Defamation Defences
Defence of Truth II
If a statement is true, it does not matter that the defendant acted maliciously or was unaware of the truth of the statement. The truth may be established by facts that happened after the ostensibly defamatory statement was made.
A defendant who claims truth must have a basis for so doing. He runs the risk of aggravating liability significantly, if he puts forward a defence of truth, without justification and a realistic basis.
The requirement of the defence is that the statement was substantially true. It need not be literally true, in every single respect. The requirement for proving substantial truth is satisfied if the defendant does not prove the truth of every part of the statement, but the parts which are untrue are not such as to substantially damage the claimant. However, if there are two separate defamatory statements, then the substantial truth of each must be proved.