Pirtek (UK) Ltd v Robert Jackson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Warby |
| Judgment Date | 09 November 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 2834 (QB) |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ17M01299 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Date | 09 November 2017 |
[2017] EWHC 2834 (QB)
Mr Justice Warby
Case No: HQ17M01299
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA AND COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Caroline Addy (instructed by Irwin Mitchell LLP) for the Claimant
The Defendant did not appear and was not represented
Hearing date: 7 November 2017
Judgment Approved
This is an application for judgment in default of acknowledgment of service and summary disposal pursuant to ss 8 and 9 of the Defamation Act 1996 and CPR 53.2. The defendant is neither present nor represented, nor has he submitted any representations to the Court. Ms Addy, who appears for the claimant, has however helped me by addressing points that might have been made by the defendant, or on his behalf.
Factual and procedural background
The action is brought by a company ("Pirtek") which carries on the business of providing hydraulic hose replacement services to industry. Pirtek does this through a network of franchisees, about 65 in number. One such franchisee was a company called Starflow Hydraulics Limited ("Starflow"). The defendant ("Mr Jackson") used to own and operate Starflow. He guaranteed the performance of its obligations to Pirtek.
The background to the claim can be quite shortly summarised.
Pirtek, Starflow and Mr Jackson fell out badly over Starflow's performance of the franchise agreement. The dispute was settled, but Starflow and Mr Jackson failed to pay the agreed settlement sum to Pirtek. When Pirtek sought to enforce their obligations Mr Jackson and associates carried on a campaign of harassment against senior executives of Pirtek. The company and two such executives successfully sued Mr Jackson for harassment ("the Harassment Action").
Pirtek then made a statutory demand for some £54,000 comprising the agreed settlement sum and debts due pursuant to the franchise agreement ("the Money Claim"). Mr Jackson sought to set aside the statutory demand, but he lost. Eventually, at the instigation of Pirtek, Mr Jackson was made bankrupt. In due course, the trustee in bankruptcy obtained a possession order with a view to selling Mr Jackson's home. He lost his home at some point in early 2016.
After that, from about mid-April 2016, a campaign was carried out online and via social media disparaging Pirtek, its products and services. The campaign was conducted mainly via a website www.pirtek-franchise. com ("the Website"), a Twitter account Pirtek-franchise. com@petenutt ("the Twitter Account"), and a Facebook page www.facebook. com/pirtek-UK-steal-homes ("the Facebook Page"). It is that campaign which led to this action. Pirtek's case is that Mr Jackson is behind all these online and social media postings.
On 22 March 2017, an email ("the March 17 Email") entitled 'Pirtek Failures' was sent from an address signet26@protonmail. com to numerous employees of the Halifax Group LLC, to Pirtek's master franchisor (Pirtek Australia), to one of the Claimant's franchisees, to an 'enquiries' email address at the British Fluid Power Association, and to another unrelated company. The March 17 Email contained these words:
"I am going to be documenting here the failed Franchises around the country as part of my mission in life to expose the corrupt Pirtek UK Directors Kelvin Roberts, Alastair Wiggins, Paul Dunlop, Mark Wilton and Alex Mcnutt (sic)"
The claim form was issued on 13 April 2017. It sought "relief relating to libel and malicious falsehood" published on the Website, via the Twitter account and on the Facebook page. On the same day Pirtek's solicitor, Alexander Newman, emailed Mr Jackson asking for an address at which to serve proceedings. To do so, Mr Newman used an email address that had previously been used to correspond with Mr Jackson ("the BT Email address"). Mr Jackson did not reply directly, but text appeared on the Website two days later purporting to be an open letter from Mr Jackson in reply to Mr Newman ("the Open Letter"). This was a long letter complaining of Mr Jackson's treatment at the hands of Pirtek and Irwin Mitchell, and explaining why Mr Jackson declined to provide a private address to the firm. It was signed "Yours Bob, Bankrupt and Belligerent."
On 19 April 2017 Mr Newman sent a letter of claim to Mr Jackson, using the BT email address. Mr Jackson did not reply, but the letter was posted on the Website together with a lengthy riposte ("The April 17 Riposte"). The April Riposte contained a section entitled "The full Defamation Claim from Alex Newman of Irwin Mitchell on behalf of Pirtek UK and my initial response", accompanied by a considerable body of additional text in reply to the complaints made in the letter of claim
The claim was elaborated and expanded on in July 2017 by means of two documents settled by Counsel: a draft Amended Claim Form, and Particulars of Claim. These identified and set out 55 separate statements complained of: 34 published on the Website, 18 via Twitter, a further 2 on Facebook, and one contained in the March 17 Email.
On 28 July 2017 Pirtek filed an application notice seeking (i) permission to amend the Claim Form, (ii) dispensation from the requirement to provide a postal address for the defendant pursuant to 16 PD 2.5, and (iii) "permission to serve the Claim Form, Particulars of Claim and all other documents by an alternative method".
The reasons given for this last application were that the claimant and its solicitors did not have Mr Jackson's address for service and, despite efforts to find it, did not anticipate being able to do so. The efforts included those of April 2016, identified above. Other efforts to identify a postal address for service had been unsuccessful. This application was supported by a witness statement of Mr Newman.
On 31 July 2017 Master McCloud granted Pirtek's application, giving the company permission to serve the Amended Claim Form, Particulars of Claim and "all further documents that may be required to be served during the course of these proceedings" by any of three means: by first class post to an address in Hitchin that appeared to belong to Mr Jackson's daughter ("the Hitchin Address"); to the BT Email address; and via a section of the Website called "contact Bob". The order made provision for the deemed date of service of the Claim Form and Particulars of Claim, depending on which method of service was adopted. It gave Mr Jackson "14 days after deemed service of the claim form in which to file an acknowledgement of service, file an admission or file a defence."
According to a certificate of service in form N215 and the evidence now before the Court, the Amended Claim Form and Particulars of Claim were served in accordance with the Master's order was made by the first two of the authorised methods on 9 August 2017. Time for Acknowledgment of Service expired on 23 August 2017. Mr Jackson has never acknowledged service of the proceedings, or filed an admission. He has put forward no defence. He has made no formal response to the claim. He has made no response at all other than the Open Letter, the April 17 Riposte, and some passages in a more recent letter to Mr Newman dated 23 August 2017 ("the August 17 Letter").
The August 17 Letter was headed with the Hitchin Address. It said that Mr Jackson planned to bring a claim against Pirtek in relation to the statutory demand to which I have referred. The letter also claimed that Mr Jackson did not control or run the Website "which you wrote to me separately about", nor did he know the identity of the owners of the domain. I shall have to consider the significance of the Open Letter, April 17 Riposte and August 17 Letter when I address the applications which Pirtek now make.
The application
Before the court today is an application notice filed by Pirtek on 14 September 2017. The relief sought in the application notice is an Order that:
"i) pursuant to CPR 12.3(1) judgment in default of the defendant filing an Acknowledgment of Service is entered on behalf of the claimant; or
ii) pursuant to CPR 53.2 and section 8(3) of the Defamation Act 1996 judgment is entered for the claimant and the claim is dealt with by summary disposal."
In fact, the application is for both default judgment and relief by way of summary disposal. This is made clear in a 2 nd witness statement of Mr Newman, a draft order accompanying the application, and Ms Addy's submissions. Those also make clear the full range of the relief that is or was sought, namely:
(1) A declaration pursuant to section 9 of the Defamation Act 1996 ("the 1996 Act") that the statements complained of are false and defamatory of Pirtek;
(2) An order that Mr Jackson publish or cause to be published a suitable correction and apology on the Website, the Twitter account and the Facebook account, or in the absence of agreement (within 7 days of the date of the Court's order) on the time, manner and form of such correction and apology, an order that Mr Jackson publish a summary of the court's judgment (including the court's declaration of falsity) on the Website, the Twitter account and the Facebook account;
(3) A permanent injunction restraining Mr Jackson from repeating the allegations or publishing new allegations to similar effect;
(4) An order requiring Mr Jackson to remove or cause to be removed the allegations published on the Website, the Twitter account, the Facebook account and anywhere else;
(5) An order for damages in the sum of £10,000;
(6) Indemnity costs to be summarily assessed.
It will be convenient to deal in turn with the application for default judgment and the question of summary disposal. But first I should explain why I am prepared to hear and deal with those applications in the absence of Mr Jackson....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Yvonne Ameyaw v Christina McGoldrick
...EWHC 2053 (QB) [25–28], [73], Brett Wilson LLP v Persons Unknown [2015] EWHC 2628 (QB) [2016] 4 WLR 69 [14–16] and Pirtek v Jackson [2017] EWHC 2834 (QB) [1], [19–23]. I have reminded myself of the careful approach required, as explained in those cases. It is always essential to be satisf......
-
Tereza Burki v Seventy Thirty Ltd
...about that subsection, which clearly is designed to operate in a way rather different from s1(1). 204 In Pirtek (Uk) Ltd v Jackson [2017] EWHC 2834 (QB) at [50] Warby J said this: Three things can safely be said about s 1(2). First, that in this context as in s 1(1) “serious” is an ordinary......
-
Muyang Matilda Epse Hills v Angie Bridget Fomukong Epse Tabe (Aka Esanza Mateke, Bridget Benjamin)
...10 On this basis, the approach which I adopted accorded with that indicated by Warby J in Pirtek (UK) Limited v Robert Jackson [2017] EWHC 2834 (QB) at [20]: “I took a two-stage approach, considering (1) whether the defendant had received proper notice of the hearing and the matters to be ......
-
Walter Tzvi Soriano v Forensic News LLC
...In Brett Wilson LLP v Persons Unknown [2015] EWHC 2628 (QB), [2016] 4 WLR 69, paras 20–23, and Pirtek (UK) Ltd v Jackson [2017] EWHC 2834 (QB), paras 27–38, Warby J applied the ordinary civil standard of proof to s.10.” 52 The similarity of the two sections does not in itself point one w......