Richard Hall's film 'When Madeleine Died?' uploaded to YouTube 19th Feb

[slartibartfast]

do you understand the rules on fair comment...that would not be  a defence in this case

Fair comment means you state reasons why you hold your opinions, quite easy in this case.

[Mr Gray]

Why ?

I can imagine many football supporters go yo a match, watch a member of the team, or team playing badly, and calling them a shit player or team.

Is that libelous ?

#not unless they wrote it down

[Mr Gray]

Fair comment means you state reasons why you hold your opinions, quite easy in this case.

angelo didn't state the reasons in his post....so no defence

[ferryman]

Why?

I will try to explain the defence of 'honest comment'.

You and I are in a room.

You have an ice cream.

There is no one else in the room.

You put the ice cream down (somewhere in the room) to leave the room to do something else (it doesn't matter what).

While you are gone, I pick up your ice cream and eat it, but you don't catch me red-handed eating your ice cream.

Still, somehow (it doesn't matter how) you are able to prove that in your absence, no one else entered the room.

More than that, you spot, upon re-entering the room, that I have ice cream planted all over my mouth and you take a (timed) photograph of the evidence.

You are able to prove that I did not leave the room during your absence.

You accuse me of stealing your ice cream.

That is an example of the defence of 'honest comment', or 'opinion based on fact' (the recent innovation in UK libel law).

[stephen25000]

#not unless they wrote it down

Read the social networking sites then.

[slartibartfast]

angelo didn't state the reasons in his post....so no defence

It doesn't appear to matter, by definition it was an opinion which could be defended in law by the facts.

[ferryman]

Ferryman has been allowed to call him lots of names and not been penalised afaik.

Lots of names?

I have undertaken detailed analysis of dog-handling and certainly received sin-bin points for doing so ....

Also had threads swept off the board.

[ferryman]

In respect of Kate and Gerry, it probably passes muster (as non-libellous) to accuse them of 'neglect' for leaving the kids.

It is proven that they left the kids and, so long as you make plain they did check on them (also proven) you are entitled to the opinion (based on fact) that leaving them was 'negligent'.

But the more generalised comment about parenting skills (or alleged lack of them) goes much wider.  The children (the twins) are healthy, clean, well-dressed, well balanced, no evidence of parental neglect or lack of love; children of loving and attentive parents.

To suggest otherwise is libel.

[G-Unit]

it refers to this forum

Nothing stays the same, davel. The days when personal attacks on other posters were allowed are gone. Get used to it and abide by the rules of the forum and you won't have a problem. Simple!

[ferryman]

Discussion of Richard Hall's video (on this very thread) libels Kate and Gerry ....

[jassi]

Discussion of Richard Hall's video (on this very thread) libels Kate and Gerry ....

That's their problem. Why are you concerned?

[ferryman]

To deny that the Portuguese prosecutors said there is no evidence against Kate and Gerry is to libel Kate and Gerry.

That the Portuguese prosecutors did say that is there, in black and white, for all to read.

Yet the libel is repeated (over and over) on this board ....

[Alice Purjorick]

Nothing stays the same, davel. The days when personal attacks on other posters were allowed are gone. Get used to it and abide by the rules of the forum and you won't have a problem. Simple!

I agree totally.
I have never had a justifiable beef against the modding. I was penalised heavily by a supporter mod once for being abusive in retaliation against a supporter. Fair doos. Under the same circumstances I would let rip again, but I rather think that problem has been resolved.
It might help some to read The Defamation Act of 2013.

[ShiningInLuz]

Discussion of Richard Hall's video (on this very thread) libels Kate and Gerry ....

Mr Hall's video may or may not amount to libel.  I suspect the probabilities are heavily stacked in favour of one of these options.

Discussion of the video is not, IMO, libel per se.  It would be if one knew the video was libellous and one re-iterated that libel.

I would have thought that any McCann supporter would be grateful for a ready made, impartial analysis of the accuracy or otherwise of the video.  Am I wrong in that assumption?

[ferryman]

Mr Hall's video may or may not amount to libel.  I suspect the probabilities are heavily stacked in favour of one of these options.

Discussion of the video is not, IMO, libel per se.  It would be if one knew the video was libellous and one re-iterated that libel.

I would have thought that any McCann supporter would be grateful for a ready made, impartial analysis of the accuracy or otherwise of the video.  Am I wrong in that assumption?

The title of the thread (and of Hall's video), in its own right, libels Kate and Gerry.

There is no evidence (at least in the public domain) that Madeleine is dead.

Far from all comment (on this thread) will be libel.

But much of it will be.

And the film itself (displayed on this board for all to watch) certainly is.