MM v BC, RS and Facebook Ireland
| Jurisdiction | Northern Ireland |
| Judge | Master McCorry |
| Neutral Citation | [2019] NIMaster 5 |
| Court | High Court (Northern Ireland) |
| Date | 12 April 2019 |
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Neutral Citation No: [2019] NIMaster 5
Judgment: approved by the Court for handing down
(subject to editorial corrections)*
Ref: 2019NIMASTER5
Delivered: 12/04/2019
No. 16/049896
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE IN NORTHERN IRELAND
QUEENS BENCH DIVISION
Between:
MM
Plaintiff;
AND
BC, RS and FACEBOOK IRELAND
Defendants.
MASTER MCCORRY
[1] By summons issued 9th May 2018 the plaintiff applies for an Order
pursuant to Order 20, rule 5 of the Rules of the Court of Judicature (Northern
Ireland) 1980, granting leave to amend the writ of summons to add claims
against the third defendant (Facebook) for Breach of the Data Protection Act
1998, negligence and misuse of private information. The initial relief sought
against the third defendant, in the writ of summons issued 6th June 2016, was
damages pursuant to section 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998 for failing to have
in place an adequate "reporting mechanism" by which the plaintiff could report
publication of offending content relating to her on 28th May 2016. She now seeks
to amend the summons to add claims under additional causes of action
including: damages pursuant to section 13 of the Data Protection Act by failing
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to comply with its duties as a data controller; damages for negligence in relation
to the publication and transmission of, and failure to expeditiously assist in the
locating of, and expeditiously remove, 'revenge porn' images of the plaintiff; and
damages for the misuse of private information whereby private images of the
plaintiff were circulated on the Facebook platform.
[2] The plaintiff is a young woman who was in a relationship with the first
defendant, a young man of similar age. The second defendant is a friend of the
first defendant. During their relationship, which lasted about one year starting
January 2014, the first defendant took sexually explicit photographs of the
plaintiff and in addition the plaintiff, using Facebook Messenger, sent nude
pictures of herself to him. The plaintiff and first defendant split up acrimoniously
and following the plaintiff's refusal to see him again, in an act of what is now
commonly known as 'revenge porn', the first defendant placed the photographs
on Facebook using Messenger. These were further disseminated by the second
defendant.
[3] The plaintiff became aware of what had occurred when she was told by
a friend on 28th May 2016 who also forwarded to her a photograph of her naked
and screenshot showing that the second defendant had used private messaging
to send her 2 naked images, one of the plaintiff and the other of another friend
with whom he had been in a relationship. She telephoned the police who
unfortunately were unhelpful. She then tried to complain to the third defendant
but it said it could not remove the images without the uniform resource locators
("URLs") which the plaintiff could not access because the images had been sent
by Messenger. The plaintiff was understandably extremely distressed because
the images were not deleted and sought medical assistance with the "out of
hours" doctors' service. For the purposes of these proceedings she also
subsequently obtained a report by a consultant psychiatrist Dr Mangan. A
community worker in her apartment block put her in contact with her solicitor
on 1st June 2016, emergency legal aid was sought and granted and the plaintiff
applied for an interim injunction which was granted on 3rd June 2016.
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