Green energy entrepreneur and Labour donor Dale Vince is set to receive damages from Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publisher of the Daily Mail, after the court of appeal ruled that the newspaper's use of his photograph alongside a misleading headline caused an 'obvious injustice'.
Background of the case
Vince, who has donated over £5 million to Labour, took legal action over a June 2023 article headlined 'Labour repays £100,000 to sex pest donor'. The headline referred to a different donor, Davide Serra, not Vince. However, Vince's picture, showing him holding a Just Stop Oil banner, accompanied the article in print and on the Mail+ app.
The article discussed Labour repaying money to Serra, who in 2002 was found by an employment tribunal to have made sexist comments amounting to unlawful harassment. The print edition's headline referred to a 'sex harassment' donor. Online, the photos were changed to depict Serra 47 minutes after publication, but the print edition retained Vince's image.
Legal arguments
Vince argued that the article unfairly used his personal data and would lead readers to believe he was accused of sexual harassment. ANL's lawyers contended that the full context was clear to anyone reading the entire headline and story, as Serra was identified early in the piece. They also argued that Vince's data claim was an attempt to revive a libel action from 2024.
The high court initially dismissed Vince's data protection claim in June 2024. However, three court of appeal judges overturned that decision. In a 20-page ruling, Sir Geoffrey Vos stated that Vince sought redress for 'an obvious injustice perpetrated by a wrongdoer who was taking every possible legal point against him'.
Ruling and implications
Vos noted that ANL 'failed to take care not to publish misleading information and images in the articles', violating the editors' code of practice adopted by the Independent Press Standards Organisation. He added that 'the information in the headline juxtaposed next to the images of Mr Vince would have misled many casual readers into thinking that Mr Vince was the 'sex harassment donor' referred to in the headline'.
Vince responded, saying the ruling has far-reaching implications for media coverage. 'The fallacy at the heart of libel law is the assumption that people read both headlines and articles in full,' he said. 'We all know this is not true; we all scan headlines and think we know what the story is. But that element of libel law has stood for over three decades, while the internet grew, social media came into the world, and our attention spans famously shrank. Libel law in our country is not fit for purpose. It needs updating for the modern era.'
ANL declined to comment on the ruling.
