If someone has spread damaging spoken lies about you in the UK, you cannot report it to the police in any ordinary sense. Slander is a civil wrong, not a criminal offence, so the way to report someone for slander in the UK is to pursue them yourself through the civil courts, usually with a defamation solicitor, and you have only one year from the date the words were spoken to start proceedings. Almost everything below concerns the law of England and Wales under the Defamation Act 2013; Scotland and Northern Ireland work differently, and there is a short note on that at the end.
When the Police Are and Are Not Involved
People searching for how to report slander often picture something like a police report. That route does not exist for defamation. The police have no role in a one-off false spoken statement, however damaging it was.
What the police can act on is separate criminal behaviour that happens to overlap with the slander. If the same person is targeting you repeatedly with false statements as part of a campaign of abuse, that pattern can amount to criminal harassment, and you can report the harassment. Malicious communications can be reported the same way. But the slander itself, as a cause of action, sits in the civil courts and it is on you to bring it.
What You Actually Have to Prove
Slander is defamation in a temporary form, essentially the spoken word. Libel covers the permanent forms: writing, broadcasts, online posts. To win a slander claim you need three things.
First, the statement must be defamatory, meaning it would cause a reasonable person to think less of you. Second, it must have been “published” to at least one person other than you. In defamation law, published just means communicated to a third party. If the words were said to your face with no one else there, there is no claim.
Third, and this is where most claims either survive or fall apart, section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013 requires you to show the statement caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to your reputation. The bar is deliberately high. Hurt feelings and vague reputational annoyance are not enough. If you are a business that trades for profit, the threshold is stiffer still: you have to show serious financial loss.1legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Requirement of Serious Harm Section 1
There are two narrow categories where slander is actionable without proof of specific financial loss: allegations that you committed a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment, and statements that disparage you in your trade, business, or profession.2legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Section 14 Special Damage Even in these categories, the serious harm test from section 1 still applies to every slander claim.
Defences That Can Kill Your Claim
Before spending money on a solicitor, look at the words honestly from the other side. The Defamation Act 2013 gives defendants several strong defences, and if any of them lands, the claim fails no matter how much the words hurt.
- Truth. If the core meaning of what was said is substantially true, that is a complete defence. Small inaccuracies do not matter; the essential sting has to be true.3legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Defences Section 2
- Honest opinion. If the statement was clearly opinion rather than fact, based on something that existed at the time, and an honest person could have held it on those facts, the defendant is protected. It only fails if you can show the speaker did not actually hold the opinion.4legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Defences Section 3
- Publication on a matter of public interest. If the statement was on a matter of public interest and the speaker reasonably believed publishing it was in the public interest, that is a defence. The court considers all the circumstances and gives some allowance for editorial judgement.5legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Section 4 Publication on Matter of Public Interest
If what was said is true, malice does not save your claim. If it was opinion resting on known facts, the claim is weak. Being honest with yourself here saves thousands of pounds spent chasing a case that will not succeed.
Gathering Your Evidence
Slander is harder to prove than libel because spoken words vanish. How strong your evidence looks often decides whether a solicitor takes the case at all.
Write down exactly what was said, as close to the actual words as you can manage, immediately after you hear it. Note the date, time, and location. A paraphrase produced weeks later carries far less weight. Identify everyone who was present and could have heard the words, and get their contact details. Witness evidence is usually the backbone of a slander claim because there is rarely any written record.
An audio recording can be powerful. UK civil courts do not automatically exclude covert recordings. There is no general rule against them, but a judge has discretion to exclude evidence to ensure the case is dealt with justly, and the court will weigh how the recording was obtained. A recording made on your own phone during a conversation you were part of is treated very differently from something obtained by bugging a private meeting.
The most important evidence is anything showing the words caused real harm: lost contracts, a termination letter, an offer that was pulled, medical records tying stress-related conditions to what was said. Without tangible proof of damage, you will struggle to clear the serious harm threshold.
The Letter Before Action
Once your evidence supports a credible claim, the first formal step is a “letter before action” sent to the person who spoke the words. This is not a courtesy. The Pre-Action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims sets out the expected steps before proceedings, and courts treat compliance as the normal, reasonable approach.6Justice UK. Pre-Action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims Skipping it can bring cost penalties later even if you win.
A defamation solicitor should draft the letter. It needs to identify the specific words spoken, explain why they are defamatory, set out the serious harm they caused, and say what you want. Typical demands are a retraction of the statement, a formal apology, a binding undertaking not to repeat it, and compensation for the damage.
Many disputes end here. A well-drafted letter from a specialist signals that you are serious about litigating, and the other side gets a chance to put things right without a court case. The protocol explicitly encourages alternative dispute resolution before proceedings begin.6Justice UK. Pre-Action Protocol for Media and Communications Claims
Filing a Claim in the High Court
If the letter does not resolve things, you can issue a formal defamation claim. Defamation claims cannot go in the county courts. They must be filed in the High Court and marked for the Media and Communications List in the King’s Bench Division.7Justice UK. Part 53 – Media and Communications Claims The list is a specialist one, overseen by a nominated judge of the King’s Bench Division.8Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Work of the King’s Bench Division
Your solicitor files a Claim Form to start the action, then Particulars of Claim setting out the exact words spoken, who heard them, and the evidence of serious harm.
The One-Year Deadline
You must start proceedings within one year of the date the slander was spoken. This limit is set by section 4A of the Limitation Act 1980 and is much shorter than the six-year limit that applies to most other torts.9legislation.gov.uk. Limitation Act 1980 Section 4A Miss it and your claim is, in almost every case, finished.
The Defamation Act 2013 also introduced a single publication rule for repeated statements. Where the same person publishes substantially the same statement again later, the clock runs from the first publication, not the repeat, unless the manner of the later publication is materially different.10legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Section 8 Single Publication Rule
Mediation and IPSO Arbitration
A full defamation trial is expensive, public, and unpredictable. Courts now expect both sides to have seriously considered alternative dispute resolution, and an unreasonable refusal to engage can bring cost penalties whichever way the case goes.
Mediation is the usual route. A neutral mediator helps both sides negotiate confidentially, with no decision imposed on anyone. It is faster and cheaper than trial, and everything stays private, which matters when the whole point of your claim is protecting your reputation from further public airing.
If the slander relates to a publication that participates in the Independent Press Standards Organisation’s arbitration scheme, you may be able to use IPSO’s arbitration instead of the High Court. The scheme covers defamation among other media-related torts. Your claim must be brought within one year of the publication or behaviour complained about, and an arbitrator will decide whether it is suitable. Claims that raise novel legal questions or require extensive witness cross-examination may be sent to the courts instead.11IPSO. Is Your Claim Eligible?
What a Court Can Award
If you succeed, the court has more than just damages available.
- Damages. Compensation for the reputational harm and any associated distress. Aggravated damages are possible where the defendant’s conduct during the proceedings makes things worse.
- Injunction. An order preventing the defendant from repeating the statement. Interim injunctions at the start of proceedings are very rarely granted in defamation cases, but a final injunction after trial is common.
- Published summary of judgment. The court can order the defendant to publish a summary of the judgment. The parties agree the wording, or the court settles it if they cannot.12legislation.gov.uk. Defamation Act 2013 – Section 12 Summary of Court Judgment
- Retraction and apology. More often agreed as part of a negotiated settlement than imposed by the court.
What It Will Cost You
Cost is where most potential claimants decide whether to go ahead. Defamation litigation in the High Court is expensive, and the risk falls heavily on the claimant if it goes wrong.
Specialist defamation solicitors in England and Wales charge guideline hourly rates from £288 to £579, with London rates at the top of the range.13Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Guideline Hourly Rates 2026 Barrister fees for trial advocacy sit on top of that. A claim that runs all the way to a contested trial can easily generate total costs well into six figures, counting both your own costs and the risk of paying the defendant’s costs if you lose. That adverse costs risk is the single biggest financial danger in defamation litigation. High Court issue fees are a percentage of the claim value for money claims, with a flat fee for non-monetary claims such as injunctions.
Legal aid is not available for defamation claims in England and Wales. Conditional fee agreements, sometimes called “no win no fee,” do exist for defamation, but the success fee now comes out of your damages rather than being recoverable from the defendant. Even a winning CFA leaves you with less than the headline award. Solicitors will generally only offer a CFA where the case is strong and the defendant has the means to pay.
Tax on Any Award
Damages for slander received by an individual are not subject to Capital Gains Tax. HMRC treats compensation for libel or slander as falling within the exemption for personal wrongs or injuries under section 51(2) of the Taxation of Chargeable Gains Act 1992. The exemption does not extend to companies or other non-individual claimants.14HM Revenue & Customs. Compensation: Personal Compensation or Damages
Scotland and Northern Ireland
The Defamation Act 2013 applies only to England and Wales, and its provisions are marked “E+W” throughout. Scottish defamation law rests mainly on common law with some older statutory provisions, and there is no slander/libel distinction there; all defamation sits in a single framework. If the words were spoken in Scotland or you want to sue there, you need a Scottish solicitor familiar with that jurisdiction. Northern Ireland has its own defamation legislation and is also outside the 2013 Act.