after Sally Bercow’s controversial tweet which achieved an unwelcome High Court audience with Tugenhadt J.

For (in the wake of intense media speculation about the identity of “a leading Conservative politician from the Thatcher years”, following a 2 November 2012 BBC Newsnight Report which broadcast an allegation by a complainant that he had been abused by such a person when he was a boy living at the Bryn Estyn care home in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s), on 4 November 2012 Ms Bercow (wife of the House of Commons’ speaker) fired off a Tweet reading: “Why is Lord McAlpine trending? *Innocent face*”. In the High Court’s view, this was defamatory (see Lord McAlpine of West Green v Sally Bercow [2013] EWHC 1342 (QB)).

Of defamation, trending & innocent faces

As Tugenhadt J indicated,

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content
If you are already a subscriber sign in
...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Birketts—trainee cohort

Birketts—trainee cohort

Firm welcomes new cohort of 29 trainee solicitors for 2025

Keoghs—four appointments

Keoghs—four appointments

Four partner hires expand legal expertise in Scotland and Northern Ireland

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Brabners—Ben Lamb

Real estate team in Yorkshire welcomes new partner

NEWS
Robert Taylor of 360 Law Services warns in this week's NLJ that adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) risks entrenching disadvantage for SME law firms, unless tools are tailored to their needs
From oligarchs to cosmetic clinics, strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) target journalists, activists and ordinary citizens with intimidating legal tactics. Writing in NLJ this week, Sadie Whittam of Lancaster University explores the weaponisation of litigation to silence critics
Delays and dysfunction continue to mount in the county court, as revealed in a scathing Justice Committee report and under discussion this week by NLJ columnist Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School. Bulk claims—especially from private parking firms—are overwhelming the system, with 8,000 cases filed weekly
Writing in NLJ this week, Thomas Rothwell and Kavish Shah of Falcon Chambers unpack the surprise inclusion of a ban on upwards-only rent reviews in the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill
Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve charts the turbulent progress of the Employment Rights Bill through the House of Lords, in this week's NLJ
back-to-top-scroll