Walter Richard Sickert?

Question

Don't you think Patricia Cornwall should be sued by Walter Richard Sickert's family for slander?

Answer 1

Walter Sickert was not Jack the ripper,Cornwall only wrote that to make a few quid! And it worked! But beleive me he was not! The family don't really care at the moment :)

Answer 2

Tamara,

Sorry, but you don't understand the law of slander or libel.(Slander is orally telling an untruth about somebody; libel is printing an untruth) .

You cannot slander (or libel) a dead man. Only the living can sue, and only if they are private individuals, not public figures, or public officials. The families of the dead man cannot sue. The reputations of the dead are not protected.

Even if Sickert were still alive, he still might not have a legal cause of action (a legal case), because he actually MIGHT have been the killer called Jack the Ripper. There was certainly enough evidence to make him a suspect. As long as Cornwall did not distort the facts or lie about the evidence, and without a showing of actual malice on her part, it might have been protected as freedom of the press, since this is a matter of intense public interest, and the rules for libel and slander are different in those type of cases. And if he were still alive and there WERE a legal case, she would not have written the book the way she did. She does not have to prove him guilty BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. In a civil case, she only has to prove that MORE PROBABLY THAN NOT (more than 50%), what she claimed was true.
For example: This is why OJ Simpson , although found not guilty of murder in his criminal trial, was found responsible for the wrongful deaths of his ex-wife and Ron Goodman by a jury that believed he was guilty more probably than not. And certainly, he could not have sued any writer or newspaper for libel for detailing the evidence against him.