KB-2023-003636 - [2025] EWHC 2043 (KB)

I read the article, before reading the other documents in the case, in advance of the pre-trial review. I recorded the meaning that I considered was conveyed by it. I have reviewed that meaning in the light of the parties’ proposed meanings, and their respective submissions. There are a number of common elements. The final passage of both parties’ proposed meanings is the same. It derives directly from the words of the article. I am content to adopt it.

There are aspects of the claimant’s meaning that I do not consider are conveyed by the article. First, the suggestion that the claimant incited racial/religious hatred and stirred up a mob to violently target Hindus goes a little (albeit not far) beyond the meaning conveyed by the article. Second, the article does not state that the claimant “dehumanised” Hindus. The reference to “animal” is part of the ridiculing of reincarnation. It does not, in itself, dehumanise Hindus. Nor does anything else in the article convey that this is what the claimant did. Third, although I understand what is meant by “Hindus qua Hindus”, and I accept that the article does attribute to the claimant language that disparages a central tenet of Hinduism, that is sufficiently captured by the agreed final part of the meaning. The “Hindus qua Hindus” provides an additional technical gloss which owes more to the dispute on truth than it does to the meaning conveyed by the article. On the other hand, whilst the court cannot ultimately find the defendants liable in respect of a defamatory imputation that is not alleged by the claimant, the claimant’s proposed meaning does not capture an important aspect of the meaning conveyed by the article: that the claimant was a street agitator who had whipped up a mob in London and had addressed an anti-Israel protest with inflammatory language. I appreciate that the claimant does not advance a distinct complaint about this part of the article, but it is artificial to divorce what was said about the claimant’s activities in Leicester from its immediate context.

The defendants’ meaning seems to me fairly to reflect some of the meaning conveyed by the article, but it does not go quite far enough. Although I do not accept that the article quite conveys the meaning that the claimant stirred up a Muslim mob to violently target Hindus, it does go further than simply suggesting that the claimant ridiculed reincarnation. The early part of the article (talking about the disturbances between Muslims and Hindus), the section that refers to the claimant (whipping up a mob, ridiculing reincarnation), and the section that immediately follows (“Soon both sides were accusing the other of attacking their places of worship. Crowds of hundreds faced off…”) all form part of a linked and coherent narrative. What is missing from the defendants’ meaning is a recognition of that, and in particular recognition of the alleged consequences of the claimant’s actions as conveyed by the article. I do not consider that the article suggests that the claimant directly and solely caused the events that followed, but it does suggest that his speech was inflammatory and that it exacerbated existing tensions between opposing groups that had already spilled over into public disorder. That is at the core of the defamatory imputation that is conveyed by the article. I do not consider that the article conveyed a distinct meaning as to whether those tensions were based on race or religion. I agree with a submission advanced by Mr Henderson that there is no bright line between disparagement of Hindus as an ethnic group or as a religious group or as an ethnoreligious group. The key point is that the article conveys that the claimant was a street agitator who was whipping up ill-feeling by one community towards another, in circumstances where tensions were already frayed and had spilled over into public disorder.

The article clearly refers to the claimant. It does so by reference to his name. Although it uses a different transliteration from his legal name, it is a version of his name that is used by the claimant in his voluminous social media output. The reference to him would be apparent to anybody acquainted with him.

I find that the article conveys the following meaning:

“The claimant is a street agitator who has whipped up a mob on London’s streets, addressed an anti-Israel protest in inflammatory terms, and exacerbated frayed tensions (which had already spilled over into public disorder) between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester by whipping up his Muslim followers including by ridiculing Hindus for their belief in re-incarnation and describing Hindus as pathetic, weak and cowardly in comparison to whom he would rather be an animal.”

This is a statement of fact which is defamatory of the claimant at common law.

It is unnecessary to address Mr Callus’ submission that there are contexts in which it is not defamatory to accuse someone of ridiculing reincarnation. Here, as Mr Henderson correctly points out, the allegations levelled at the claimant are very far from doctrinal religious disputes or a sketch in a comedy club. The allegation is not simply that the claimant ridiculed Hindus, but that he did this as a device to whip up his Muslim followers and thereby exacerbate existing frayed tensions (which had already spilled over into public disorder) between two communities. That plainly is defamatory at common law.

I do not consider that it is necessary to resolve arguments as to whether the defamatory meaning amounts to one, or more than one, imputation, or whether it is necessary separately to identify a defamatory sting, or stings, or a common sting, associated with each imputation. The meaning is as set out above. Whether that meaning is properly analysed as containing one or more than one imputation, or sting, the issue under section 2 of the 2013 Act is whether the imputation(s) are substantially true.