Hiscox in landmark legal ruling

In a landmark ruling in the law of libel and in a unanimous, the Court of Appeal ruled that journalist Graeme McLagan acted responsibly when he researched and wrote his book Bent Coppers – The inside story of Scotland Yard’s battle against police corruption.

Ex-police officer Michael Charman claimed that the book libelled him by suggesting that there were “cogent grounds” of suspecting him of being involved in corruption. However, the Court of Appeal today gave judgement for The Orion Publishing Group and Mr McLagan concerning the book Bent Coppers, holding that they could rely upon the defence of qualified privilege (the so-called “Reynolds Defence”), thus overturning the ruling of the High Court in July 2006.

This is the first time that a defence