R vs. FRIMPONG

(His lordship stated the history of the matter, and continued:—) The absence of any evidence of the delivery of the defamatory air-letter to, or of its receipt by, the addressee, and the rather strong suspicion raised by the circumstantial evidence that it had somehow got into the hands of some unauthorised person in London, and by the latter posted back to the complainant in Accra, led me to ask for arguments whether there was sufficient evidence establishing a prima facie case of publication. Regard must be had, inter alia, to the cases of: (1) Sharp v. Skues ((1909) 25 T.L.R. 336); (2) Huth v. Huth ([1915] 3 K.B. 32) and (3) Powell v. Gelston ([1916] 2 K.B. 615). Those three cases (the second, Huth v. Huth, being a decision of the English Court of Appeal) establish the proposition that the interception by an unauthorised third party of a letter containing matter defamatory of the addressee, does not constitute publication to that unauthorised third party, or to any other p.....