Could I get sued for libel?

[beacher]

I am thinking of losely basing some of the characters in my story "Criminal Diaries" on real-life people. It would be very, very lose. I would change their names and give them different appearances. But I read that writers can be sued if they base their characters on real people because the real persons can get offended. Would I be allowed to use real-life cases in this story?

[dalon]

If you say '' all the characters in this book are fictional'' then no. As long as there crimes aren't exact copies of the peoples crimes then you're fine.

[golding]

Bear in mind that it's only libel if it's untrue. If you're giving a provable honest account of events then you don't need to worry about libel.