—automatic gambling machines, which were kept illegally on the premises of a golf club, were removed by the police after someone had informed them of the machines' presence.

Lord Justice Slesser opined that "to allege of a man... that he has reported certain acts, wrongful in law, to the police, cannot possibly be said to be defamatory of him in the minds of the general public

—the claimant was a member of a golf club, whose owners illegally kept gambling machines on the premises.

—it was held that the implication that a member of a golf club had informed the police about the illegal activities of fellow members would not lower him in the eyes of right-thinking people.

—a verse written by an unknown person had been left on the notice board of a golf club which had a rule that no notice could be posted on club premises without the consent of the club secretary.

The significance for a school authority lies in the longstanding authority that a defendant who knowingly allows a defamatory material to remain on his or her notice board will be held to be as much responsible for the defamation as the person who posted it

It has been held that where defamatory material is posted in a place under the control of a third party who becomes aware of its existence but fails to take steps to remove the material the third party will be regarded as having republished the defamatory material and will incur personal liability for that publication

The test it appears to me is this: having regard to all the facts of the case is the proper inference that by not removing the defamatory matter the defendant really made himself responsible for its continued presence in the place where it had been put?

Key Law The court held that the advert was defamation by innuendo; the suggestion of breaching amateur rules was implied.

A defamatory statement is one that would have the effect of lowering esteem or respect for the person in the minds of people described as “right-thinking members of society generally

[BOOK] Defamation and the Right to Freedom of Speech: The UK in Comparative Perspective

[PDF] Regulation of Online Speech in the UK

[BOOK] Lunney & Oliphant's Tort Law: Text and Materials