QB-2022-002648 - [2025] EWHC 2565 (KB)

It was accepted that the Claimant was entitled to an injunction if he succeeded on liability.

Thatleaves the application under s12 of the Defamation Act 2013, which provides:

“(1)

Where a court gives judgment for the claimant in an action for defamation the court may order the defendant to publish a summary of the judgment.

(2)

The wording of any summary and the time, manner, form and place of its publication are to be for the parties to agree.

In Monir v Wood [2018] EWHC 3525, Nicklin J said at [239]-[241]:

“239.

The purpose of this section is to provide a remedy that will assist the claimant in repairing the damage to his reputation and obtaining vindication. Orders under the section are not to be made as any sort of punishment of the defendant.

240.

Orders under s12 are discretionary both as to whether to order the publication of a summary and (if the parties do not agree) in what terms and where. Exercising the power to require a defendant to publish a summary of the Court’s judgment is an interference with the defendant’s Article 10 right. As such, the interference must be justified. The interference may be capable of being justified in pursuit of the legitimate aim of “the protection of the reputation or rights of others”. Whether an order under this section can achieve this aim will be a matter of fact in each case. If the interference represented by a s12 order is justified, then the Court would then consider whether (if the parties agree) the terms of the summary to be published is proportionate. The Court should only make an order that the defendant publish a summary of the Court’s judgment if there is a realistic prospect that one or other of these objectives will be realised and that the publication of a summary is necessary and proportionate to these objectives.

241.

There is an obvious purpose, in an appropriate case, for ordering a newspaper to publish a summary of the judgment because there is a realistic basis on which to conclude that the published summary will come to the attention of at least some of those who read the original libel and others who may have learned about the allegation via the “grapevine” effect. In a smaller scale publication, where it is possible for the original publishees (or at least a substantial number of them) to be identified, again an order requiring the publication to them of a summary of the judgment may well help realise the objectives underpinning s12. Each case will depend upon its own facts. If the defendant has already published a retraction and apology then, depending upon its terms, that may mean that an order under s12 is not justifiable or required. The claimant will be able to point to that to assist in his vindication or repair to his reputation.”

In the result, Nicklin J refused to make the order sought in that case because there was no realistic prospect that ordering the defendant to publish a summary of the judgment would cause it to come to the attention of those to whom the original libel was published.

In contrast, in Serafin v Malkiewicz [2019] EWCA Civ 852, the Court of Appeal ordered the defendants to publish a summary of its judgment in their magazine. In Glenn I was told by Counsel who appeared in that case that this matter was not dealt with in the judgment of the Court of Appeal because it arose in submissions after the hearing on the form of the order, and that when that case went on appeal to the Supreme Court no appeal was made in respect of this point. The Order of the Court of Appeal was placed before me in Glenn.

Mr Lemer applied for an Order under s12 on the following grounds: (i) there has, to date, been no retraction of the publications nor any apology from the Defendant; (ii) ordering the Defendant to publish a summary of this Court’s judgment will cause the judgment to come to the attention of the same people who read the original libels and also, it was submitted, those who learned of them through the “grapevine” effect; and (iii) in consequence, this would assist in vindicating the Claimant, further or alternatively repairing his reputation, particularly as £50,000 is materially less than the damages to which he is entitled.

As to point (ii), a summary of the judgment would not directly reach those who learned of them through retweets and so forth. I am not persuaded that it would reach them at all. Otherwise, Mr Lemer’s points seem sound, and they were not contested by Mr Harding.

Such an Order would constitute an interference with the Defendant’s Article 10 rights to freedom of expression, and it is necessary to consider whether such interference is reasonable and proportionate in the light of the damage done by the Defendant’s publications to the Claimant, and is outweighed by the need to protect the Claimant’s Article 8 right to reputation in all the circumstances. These include that the Defendant has not apologised to the Claimant and cannot be forced to do so, or to express any regret. In my judgment, the publication of a summary is reasonable and proportionate in this case.

The contents of any summary that may be ordered is, in the first instance, a matter for the parties to seek to agree, as are the time, manner, form and place of publication of the same. Understandably, no submissions about those matters were addressed to me. Nevertheless, it may be helpful to mention that in Glenn I observed that a short statement could be formulated which would be no more than a factual account of the Court’s actions. Transposing the wording discussed there to the facts of present case, this could say something along the following lines: “On [date] I was ordered by the High Court in London to pay [the Claimant] £50,000 in damages for libel [plus his legal costs], on the grounds that between 14 and 29 June 2022 I made a number of defamatory allegations about him and I had no defence to his claim. The full judgment is available here: [link]”).

For these reasons, I propose to make an Order that (a) the Defendant is to publish a summary of this judgment, (b) the Claimant and the Defendant should endeavour to agree the wording of that summary and the time, manner, form and place of its publication, and (c) if the parties cannot agree on those matters, they will be settled by the Court. (For the assistance of the parties, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, the Court is presently minded to order the publication on all the Defendant’s media outlets of a summary similar to the wording quoted above, to continue for one month from the date of the Order.)