England and Wales High Court (Queen's Bench Division) Decisions

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION

		Royal Courts of Justice Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
		8 February 2017

Sir David Eady:

1. The words complained of in this libel action are derived from the minutes of a private meeting of the trustees of a Hindu charity held on 4 July 2015. It is based in Cricklewood and is known as the Holy Mission of Guru Nanak. The Claimant was one of the trustees from 2010 until the date of that meeting, when he was removed from office by those attending. He relies upon words spoken by the Defendant who chaired the meeting, by way of slander, and also upon the subsequent circulation of the minutes themselves by way of libel. The only publishees of the minutes were the trustees who had been present and the Charity Commission, which had requested a copy.
2. The proceedings were commenced on 1 July 2016, just before the expiry of the twelve month limitation period, and the claim form was served together with the particulars of claim on 20 September of that year.
3. The words complained of are to be found in paragraph 24 of the particulars of claim. They are taken directly from the uncorrected minutes, which were written by a professional minute taker called Elliott Gresswell (of Global Lingo):

"NR [the Defendant] stated that the first concern around DD's [the Claimant's] ability to function as a trustee related to conflict of interest. NR noted that DD had contacted the Charity Commission independently of the other trustees on several occasions.

NR noted that in his emails, DD had made accusations of criminal behaviour without providing evidence, and made accusations of slander without providing evidence, despite having been given the opportunity to do so.

NR moved onto the fourth concern with DD's ability to function as a trustee, which was that DD had created a massive increase in the trustees' workload by refusing to attend meetings and insisting on doing his work by correspondence.

NR asked MP [Manish Panjabi] if he was comfortable having it stated for the record that DD had sent hostile personal communications to him. MP was happy for this to be stated on the record."

4. Ms Skinner has challenged two aspects of the defamatory meanings pleaded (in paragraph 25). First, she argues that the words are incapable of conveying the inference "that the issues raised by the Claimant were either fabricated or without merit and that the Claimant is therefore a liar and troublemaker". I accept her submission to the extent that I hold the words to be incapable of bearing any imputation of fabrication or dishonesty. One can have an honest belief that there have been, or may have been, irregularities or wrongdoing without necessarily being able to produce evidence to that effect. The meaning is in my view over-pleaded in a way that used to be more common. As May LJ noted in Alexander v Arts Council of Wales [2001] 1 WLR 1853, at [41], libel pleaders never seemed content to say that the words in issue mean what they say; a pyramid of insulting paraphrases had to be erected on them. (The removal of the presumption of jury trial by the 2013 Defamation Act was thought likely to lead, incidentally, to greater restraint in this regard.)
5. Secondly, she submits that the words are incapable of imputing that the Claimant had sent hostile personal communications that were "inappropriate and aggressive". I note, by way of background context, that the minutes record an allegation that the Claimant had sent contentious emails to trustees in January and February 2015 which "contained very serious and sometimes aggressive language". That is not determinative of the matter, but in the circumstances taken as a whole I would not rule out the imputation pleaded. I consider that "hostile" can equate here to both "inappropriate" and "aggressive".
6. Ms Skinner's main complaint, however, goes to the threshold requirement of "serious harm" introduced by s.1 of the Defamation Act 2013. The deficiencies in this respect were pointed out in correspondence from the outset. Originally, the pleading contained no such allegation at all, but the Claimant now seeks leave to amend to include a bare assertion of "serious harm". That is not sufficient, however, because it is necessary to give particulars as to the nature of the harm caused, or likely to be caused, in the particular case. Ms Skinner points out that this is not a technicality which can be overcome by further amendment. She says that the circumstances are such that there simply cannot have been "serious harm" brought about by the limited publications relied upon. There is nothing to suggest that the Claimant's reputation was damaged in the eyes of any of his fellow trustees, since by the time the meeting took place they were all aware of the allegations about his conduct and will have formed at least a preliminary view of it for themselves. The summary of the criticisms recorded in the minutes was hardly going to make any significant difference. It contained nothing new. Moreover, the receipt of the minutes will not have had any serious impact after they had already decided to remove him from office. So far as the Charity Commission is concerned, it cannot surely be suggested that the provision of a copy at their request would have any significant impact on his reputation.
7. It is true that some evidence was produced of the Claimant having been "shunned and avoided" in his community, but there is nothing to link it to the specific causes of action relied upon. I can quite appreciate that being "sent to Coventry", or being "ostracised", within a person's social circles could be characterised as "serious harm", but it must be attributable to the words complained of. It may well be that the fact became widely known that he had been removed as a trustee, and that this in itself would have aroused curiosity and speculation, but the removal is not the subject of this litigation. The claim is based upon very limited communications which took place on a confidential basis.
8. Sometimes, the court may be prepared to draw an inference that a particular communication will cause serious harm to a claimant – perhaps from the inherent gravity of the allegation and/or from the scale of publication – without his having to adduce evidence at all. This is far from being such a case for the reasons I have discussed: quite the reverse.
9. I have come to the conclusion that the Claimant has not so far given any indication that he will be able to overcome the hurdle of showing that "serious harm" has occurred. Nor is it likely that those limited publications, by now eighteen months in the past, will cause him serious harm in the future. For those reasons, therefore, I believe there is no answer to Ms Skinner's submission that the claim should be struck out. Because of Parliament's intervention, this is now a necessary element in the definition of "defamatory". Without it, the claim cannot proceed.
10. Ms Skinner raised other points in support of her strike out application, but it is not now necessary to address them in any detail. She relied on the proposition that each of the relevant communications took place on an occasion of qualified privilege (and was prepared to argue, in the case of the Charity Commission, that there would even be a defence of absolute privilege). It is plain that there was at least an occasion of qualified privilege in each case and, so far, there is no reason to suppose that the Claimant could overcome such a defence by proving malice; that is to say, by showing that the Defendant knew the relevant words to be false, or that he was actuated by some improper motive. He would face a heavy burden in this regard and I believe that this would have provided another ground for halting the action at this early stage. For the reasons I have given, however, I do not now need to decide the point.
11. Another issue discussed briefly was that of republication. In certain circumstances, a publisher of defamatory words may be held liable for their republication. Obviously, where he authorises the original publishees to pass them on, he will be directly responsible. But it is not necessary to go that far. It used to be said, for example, that a defendant could be liable where it was apparent that it would be "a natural and probable consequence" of his original communication that they would be repeated: see e.g. Speight v Gosnay (1891) 60 LJQB 231 and McManus v Beckham [2002] 1 WLR 2982. A classic instance would be where the recipient was under a legal or moral duty to republish: Derry v Handley (1867) 16 LT 263, at 264, per Cockburn CJ.
12. By way of amendment, at paragraph 29A, the Claimant seeks to set out a case of republication, in an attempt to provide more viable causes of action, but it is wholly unparticularised. The causative link has to be identified: see Gatley on Libel & Slander (12^th edn), at 6.56 to 6.57. Since the Defendant reminded the trustees of the confidentiality of the minutes, and of the proceedings at the 4 July meeting, there is no basis for any inference that he "knew and intended that his words or their gist … should be republished by third parties within the close-knit Sindhi community and/or authorised their repetition", or that "there was a significant risk that they would be repeated". It is merely formulaic and amounts to no more than bare assertion. The examples pleaded of people "approaching" him, and mentioning rumours or the fact of his removal as a trustee, do not lead to an inference that the content of the confidential minutes was republished to anyone – still less that the Defendant authorised or intended their republication. The proposed amendments would not be satisfactory in themselves, and they go nowhere towards overcoming the failure to show "serious harm".
13. In the result, therefore, I will strike out the claim.