KB-2022-003483 - [2025] EWHC 1912 (KB)

The Defendant did not disclose a single document that had been generated by the investigation, although claiming it had spanned May – 1 November 2021. It defies common sense to suggest that no electronic documents were generated during such an investigation (and that everything was done by phone calls and paper-based notes that were not retained). Alternatively, if electronic documents were generated, no satisfactory explanation has been provided as to why they were not disclosed by Mr Qureshi;

The Defendant could not explain how he began the investigation in May 2021, given that he also said he had first learnt of Mr Sabeel’s allegations on 28 October 2021 (following his press conference);

When asked to detail the investigations that had been conducted, the Defendant only responded in very general terms;

The Defendant did not refer to any of the material that this alleged investigation had generated when he interviewed Mr Sabeel;

Mr Sabeel asked the Defendant to interview him on 31 October 2021 (para 35 above), the interview took place the following morning and the videos were published that evening. This timescale does not suggest that a thorough investigation was conducted of the kind that Mr Qureshi referred to;

The Defendant provided no witness statements from the 10 plus people in his team, who he said had assisted him. Whilst he suggested that this was because he did not want to put their safety at risk given they were based in Pakistan, this proposition was undermined by the fact that he had disclosed Mr Ahmed’s affidavit which contained his full address;

The contents of the Defence were inconsistent with the account that Mr Qureshi gave in his evidence. Rather than referring to an investigation that had taken from May – 1 November 2021, para 27 of the Defence said: “The Defendant emphasises that he did not make any independent verification of the claims made by Mr Sabeel during the interview”. The paragraph went on to (wrongly) state that the onus for fact-checking and verification “should fall upon the accusers”. The impression given by para 27 was also reinforced by para 14, which included the assertion that “The Defendant’s failure to ascertain the steps taken to verify Mr Sabeel’s allegations is irrelevant”. The Defendant was unable to explain the discrepancy between these passages and his oral evidence when questioned about this by Mr Wilcox; and

The Defendant did not refer to the investigative steps he had taken in his witness statement;

As I have explained in the previous paragraph, the Defendant put forward an untrue account of the investigations that he and his team had conducted;

I attach little weight to Mr Ahmed’s account as he was not called to give oral evidence and Mr Wilcox did not have an opportunity to cross examine him;

In any event there were marked inconsistencies between the Defendant’s evidence in this respect and the contents of Mr Ahmed’s affidavit. Firstly, Mr Qureshi maintained that he had asked Mr Ahmed to contact both Claimants, whereas Mr Ahmed only describes attempting to speak with the First Claimant about Mr Sabeel’s allegations. (In this regard I also note that the Second Claimant was in prison at the time and that the suggested contact was not put to him by Mr Kelly during cross examination.) Secondly, Mr Qureshi said that the Claimants were contacted prior to publication, both before and after he had interviewed Mr Sabeel, whereas Mr Ahmed’s affidavit only refers to attempts he made on 29 October 2021. Thirdly, Mr Qureshi said that the Claimants were contacted “many times”, whereas Mr Ahmed refers to three attempts;

The WhatsApp message that Mr Ahmed described sending to the First Claimant (para 124 above) has not been disclosed and no good explanation was given for this;

The account the Defendant gave in his evidence is inconsistent with para 14 of his Defence which said, “The Defendant was not obliged to approach the Claimants to verify the allegations made by Mr Sabeel, as they were not treated as factual claims…”. The Defendant was not able to explain this inconsistency when Mr Wilcox asked him about it; and

Both Claimants denied that they had been given a chance to comment on Mr Sabeel’s allegations prior to the Defendant’s publication of the videos. Whilst I did not find the Claimants to be wholly satisfactory witnesses (para 116 above), their evidence was significantly more credible than Mr Qureshi’s on this aspect of the case.

The versions of the Long Video and Short Video and the English translation that were placed before the Court as part of the trial bundle, were all agreed materials for the purposes of these proceedings. There are no visible disclaimers in either video and the translated transcript does not suggest otherwise;

The Defendant has not disclosed a version of either the Long Video or the Short Video that has the disclaimer embedded in it (as he claimed was the case);

The Long Video that remains available on the channel of another YouTube user does not have a visible disclaimer (para 126 above);

The Defendant did not refer to the disclaimers in his witness statement nor disclose them as part of the disclosure process, rather they were produced on the first day of the trial (para 18 above);

The screenshots of disclaimers that were provided on the first day of the trial significantly post-date the time when the Long and Short Videos were published;

I accept Ms Sultana’s unchallenged evidence that the screenshot her firm took of the Defendant’s original YouTube channel on 23 May 2023 shows no disclaimer (para 126 above);

I accept Ms Sultana’s unchallenged evidence that the earliest video she could access on the Defendant’s new YouTube channel (23 March 2023) does not have a disclaimer in it (para 126 above);

I accept Ms Sultana’s unchallenged evidence that the videos she accessed from October and November 2021 on the Defendant’s original YouTube channels do not have disclaimers in them (para 126 above); and

As the Defendant gave plainly untrue evidence in relation to the alleged investigation and in respect of the attempt to contact the Claimants, I can only attach very limited weight to his assertion that the disclaimers were present at the relevant time.