Defamation — Privilege — Absolute privilege — Dispute between neighbours — Defendant making witness statement in complaint to police against claimant concerning trees on property boundary — Claimant suing for libel — Whether defendant entitled to absolute privilege and immunity from suit

Buckley v Dalziel [2007] EWHC 1025 (QB)

QBD: Eady J: 3 May 2006

A complainant who provided information to police officers to initiate inquiry into possible illegality or wrongdoing was entitled to claim absolute privilege and immunity from suit in a defamation action.

Eady J so held when granting the application for summary judgment under Pt 24 of the CPR made by the first defendant, James Stewart Dalziel, in defamation proceedings brought against him by the claimant, Barbara Buckley, in respect a witness statement he made to the Greater Manchester Police in which he complained about the pruning of boundary trees by the claimant, who was his neighbour.

EADY J referred to Taylor v Director of the Serious Fraud Office [1999] 2 AC 177 and to the claimant’s submission that different considerations applied to those who were complainants rather than merely potential witnesses since in Mahon v Rahn (No 2) [2000] 1 WLR 2150 the court acknowledged as an open question whether it was necessary or desirable to extend the protection of absolute privilege to the situation where a malicious informant spontaneously proffered untrue and defamatory allegations to an investigatory authority. In his Lordship’s judgment that did not mean that a judge, on a strike out or summary judgment application, had to allow the matter to go forward for later determination. There was an issue of pure law which the first instance judge could determine as readily at the interlocutory stage as following a full trial. The defendant was, for present purposes, to be assumed to be malicious. The issue could accordingly be determined without reference to the facts. His Lordship would follow the guidance of the House of Lords in the Taylor case in giving priority to the need to protect those who provided evidence to police officers or other investigatory agencies in the course of an inquiry into possible illegality or wrongdoing. There would at that stage be minimal publication of any defamatory allegations and it was not unreasonable, therefore, in weighing the competing considerations to give priority to the protection of those who provided such information. The public policy consideration applied with equal validity to those who were witnesses and to those who were initial complainants. It might be unjust that a malicious informant should be accorded comparable protection but it was difficult to draw a principled distinction here between malicious witnesses and malicious complainants.

Appearances: Patrick Moloney QC (Nelsons Solicitors, Nottingham) for the claimant; Victoria Jolliffe (DWF Solicitors, Liverpool) for the defendants.

Reported by: Jessica Giles, solicitor.