Singer's sister loses legal fight

The sister of the Fifties singer Alma Cogan failed yesterday in a High Court bid to stop the BBC from airing a radio series that depicts the singer as a drunk and their mother as domineering.

Mr Justice Field explained to Sandra Caron, the younger sister of the star, who brought the case, that she had no case under defamation law because it was not possible to libel a deceased person.

To establish the alternative claim of malicious falsehood she would have to prove that damage had been done to the property of the dead person's estate. "I don't see how this programme, in portraying your mother in a way which you say is a misportrayal and depicting your sister as having had a drink problem, can undermine the assets of the estate," he said. "You have to show misstatements are made maliciously, without honest belief in their truth and for some bad motive."

Ms Caron was furious at the decision. "It's all fabricated. She didn't have a drink problem. Our mother, Fay, played by Alison Steadman, is depicted as an overbearing Jewish harridan with a heavy German accent. She was born in London and had an English accent.

"The worst is that they have my mother ending her days senile in an old people's home – this is simply false."

The drama, Stage Mother, Sequinned Daughter, by Annie Caulfield, is due to start on Monday and play daily until 2 August.