In Stocker v Stocker [2018] EWCA Civ 170, the Court of Appeal dismissed both main grounds of appeal. Delivering the main judgment, Lady Justice Sharp held, first, that the trial judge did not err when determining the meaning of the word ‘strangle’ in the comments.

Sharp LJ said that, while ‘the use of dictionaries does not form part of the process of determining the natural and ordinary meaning of words… no harm was done in this case… the judge’s ultimate reasoning, not dependent on dictionaries, was sound’. Second, she concluded that the ex-wife was responsible in law for publishing the comments, and the ‘fact that the “notice board” was an electronic, rather than a physical, one did not call for some fundamental realignment of the well-settled common law approach to this issue’.