Slander and Libel

Over the years of reading Private Eye, you get to know that the slander and libel laws in the United Kingdom are used quite heavily by people. For those of you that do not know, slander and libel is the term used for people who speak wrongly about you or print something wrong about you (Slander = spoken, Libel = printed).  So why bring it up here.  Again over the years of reading Private Eye you realise that a lot of local council use Media Outlets to protect their reputations and their public image. Not only that but there is a lot for money in “protecting reputations” and a lot of money spent of “protecting reputations” (You make up your own mind what I mean by this).  Now this got me thinking, has any Welsh council ever sued anyone for slander or Libel.   

So I asked ALL Welsh council the same question:

1) How many times has your authority pursued a case of libel or slander against an individual or group?

2) If the answer to the above question is anything above 0, please can you tell me how much money was spent pursuing this matter?

3) If the answer to question 1 was anything above 0, please can you tell me how many cases were won and how much money was awarded to you?

When asked, the time frame of from 01/01/11 until time of writing was given, but many answered from time of inception.

The answer was boring AND interesting at the same time.

Name	Amount	Spent	Awarded
Blaenau	None	NA	NA
Bridgend	None	NA	NA
Caerphilly	None	NA	NA
Cardiff	None	NA	NA
Carmarthenshire	None	NA	NA
Ceredigion
Conway	None	NA	NA
Denbighshire	None	NA	NA
Flintshire	None	NA	NA
Gwynedd	None	NA	NA
Anglesey	None	NA	NA
Merthyr Tydfil	None	NA	NA
Monmouth	None	NA	NA
Neath Port Talbot	None	NA	NA
Newport	None	NA	NA
Pembroke	None	NA	NA
Powys	None	NA	NA
RCT	None	NA	NA
Swansea
Torfaen	None	NA	NA
Vale Of Glamorgan	None	NA	NA
Wrexham

A lot of these council answered within days of me asking (Which is pretty good going.  In fact this is the quickest I have EVER been able to find out such full results on a matter).  I also asked four other organisations the same question.  These were:

Name	Amount	Spent	Awarded
Welsh Government	0	0	0
National Assembly for Wales	0	0	0
Brighton and Hove City Council
Westminster City Council	0	0	0

The reason I asked these organisation is simply because I wanted to cover all Welsh Government, but also have two from outside as a comparison.

Well, Welsh Councils have not pursued anyone for Slander or Libel.  Rather dull ending isn't it?  Think again.  People have sued over slander and libel over the smallest of things (I can personally say I have heard of a person suing another over a drunken comment).  Which means this, If no Welsh council has pursued anyone for a case of slander or libel, does it means that they have been doing everything right, or are they unaware of the comments being made about them OR that they don't have the money to invest in this area...