DEFAMATION: High Court relies on human rights to bend strict liability ruleLibel specialist fears for press after 'Orwellian' Lords reject Times defence Libel lawyers will find it harder to argue for freedom of expression following an 'Orwellian' House of Lords decision, the solicitor for The Times has cautioned.The warning came after Russian businessman Dr Grigori Loutchansky successfully sued The Times over accusations that he was mixed up with the Russian mafia and a money laundering scandal.

The Times argued the ten-point qualified privilege defence created in Reynolds v TNL [1998] 3 WLR 862, which protects newspapers if they 'responsibly' publish false material in the public interest.

But in the first ruling on the Reynolds test, Mr Justice Gray said that The Times could not rely on the defence, as it had failed to check its facts properly.

He dismissed the newpaper's arguments that it had secret sources it could not disclose.The Times' solicitor Meryl Evans, a partner at City firm Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, said it was 'an outcome some might describe as Orwellian'.

She argued: 'There is now a danger that freedom of information - and the flow of information to the public - will be curtailed by the risks newspapers face.'Dr Loutchansky's solicitor, Olswang partner Debbie Ashenhurst, agreed that the qualified privilege defence is limited.

But she added: 'Responsible newspapers have a defence if they maintain proper journalistic standards - The Times failed to do so in this case.' The Times decision came the same week that a judge relied on the Human Rights Act 1998 to bend the strict liability rule governing cases where a published item refers to someone other than the claimant.

The case against Mirror Group Newspapers - advised by London firm Davenport Lyons - related to an advertisement for an adult Web site which featured a model strongly resembling the claimant.

Mr Justice Morland held that the strict liability principle was an interference with the exercise of the right to freedom of expression.

He said it would impose an impossible burden on publishers to check if a true picture of someone resembled another who, because of the picture's context, could allege they had been defamed.The claimant, who was bringing the first ever libel case arising out of publication of a look-a-like photograph, was given leave to appeal.Meanwhile, libel specialists Peter Carter-Ruck & Partners reaped the biggest dividends so far from its conditional fee libel scheme when Channel 4, ITN and freelance journalist Duncan Campbell settled with its client, surgeon Joe Rahamim, in a case expecte to cost the defendants 1.3 million, including 175,000 damages.Nigel Tait, managing partner in Peter Carter-Ruck & Partners, said the firm expects a record success fee of 'around 250,000, if the taxing master decides that is reasonable'.Paula Rohan