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

There is (irrespective of this litigation) a strongly contested issue as to the causes of the disturbances in Leicester. Everyone agrees that for many years Leicester had large Hindu and Muslim communities who enjoyed harmonious relations. One narrative, adopted by the claimant, is that in more recent years many people who subscribe to the Hindutva ideology have emigrated from India and settled in Leicester, and that they have destroyed those harmonious relationships by engaging in a sustained campaign of anti-Muslim anti-social behaviour, intimidation and violence. The claimant has adduced evidence to support his narrative. Ironically, the claimant’s narrative is arguably consistent with the general theme of the defendants’ article (“if you import the world’s people you import the world’s problems”). A directly opposing narrative is that the problems were caused by the animosity towards Hindus of extreme Islamists. An altogether different explanation is that the problems were largely caused by social media agitators (such as, on one side, CVB and the claimant) who whipped up sectarian animosity. This narrative is explored in two reports: “Hindu-Muslim civil unrest in Leicester, ‘Hindutva’ and the creation of a false narrative” by Charlotte Littlewood, published by the Henry Jackson Society, and “Cyber Social Swarming Precedes Real World Riots in Leicester: How Social Media became a Weapon for Violence” by Prasiddha Sudhakar, Alex Goldenberg and others, published by Rutgers University Center for Community Protection and Resilience.

In the supplementary written closing submissions for the claimant, those reports are criticised. It is not necessary to resolve those criticisms. That is because I agree with a further submission that is advanced on behalf of the claimant that it would not be right to treat “the Leicester unrest” as a single event with an assumed unitary cause. It comprised a series of events which may have had different causes or a different mix of contributing causes.

Notwithstanding the evidence produced by the claimant (I acknowledge that there are many references to “the Hindutva” in contemporaneous reports), it is not necessary, or possible, in this litigation to resolve questions as to the (possibly complex) causes of the violence. That requires an altogether different form of enquiry. For the same reasons, it is not necessary to determine whether, or the extent to which, the Hindutva played a role in the unrest. The focus of this case is whether the truth defence is made out. That does not depend on the precise causes of the violence, but on whether the defamatory imputation conveyed by the article is substantially true.