slander

[cazzrob]

how do i go about taking someone to court for slanderous remarks? TIA

[hc4361]

You don't, unless the slander has cost you considerable loss of income.
What's happened?

[buildersmate]

As above.
You will spend a shed-load of money on barrister's fees and you might not win.
Only celebrities do it, largely for the publicity it creates in itself, rather than because they've been hurt by it.
Recommend you stop reading Hello and OK magazines - the urge will soon go away.

[Buenchico]

Any court action would almost certainly cost tens of thousands (or, quite possibly, hundreds of thousands) of pounds. There's no legal aid available and there's no guarantee that you'd be able to get your expenses back if you won the court battle.

In practice, suing for libel (which includes slander) is only possible if you're either fairly rich or backed by an organisation with adequate funding (e.g. a teacher could call upon their union's legal team for assistance if, say, a parent was spreading rumours which could threaten their career).

Sometimes, however, the threat of legal action can be sufficient to gain a public apology (or, at least, to prevent the falsehoods being repeated). So it might be worth getting a solicitor to write a letter warning the relevant person that you're considering such action.

Chris

[cazzrob]

thanx chris, i am hoping that a solicitors letter will suffice, and hopefully it will stop. buildersmate, as i am not a celebrity and too busy to read hello and ok magazines, i suggest if you've got nothing useful to say then keep it to yourself, if your reputation was at stake due to small minded people spreading lies about you or a loved one, maybe you'd think of taking legal action too.

[Nhozu]

there are conditional fee arangements that can be arranged to curb the cost. but first port of call would be a solicitor that has some experience in media law