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"The Crown" legal aspects?

PaulMB

PaulMB

pfm Member
Just watched season 3 and was wondering why the Royals cannot sue for slander. They are depicted as neurotic, drunken sots, pitiless, callous and egotistic. From reading reviews, if also seems that there are many innacurracies and fabrications.
Is there something in UK law that prevents them from taking legal action? Or is it simply understood that if they did they would be submerged in even worse shit by witnesses called? Or do the producers get around all this by saying "based on real events but fictionalised"?
Naive question, perhaps, but I'm a foreigner.
 
PaulMB said:
They are depicted as neurotic, drunken sots, pitiless, callous and egotistic. From reading reviews, if also seems that there are many innacurracies and fabrications.
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the inaccuracies are about things like dates of events and clothing, not the personal traits of the family.

several years ago, the queen came over to the kentucky derby. as we watched on the TV, i pointed out to my parents that it was the first time i had EVER seen her shown any kind of natural, joyful human behaviour. when i saw that horse episode in season one, it all made sense and i now firmly believe it's all true.
 
You can’t libel or slander the dead in UK law plus its nearly all true and well documented anyway. The TV show has not presented anything that wasn’t in the UK or European press at the time.
The inaccuracies in the series are mostly timelines and historical events.
And finally the firm use Philip’s dictum of “never apologise, never explain.”
 
thebiglebowski said:
Why would they be?
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I was incorrect. They have been.

To abolish the hanging sentence for treason.



<<Most recently, the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act formally abolished the death penalty for treason, replacing it with a maximum punishment of life imprisonment>>>
 
guest said:
<<Most recently, the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act formally abolished the death penalty for treason, replacing it with a maximum punishment of life imprisonment>>>
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Didn't they clear up the death penalty for Sabotage of HM Dockyards at the same time? I think hanging for Mutiny on the High Seas got tidied up a while ago.
 
There is no death penalty for any crime in the UK. Not sure anyone has told the Met....
 
PaulMB said:
Just watched season 3 and was wondering why the Royals cannot sue for slander. They are depicted as neurotic, drunken sots, pitiless, callous and egotistic. From reading reviews, if also seems that there are many innacurracies and fabrications.
Is there something in UK law that prevents them from taking legal action? Or is it simply understood that if they did they would be submerged in even worse shit by witnesses called? Or do the producers get around all this by saying "based on real events but fictionalised"?
Naive question, perhaps, but I'm a foreigner.
Click to expand...
It's really no different from how other British monarchs have been treated - during her long period of self-imposed solitude after Prince Albert's death, all sorts of things were said about the beloved Queen Victoria. Some papers took to calling her "Mrs. Brown", because of an alleged relationship with her Scottish manservant John Brown. Her forebears were similarly lampooned in cartoons and articles. There is an offence (rather, was), lèse-majesté, offending against royalty, but the last case in the UK was in 1715.

People should realise that, while based on real characters and events, this is largely a work of fiction, and is substantially based on things that have been said/rumoured for some time. There are things on which, in different times, the UK press has kept mum, but which the non-UK press has been happy to publicise.
 
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