Court dismisses Dell'Olio libel claim

The High Court in London today dismissed Nancy Dell’Olio’s libel action over her claim of being portrayed as a “serial gold-digger”.

The 'Strictly Come Dancing' star’s counsel, William Bennett, had said that the key message of April’s Daily Mail story about her relationship with 71-year-old theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn was set out in the headline: “Return of the man eater”.

He told Mr Justice Tugendhat in London: “A man eater is an animal which hunts and kills human prey. In the context of the words complained of, it means a woman who hunts men but, rather than kill and eat them, uses them for her own selfish ends.

“The use of the word ’man eater’ excludes the possibility of romantic love or the possibility of a genuine emotional draw to another human being.

“Just as the lion hunts the deer for food, Nancy Dell’Olio hunts the millionaire for his money.”

Mr Bennett said the predator metaphor was fleshed out in the article which questioned what could attract an “alluring” very well-dressed younger woman to a man who “looks like a scruffy geography teacher” who was two decades older than her and wore “battered plimsolls”.

He said that Ms Dell’Olio was not presented as having a mutual interest in the theatre with Sir Trevor or as the sort of intellectual with whom he normally associated.

Her case was that the story meant she was a serial gold-digger who cynically sought out relationships with men because they were millionaires capable of funding her conspicuously lavish and ostentatious lifestyle.

Mark Warby QC, for Associated Newspapers, said that while the article might not be wholly flattering, it did not convey the defamatory meaning complained of.

He said that Ms Dell’Olio was nowhere called a gold-digger and the article could not reasonably be read as implying that her sole motivation was money, to the exclusion of genuine emotion.

It made clear that Sir Trevor was the initiator of the relationship and explicitly reflected the genuine emotional commitment involved on both sides.

The references to Sir Trevor’s generosity and healthy bank balance and Ms Dell’Olio’s expensive lifestyle and lack of any obvious income source were clearly depicted as fringe benefits for a woman of expensive tastes, and not as her aim and object when entering into the relationship.

Mr Warby added that the term “man eater” was certainly capable of suggesting predatory behaviour but that was not at all the same thing as being a “serial gold-digger”, and no reasonable reader of the whole article could be left with that impression.

Ms Dell’Olio was not in court to hear the judge strike out her claim, with reasons to follow later.

He said: “The words complained of are not capable of bearing the meaning attributed to them by the claimant in her particulars of claim or any other defamatory meaning of which she might complain.”

He refused permission to appeal although Ms Dell’Olio can renew her application directly to the Court of Appeal.