On 15/11/2007, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.net wrote:
From our article on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act of 1974:
Rehabilitation Act and actions for libel under British law
According to Law and the Media, a reference work relating to British media law, if a person can prove that the details of a spent conviction were published with malice, then the publisher may be subject to libel damages regardless of whether the details were true or not. This applies where the publisher is relying on a defence of qualified privilege or justification.
I'm not sure how well you would do trying to argue that a wikipedia editor gets qualified privilege. Somehow I doubt you would get very far.