Innuendo

The jury must also consider certain statements which are not defamatory
on the face of them but which contain an innuendo which has a defamatory
meaning. The hidden meaning must be one that could be understood from
the words themselves by people who knew the claimant (Lewis v Daily
Telegraph) and this special esoteric hidden meaning must be pleaded
by bringing additional information before the court to explain the meaning.
In Alisop v Church of England Newspaper Ltd [1972] 2 QB 161, it was
held that, if the words of which the claimant complains (in this case, the
claimant was said to be pre-occupied with the bent) are capable of any
meaning or implication outside the dictionary meaning, details of all such
meanings should be explained in the statement of case to give the
defendant the opportunity to know what case has to be answered. In this
case, the court had considerable difficulty with the word bent, referring
to the Oxford English Dictioiianj for assistance.
The following are examples of innuendo:
Tolley v IS Fry & Sons Ltd [1931] AC 333
The claimant was an amateur golfer who was shown in a drawing on an
advertising poster with a bar of Frys chocolate and a speech bubble
praising the chocolate. He successfully claimed that there was an innuendo
that he had prostituted his amateur status by accepting money for the
advertisement.
Cassidy v Daily Mirror [1929] 2 KB 331
The claimant was the wife of a man who had been pictured with a young
woman at a race meeting and described as engaged to her. The newspaper
reporter had been given that information by Mr Cassidy and had no reason
to doubt his word, but the claimant succeeded in proving an innuendo
because the implication was that she would be regarded as a mistress not a
wife.
Plumb v Jeyes Sanitary Compounds (1937) unreported
The claimant, a retired policeman, had been photographed on traffic duty
some eight years previously. His photograph appeared in a newspaper with
the words Phew, Im dying to get my feet into a Jeyes Fluid foot bath.
His successful claim was based on the fact that the innuendo was that his
feet were so disgusting that no ordinary soap and water could ever drown
the smell!