Making Public Allegations: Media Law in its Social ContextFrom the BBC’s coverage of a police raid at Cliff Richard’s house to revelations of serious sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Mohamed Al-Fayed, public allegations of wrongdoing have been at the heart of the modern media landscape.

As anyone who has waded into this area knows, the legal framework around making public allegations of this nature is a complex and evolving web, involving a variety of different laws including privacy, breach of confidence, defamation and contempt.

On Thursday 3 July 2025, a number of leading academics and practitioners will gather in central London to discuss how media law responds to those who make public allegations of wrongdoing and what impact those responses have on different media actors. It will examine a range of recent media law developments and, crucially, place those developments in their wider societal context (including the #metoo movement). The presenters are from New Zealand, Australia, the United States and United Kingdom and, although the papers’ principal focus will be the law of England & Wales, a range of comparative perspectives will also be included.

The current programme for the conference is provided below. The conference consists of daytime sessions (commencing at 12:30 pm) and an evening panel discussion (commencing at 5:30 pm).

 All are welcome to attend (though please register as soon as possible). To register for the conference click here.

 Attendees are more than welcome to the daytime or evening session (or both). Please indicate this when you register.

 Unfortunately, we are not able to accommodate remote attendance for this event.

Venue:

Lecture Theatre, Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London, 67 – 69 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3JB

Time:

  • Daytime sessions: 12:30pm-5:00pm
  • Evening panel discussion: 5:30pm-7pm

Programme:

12.30pm            Registration & light lunch

12.50pm            Opening :   Nicole Moreham and Jeevan Hariharan

1pm                     Session 1 – Truth and the chilling effect

Chair: Tom Bennett

David Rolph – The truth defence across actions

Julie Doughty – Gender and the chilling effect

2pm               Break

2.30pm               Session 2 – Protecting public interest disclosures

Chair: Judith Skillen

Rebecca Moosavian – The Personal is Political: Sexual Misconduct Allegations, Defamation & Gender Politics

Fiona Brimblecombe – Public interest defence across actions

3.30pm               Afternoon tea

4pm                     Session 3 – The actors: Who is media law affecting?

Chair: Andrew Kenyon

Ursula Cheer – Impact of gender in defamation claims in the United Kingdom and New Zealand

Jeevan Hariharan – Has English privacy law gone too far? Police investigations and the media’s ability to report on serious wrongdoing

5.00pm               Break

5.30pm               Evening session: Modern challenges with protecting reputation                

Chair: Sir Mark Warby                             

Nicole Moreham – Privacy and allegations of wrongdoing

Jake Rowbottom – Defamation in the Internet Age

Antony White KC – TBC

6.45pm               Close and drinks