Adu Qatada: The New Face of Morrisons?

Here's an interesting image for all you media law moguls and also something that's fairly defamatory towards Morrisons: alleged hate-mongerer and central figure in a high-profile deportation case, Abu Qatada, pictured in The Sun carrying a Morrisons bag.

Obviously the bloke has to do his shopping somewhere, but this is hardly the image that Morrisons would use to promote themselves, especially when they have Gary Barlow wailing on their adverts while 'cheeky-chappies' Richard Hammond and Andy Flintoff chat about quiche and fresh meat. In fact, all this image does is show that one of the most hated individuals in the country chooses to shop there above ASDA and Tesco. Much to Morrisons' dismay, it doesn't even give a reason why; there's nothing here saying that Qatada was quoted describing Morrisons as the cheapest choice (largely due to the fact that that would be a lie, and what reason does he have to lie?), nor does it say that they employ the friendliest people (which they do).

So, in my eyes, this image is defamatory towards the supermarket chain.

Before I explain why, let me quote myself and remind you all on what's needed for something to be considered defamatory and libellous:

"For an act to be considered libel it must match up to the three stages of it:

1. A defamatory statement must be made involving one of:
• Ridicule: Just like laughing at someone in the playground for having one testicle, ridicule is where you mock someone over how they look like, their actions or their beliefs.
• Hatred: This is trying to rally hate against an individual - for example, Jade Goody was touted as the most hated person in Britain. Ironically, the same publications portrayed her as an angel when she was dying of Cancer. Don't get me started on this though, I've written an extensive argument on the subject in the past and it gets me riled up every time I think about it.
• Contempt: Basically, the statement must lower the claimants public standing or discredit their trade/profession for contempt to be involved.
2. The defamatory comments must be published in a particular form and be permenant:
• Radio and TV broadcasts, newspapers and websites, are all forms of publications that can be used in a libel case as they are all published to a third party (the public) and are all permenant as they are all recorded in one way or another.
3. There must be positive identification:
•  A libel case cannot be brought by the whole of France if you claim that all French people stink of garlic, as you cannot libel an uncorporated association. In a defamation case the person must be identified in order to be defamed against. There are various forms of positive identification, but the ones most likely used in court reports are:

• Name
• Age
• Residence
• Occupation
• Photo"

Now, taking part 1 into account, this image doesn't necessarily create any ridicule. I might poke fun at Morrisons and laugh at who their customers are, but their rivals are highly unlikely to as they would quite like the business themselves, just not the photographic proof to go with it. Tesco might even pop up and say that he shops there too and produce an image, and good for them if they choose to.

Nobody will turn round and say "I'm not shopping where people like him choose to," as that would be absolute nonsense, the likelihood of them carefully selecting the same store as Qatada is incredibly low, so this image isn't really going to stir any hatred towards Morrisons. However, it could lower the public standing of the company and cause contempt as, as I mentioned earlier, it ruins the image that they want to promote. They want celebrity personalties such as Richard Hammond and Andy Flintoff representing them because they come across as nice people - your neighbours, the bloke you work with, the man on the street who notices you've dropped a tenner and gives it straight back to you, NOT someone who is accused of stirring hate towards the Western World whilst living off the benefits it produces.

So with the content dealt with we move on to parts 2 and 3. The Sun chose to run this image on page 26 of their February 8th 2012 publication. The word 'publication' itself should tell you that this has been published, so that's that out of the way, and both Morrisons and Adu Qatada are identified in the photo so that's part 3. Voila, a full house. Defamation.

In the words of Blue - "I rest my case."