CL-2018-000297, CL-2018-000404, CL-2018-000590, - [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm)

SKAT referred, for example, to Parkes v Prescott (1869) LR 4 Ex 169, a libel case in which the chairman at a public meeting, at the request of a participant, slandered the claimant, and they both (the chairman and the other participant) pointedly expressed a desire that attending local reporters take notice of the “very scandalous” matter stated and that “publicity would be given to [it]”. Fair non-verbatim summaries of what had been said were published at the instance of the reporters. It was held that there was a proper basis upon which a jury might find publication by the chairman and the participant (jointly and severally, D) through the reporters (R), defaming the claimant (C), so that D had libelled C by the publication, not merely slandered him at the meeting. SKAT submitted that this was consistent with R v Michael (1840) 9 C&P 356, 173 ER 867, in which the defendant purchased poison, intending it to be administered to her baby son, to kill him. She gave it to an unknowing nurse to administer, who put it on a mantelpiece, as a result of which it was in fact administered innocently by another child. The defendant was guilty of administering poison – the administering of the poison by the innocent child was “as much, in point of law, an administering by the [defendant] as if [she] had actually administered it with her own hand” (ibid at 359, 868).