KB-2023-000257 - [2024] EWHC 647 (KB)

Mr Vassall-Adams notes that, by s. 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, Mr Sinton must show that the publications complained of have caused or are likely to cause serious harm to his reputation. This can be established by “a combination of the inherent tendency of the words and their actual impact on those to whom they were communicated”: Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd [2019] UKSC 27, [2020] AC 612, [14] (Lord Sumption). In cases of publication to a limited group, it is unlikely that a claimant will be able to discharge the burden of showing serious harm by inference from the words themselves, whether at the summary judgment stage or at the trial stage: Amersi v Leslie [2023] EWHC 1368 (KB), [158]; see also Sivananthan v Vasikaran [2022] EWHC 837 (KB), [54]. There may be insuperable problems in demonstrating causation where a claimant has himself circulated a publication: Amersi v Leslie [2023] EWCA Civ 1468, [41]. In considering whether serious harm to reputation has been caused, any harm caused by publications that have been held to be lawful must be ignored: Banks v Cadwalladr [2023] KB 524, [41].

Mr Sinton has given evidence about the harm suffered “as a result of being banned from site”, but this is nothing to the point. The question is not whether he suffered serious harm to his reputation as a result of being banned from the defendant’s sites, but whether he suffered such harm as a result of the publications alleged. As to that, he has adduced no evidence that any publishee read or heard the words complained of and thought less of him. The highest the matter is put in the evidence adduced on Mr Sinton’s behalf is the evidence of Messrs Byrne, Pena and Magill that they temporarily had doubts about him after becoming aware that he had been banned from the sites. But Mr Byrne learned of the decision to remove his access to the sites from Mr Delany, Mr Pena from three contractors (who had presumably been informed by Mr Sinton himself or by Mr Byrne) and Mr Magill cannot say how he learned of it.