Defamation Bill

Debate between Ian Paisley and Neil Carmichael

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Ian Paisley]

That point is worth dwelling on. Another speaker today mentioned that they had been trolled by certain individuals and had decided not to pursue them. Another Member of Parliament made clear their view that trolls should be pursued to the nth degree. I agree with the latter view and with my hon. Friend.

My hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) was trolled on an internet site. It was said that he should be shot. In Northern Ireland such things carry a certain weight. I am glad that that person was prosecuted by the courts and fined. I do not believe that they received a custodial sentence, but I believe they were seriously fined. There needs to be deterrent activity, because people abuse the internet. When my father was in hospital recently, someone thought it was good fun to take a picture of him while he was on a life support machine and to try to publish that on the internet. That person has lost their job and I hope that they go to jail. I believe that that is a gross infringement of people’s privacy and people’s rights.

Such things have an impact on young people in particular. Young people are driven to suicide because of accusations such as that a girl is too fat, or about how they look in school, the job they do or the way they have combed their hair. That can have a debilitating effect on a person’s life, especially in the light of the all-prevailing and all-invasive presence of the social media. We need to take steps to protect people from that.

Lord Mawhinney offered some commendable suggestions in the other place in relation to the requirement for significant penalties for defamation. The law must provide protection against unwarranted or serious damage—in other words, gossip. Gossip has a very damaging impact on the lives of ordinary people and we have to find a way of protecting individuals from that. We must make access to justice a priority and a possibility, but the costs involved currently prevent that from happening. Apologies must be printed in a way that is a deterrent. As I said, a front-page slander, when it is proved to be so, often results in a postage stamp-size apology. That is wrong. Apologies must be printed in a meaningful size, style and weight. I also believe that there should be prior notification before publication, because damages are largely inadequate as a remedy when a person’s reputation has been damaged.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is right about gossip, defamation and the connection to harm, but does he agree that the Bill quite properly expects there to be a definition of serious harm behind a successful prosecution?

[Ian Paisley]

I would like to see the definition of serious harm and think that we might do so in advance of the details in Committee or on Third Reading.

It was Oscar Wilde who said that the truth is rarely pure and never simple, and I think that is why we need a good, sensible and practical law in this field. It is not just a simple matter of something being a lie and someone therefore being able to sue and get a claim; it is the innuendo that the press often uses, the “nudge nudge, wink wink” interpretation that can ruin a person’s reputation and often does more damage than a blatant lie can do. Blatant lies, because they are normally so blatant, are not always believable, but the “nudge nudge, wink wink” innuendo, which is almost a lie but not quite, does more damage and is more reckless. We need to ensure that these laws properly address that type of abuse. As children we often sang the little chorus, “Be careful little tongue what you say,” but the fact of the matter is that the press are not careful in this regard.