Jack Aaronson Aka Dominic Ford v Marcus Stones Aka Mickey Taylor
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Julian Knowles |
| Judgment Date | 13 October 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] EWHC 2399 (KB) |
| Court | King's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: QB-2021-001538 |
[2023] EWHC 2399 (KB)
Mr Justice Julian Knowles
Case No: QB-2021-001538
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Gervase de Wilde and Luke Browne (instructed by Cohen Davis Solicitors) for the Claimant
Jonathan Price and Jennifer Robinson (instructed by Whitechapel Law Centre) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 12–15 December 2022
Approved Judgment
This judgment was handed down remotely at 10.30am on 13 October 2023 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by e-mail and by release to the National Archives.
Introduction
In this case the Claimant sues the Defendant for libel. The claim concerns a number of serious accusations by the Defendant on Twitter and YouTube about the Claimant's alleged conduct. They were to the effect that the Claimant had raped a number of men and is therefore a serial rapist.
The Claimant's case is that the allegations are untrue and that the publications were primarily made as an act of revenge by the Defendant, following a disagreement between them on an unrelated issue.
I have full transcripts of the evidence and my own detailed notes. The Claimant was represented by Mr de Wilde and Mr Browne. The Defendant was represented by Mr Price and Ms Robinson. I am grateful to all of them and their teams.
There may be those who will find some of the sexually intimate details in this judgment to be distasteful. I therefore need to make clear at the outset that my sole task is to determine the case according to the law and the evidence.
The Claimant
The Claimant is a US citizen and lives there. He is an openly gay man. He was born in 1975 and was in his mid-40s when the events giving rise to this case allegedly took place. He has worked in the gay pornography industry for a number of years as a performer/model and, since about 2018, as an entrepreneur. He says that he is well known in the industry, both in the US and internationally, including in this country. He travels frequently to London and other European countries in connection with his work. He uses the industry name ‘Dominic Ford’ to perform and carry on business in the industry. He says the use of such industry names is commonplace.
In 2018, the Claimant created the adult website ‘JustFor.Fans’ which operates at the URL https://justfor.fans/login.php (the Website/JFF). He is the CEO of the company which owns it, which has about eight staff. It allows adult film performers to earn revenue by setting up a ‘fan page’, on which they can publish pornographic works (including photos and videos) and communicate with their fans, in return for the payment of a monthly subscription fee by the fans. Performers pay a commission to the Website. The Claimant's evidence is that it is a lucrative business, although there are other, similar, websites using the same business model. His case is that although he is well-known in the gay pornography industry, he is not as powerful or dominant as the Defendant alleges (see, eg, the Defendant's witness statement at [35]: ‘Dominic is a person who wields a huge amount of power in the industry.’)
The Defendant
The Defendant is currently a student of animation and illustration. He worked in the adult entertainment industry for a number of years, but says that he was forced to leave the industry in August 2021 because of the events giving rise to this case. He lives in the UK.
From April 2018 until June 2020 the Defendant operated a performer account and fan page on the Website. The Defendant maintains (or maintained) a Twitter account with the handle @ItsMickeyTaylor at the URL https://twitter.com/itsmickeytaylor (the Defendant's Twitter account).
Names
It is convenient at this point to deal with how some of those involved in this case are to be referred to. Like the Claimant, some of them have their birth name and also an industry name, and the question of names was canvassed at a pre-trial hearing before Johnson J.
The Claimant's suggested approach to naming (as set out in his post-trial closing submissions, which I am content to adopt) is as follows: (a) the Claimant is to be referred to as the Claimant or Jack Aaronson, with the acknowledgement that his industry name is Dominic Ford; (b) the Defendant is to be referred to as the Defendant or Marcus Stones, with the acknowledgement that his industry name is (or was) Mickey Taylor; (c) Howard Andrew, a witness, is to be referred to by that name (his industry name); (d) Maxence Angel, a witness, is to be referred to by that name, which is his industry name. (e) Tannor Reed, a witness and an alleged rape victim, is also to be referred by his birth name, Cooper Tennent, where possible. Tannor Reed is his industry name.
I was told Mr Reed wishes to be referred to as Cooper Tennent in order to distance himself from his industry name. I will do so where I can, although he was referred to throughout the case, and indeed in evidence by the Defendant in particular, as Tannor Reed. Because Mr Tennent is an alleged rape victim, I need to make clear that it is his express choice that he be named.
Unless the contrary appears, other names that are mentioned in this judgment are industry names.
The Claimant's case in outline
The publications complained of
According to the Particulars of Claim (PoC), on 14 June 2020: (a) the Defendant made a request to the Claimant via WhatsApp for the Claimant to remove the account of a model, ‘Daniel’, from the Website because of alleged racist behaviour by him; (b) the Claimant agreed to investigate the Defendant's complaint against Daniel but refused to remove the account from the Website in the interim; and (c) following that refusal, the Defendant requested that his own account be terminated, and that any money owed to him from the Website be paid to him.
The words complained of by the Claimant in the PoC are as follows (at [7]–[17]). (The PoC partially quotes some of the Tweets. Later I will need to set out the full text of some of them. For present purposes the edited versions will suffice). The Claimant says each was defamatory and seriously harmful to his reputation. It should be noted I have quoted the times as given in the PoC; the time stamps on the original publications are different in some cases (probably due to time zone differences, Twitter being based in California: see Wright v McCormack [2022] EMLR 10, [48]–[56]) however nothing, I think, turns on the exact times they were sent.
On 14 June 2020, at 12:54pm, in a post which received nine Retweets and 32 Likes, the Defendant Retweeted a Tweet from the account @TannorReed which publicly identified the Claimant as the perpetrator of rape and/or sexual assault and, as part of the Retweet, published the following words on the Defendant's Twitter Account at the URL https://twitter.com/ItsMickeyTaylor/status/1272256118232932354:
“Rape will not be tolerated in this industry! Using your power as figure head in the industry to extort models & blackmail them into sex is UNNACEPTABLE! (sic) I stand with @tannorreed. @justforfans @DominicFord…” (the 14 June Tweet)
On 15 June 2020, at 2:22am, the Defendant Retweeted a post by @Justinstonexxx which said ‘Dominic Ford is an abusive piece of shit’ (the @Justinstonexxx Tweet). As part of the Retweet, in a post which received 16 Retweets and 54 Likes, the Defendant published the following words on the Defendant's Twitter Account at the URL https://twitter.com/ItsMickeyTaylor/status/1272459490366050304:
“Stop raping models! Y'all think there's only two?! These boys are bravely speaking out and I will stand with them both till the end. Corruption ends now! Just For Fans does not deserve our trade” (the First 15 June Tweet)
On 15 June 2020, at 2:00pm, in a post which received 10 Retweets and 26 Likes, the Defendant published the following words on his Twitter account at the URL https://twitter.com/ItsMickeyTaylor/status/1272634999733395457:
“You gonna try & blame me for you raping people too? Your actions are ruining you not me @DominicFord @JustForFansSite” (the Second 15 June Tweet)
These are the words of the Second 15 June Tweet as set out in the PoC. The full Tweet, as set out in the Re-Amended Defence (ReAmDef) at [7], was:
“You gonna try & blame me for you raping people too? Your actions are are [sic] ruining you, not me @Dominicford @JustForFansSite. My ‘vendetta’ is calling out ya privilege as a industry head. Don't talk smack I'll hear. This how you run a business? Trying to mud me & cover ya ass? Lol”
On 15 June 2020, at 2:18pm, in a post which received seven Retweets and 37 Likes, the Defendant posted a screenshot of messages sent by the Website to a user which referred to the Defendant carrying out a ‘personal vendetta against Dominic’ and published the following words on his Twitter account at the URL https://twitter.com/ItsMickeyTaylor/status/1272639594803212288:
“Is he trying to accuse me of asking people to make up rape stories to try & ruin him or summin? I'm neither that clever or sadistic. Imagine redirecting the blame rather than dealing with it n slating me in DMs. Denying Victims stories! Are they all lying about being raped?? Smh” (the Third 15 June Tweet)
On 15 June 2020, at 2:22pm, in a post which received five Likes, the Defendant responded to a post by @MeBU1978 commenting on the Third 15 June Tweet, which said ‘Drama Queens [crying with laughter emoji]’, and published the following words on his Twitter account at the URL https://twitter.com/ItsMickeyTaylor/status/1272640751353069568:
“He raped three people. That's not dramatic. That's a crime” (the Fourth 15 June Tweet)
On 18 June 2020, at 6:46am, in a post which...
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