Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson’slibelcase against Essex Police is likely to go to trial after a judge said statements about her had been defamatory in meaning.
Pearson sued Essex Police over press statements published in November 2024 about an investigation into a tweet posted by Pearson, saying she had been invited for a voluntary interview.
She was not named in the statements but Pearson herself wrote about beingvisited by police over an alleged public order offence.
Pearson also sued Roger Hirst, the Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner for Essex, over an article he wrote for Conservative Home and an interview he gave on LBC about the case.
The investigation into Pearson was dropped with no charges broughteight days after the press statement was posted online.
High Court judge Mr Justice Chamberlain saidthe press statements meant that there were grounds to investigate a woman at an address in Essex for an alleged offence of inciting racial hatred via a post on social media, and that this was defamatory in common law to the woman.
The final press statement, which said there was no basis of further action in light of the investigation, was found not to be defamatory.
Mr Justice Chamberlain added: “Each of the iterations of the press statement also meant that the woman had provided an account of her interaction with the police which was false.
“It is not possible to determine at this stage and in the abstract whether the second meaning is defamatory at common law. That will have to be determined at trial.”
This would depend, the judge said, on what a trial determines in terms of whether a substantial proportion of readers would have known the woman referred to was Pearson and that she was a journalist and columnist.
Source: Press Gazette
