(delivering the judgment of the Court): The respondent/plaintiff claims damages against the appellant/defendant for libel. The libel was alleged to be contained in an article headed "Danger in Model Job" and another article headed "Cops Check Model Job" published in two issues of The Sunday Mail dated April 14, 1985 and June 30, 1985 respectively.

The respondent also asks for an injunction to restrain the defendant from the publication of the articles or any of them or in words to the like effect.

On an ex parte application the respondent asked for an interim injunction pending hearing of the action substantially in the terms of the claim for an injunction as endorsed in the writ. The learned Judge gave an order in terms. The appellant then applied to set aside the order. It was dismissed. Hence the appeal.

After hearing the appeal we formed the view that the learned Judge had acted erroneously in the exercise of his judicial discretion when he granted the interim injunction. We therefore allowed the appeal with costs and set aside the order. We now give our reasons.

The pleadings referred to the two articles that were alleged to be libellous. As for the first article headlined "Danger in Model Job", the respondent alleges that the appellant falsely and maliciously wrote and published the article and meant and was understood to mean that the respondent was a disreputable and non-existent company and that its directors/employees were immoral, lewd and promiscuous people by seeking to offer employment to a girl with the intention of procuring her for immoral purposes. With reference to the second article headed "Cops Check Model Job", the respondent alleges that the appellant falsely and maliciously published the article and meant and was understood to mean that the respondent and/or its executives were elusive, shady and dangerous characters whom members of the public must be protected from.

The appellant admits publishing the articles but denies they were falsely and maliciously published. The appellant also denies that the articles complained of conveyed the meaning alluded to. In particular, the appellant asserts that the matters set out in the articles complained of are —

(a) in substance true in fact, and

(b) matters of comment upon a matter of public interest.

In support of these assertions particulars are set out in the defence. In support of (a), the appellant refers to the advertisement asking for applicants interested in working as models and film extras, the response of a schoolgirl to the advertisement, the offer by the respondent for work on unknown terms without interview, police investigation and so forth.

In support of (b), the appellant asserts that when someone offers lucrative jobs to young girls without job interviews through an advertisement for a job as a model it can have dangerous consequences and there could be something "fishy" going on. Such assertions should, in our view, be sufficient to satisfy the Court that the appellant is specifically raising a defence of justification especially where the appellant is asserting that the words complained of were true in substance and in fact; (see Associated Leisure Ltd (Phonographic Equipment Co Ltd) v Associated Newspapers Ltd [1970] 2 QB 450, 456. The appellant is also raising a defence of fair comment. It is the appellant's case that the statements of fact on which comment is based are substantially true and are matters of public interest and therefore the comment on those facts is fair.

The question before the Court therefore is whether an injunction ought to have been granted by the learned Judge in a case where a defendant has specifically pleaded that he will rely on a well-recognised defence.

There is, in law, no doubt that "the High Court may grant an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendant, whether by himself or by his servants or agents or otherwise, from publishing or further publishing matter which is defamatory or of