Defamation consists of publication of remarks and/or materials which would affect/reduces the person’s reputation (to lower the impression/perception/estimation of the public in general objectively)
What amounts to defamatory remarks is an objective tests.
The intention of the person making the remark is not important, as stated above, so long as the circumstances, may be apparently innocent on the face of it, still be defamatory to the plaintiff.
Like in the case of Cassidy v Daily Mirror Newspapers Ltd (1929) which held that ‘liability for libel (defamation) does not depend on the intention of the defamer, but the fact of defamation’.
The real test is whether the statement would lower the plaintiff/the victim in the estimation of right thinking members of society generally.
Note that the particularly published remarks may be defamatory if the judge held that the remarks is defamatory within their natural and ordinary meaning, or whether they are capable of bearing an innuendo that the plaintiff alleges.
The natural and ordinary meaning may include any implication or inference which a reasonable reader guided by general knowledge would draw from the words.
The words/remarks must be interpreted in their context – meaning the victim/plaintiff cannot select apparently libellous statements if the passage taken as a whole is not defamatory.
To illustrate an example where it comes within the realm of defamation – defendants published an advertisement in which the plaintiff, a famous golfer, endorsed the defendant’s brand of chocolate. They had not asked for his permission to do this. The plaintiff alleged that there was a defamatory implication, namely that he had been paid to appear in an advertisement and had thereby prostituted his amateur status. The house of lords held that this was capable of becoming defamatory. note that the plaintiff is seeking an innuendo within the statement.
