Daily Star fails to stop Niall Horan libel case

One Direction’s Niall Horan has won a round in his libel case over articles which he says meant he used hard drugs during an evening with fellow singers Justin Bieber and Cody Simpson.

The Mullingar star has sued Express Newspapers over articles which appeared in the Daily Star in July. He claims they were defamatory because they meant that during an evening spent with Bieber and Simpson he had used hard drugs — crystal meth or crack.

The newspaper says the articles do not bear the meaning alleged or any meaning defamatory of Horan. It asked Mr Justice Dingemans at London’s High Court to stop the action in its tracks.

Yesterday, the judge dismissed the application, saying that the article was capable of bearing the defamatory meaning claimed.

He said that this was supported by the extensive reference to a Breaking Bad- style drugs pipe — Breaking Bad being a television series centred around the manufacture and sale of crystal meth.

The banner headline was “new drug storm”, the article reported that Horan was “staring blankly” and there was express reference to “rumours the singers were using hard drugs”.

The inclusion of words that “there is no suggestion that this is the case” and reported requests from fans that Horan should not get into drugs — which at least carried the implication that Horan was not then currently into them — were matters to consider when the actual meaning of the article was determined, he added.

Horan was not in court for the ruling.

Meanwhile, it has been revealed that tweets from all four members of One Direction are among the top 10 most retweeted Twitter posts of 2015 — with Harry Styles at number one.

His tweet “All the love as always. H”, which was posted in March, amassed over 700,000 retweets. Horan’s August tweet — a picture of him with Liam Payne — was retweeted over 320,000 times. It said: “Happy birthday @Real_Liam_Payne .. Have a great day man .... Here we are making strange faces.”