Stephanie Hayden v Family Education Trust
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Nicklin |
| Judgment Date | 24 March 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] EWHC 950 (KB) |
| Docket Number | No. KB-2022-003530 |
| Court | King's Bench Division |
[2023] EWHC 950 (KB)
Mr Justice Nicklin
No. KB-2022-003530
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS LIST
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London, WC2A 2LL
THE CLAIMANT appeared In Person.
Victoria Simon-Shore (Direct Access) appeared on behalf of the Defendant.
APPROVED JUDGMENT
This claim concerns a tweet published by the Defendant on 10 October 2022 (“the Tweet”). The Claimant contends that the Tweet referred to her and defamed her. The Tweet was deleted within 40 minutes of being posted. On 18 October 2022, the Claimant issued a claim form seeking unlimited general damages and aggravated damages for libel.
(A) The Tweet
A copy of the Tweet, as it appeared on Twitter, is set out in the Appendix to this judgment. The Tweet itself records that it was liked twice and re-tweeted three times. It is common ground that, as of 10 October 2022, the Defendant's Twitter account had 2,399 followers.
(B) The Claim
The Claimant's Particulars of claim are dated 15 November. In paragraphs 5–8, the Claimant sets out what she says is the alleged context of the Tweet:
“5. On 3 October 2022, Surrey Police arrested Caroline Farrow on suspicion of harassment and malicious communications following a complaint by the Claimant. Mrs Farrow was released from custody under investigation. Subsequently, Mrs Farrow took to social media and the mainstream media to complain about her arrest and to cast aspersions about the Claimant and the credibility of the Claimant.
6. During the morning of 10 October 2022, a person operating the Defendant's Twitter account @FamEdTrust engaged in a series of tweets, which included Mrs Farrow (who at all material times operated the Twitter account @CF_Farrow) and Louise Moody (who at all material times operated the Twitter account @DrLouiseJMoody).
7. The Claimant asserts that the context of the tweets involving Mrs Farrow, Dr Moody and the Defendant related to the arrest of Mrs Farrow and civil proceedings in which Mrs Farrow was being sued (or had been sued) by the Claimant and Dr Moody, who had herself been previously sued by the Claimant.
8. As part of the exchange of tweets, the Defendant published, or caused to be published, at 8:16BST on 10 October 2022 a tweet on the Twitter account @FamEdTrust, which the Claimant asserts is defamatory of the Claimant.”
A few minutes after the Tweet had been posted, another Twitter user, @dolphinmaria, responded to the Tweet: “ Have you ever heard of contempt of court? I suggest you delete that tweet. You cannot possibly substantiate the claims therein”. It was apparently this reply that prompted the Defendant to reconsider the Tweet and subsequently to delete it.
As can be seen from its terms, the Tweet did not name the Claimant. The Claimant contends that it nevertheless would have been understood to refer to her. In her Particulars of Claim she pleads the following on the issue of reference and identification:
“15. The Defendant's Twitter post was a quote tweet of a tweet posted on the Twitter account @DrLouiseJMoody. The post included a tag to the public Twitter account of @CF_Farrow (i.e. the account operated by Caroline Farrow).
16. Any reader of the Defendant's quote tweet would be able to hyperlink to the tweet posted on the Dr Louise Moody account merely by clicking on the tweet. At all material times, the public Twitter account of @DrLouiseJMoody prominently included images of the Claimant and referenced the Claimant's legal name of Stephanie Hayden. Further reading of the tweets posted on the @DrLouiseJMoody public twitter account would lead an objective reader of the Defendant's quote tweet to conclude that when the Defendant referred to a ‘delusional transactivist’ the Defendant was referencing the Claimant.
17. Further, the Claimant will rely on the entire context of the Defendant's publication and tagging of the @CF_Farrow (i.e. Mrs Farrow's) public Twitter account as further material in support of the Claimant's assertion that the Defendant's publication objectively referenced the Claimant and that it was the Defendant's intention to reference the Claimant.”
The Claimant's case on the defamatory meaning alleged to have been borne by the Tweet is:
“18. In their natural and ordinary, alternatively, inuendo meaning the words complained of bore and were understood to bear the meaning:
(a) [the Defendant's words included as part of the quote Tweet] ‘Taxpayers are funding a delusional transactivist (Stephanie Hayden) to take people to court because Stephanie Hayden is offended over social media posts. Not only is he (Stephanie Hayden) harassing decent people and their families – but hardworking decent people are paying for Stephanie Hayden's appalling obsession. How is this allowed?’
(b) [in respect of the re-publication of Dr Moody's tweet] ‘Taxpayers had funded court fees approaching half a million pounds for Stephanie Hayden who is an unemployed delusional broke fantasist.’
19. In all the circumstances, the Defendant was asserting that the Claimant was abusing the court to harass decent, hardworking people and their families.”
The Claimant contends that this meaning is defamatory of her at common law. It is appropriate here to note that, although the meaning set out puts forward an alternative innuendo meaning, no particulars of innuendo have been provided and it has not been something that has been pursued in relation to the hearing today.
As to serious harm to reputation, as required to be demonstrated under s.1 Defamation Act 2013, the Claimant has pleaded the following in her particulars of claim relating to serious harm:
“21. The Claimant asserts that the Defendant's publication is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the Claimant or, alternatively, the tweet seriously injured the Claimant in her credit and reputation.
(a) The defamatory allegations were extremely serious, went to the Claimant's probity and integrity and imputed that she was guilty of a crime, being harassment pursuant to the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.
(b) The Defendant is a registered charity, and an objective reader would conclude that the words complained of, which were published or caused to be published by the Defendant, and the imputations those words convey, are credible.
(c) At all material times, the Claimant was the complainant in active criminal proceedings involving Caroline Farrow. The Defendant, by including Mrs Farrow in the context of its publication (i.e. by posting tweets including tagging the @CF_Farrow public Twitter account) was commenting on the merits of the proceedings (civil and/or criminal) involving Mrs Farrow. The Defendant was impugning the credibility of the Claimant as a witness and the complainant in those proceedings in a manner contrary to the Contempt of Court Act 1981.
(d) The Defendant, by posting a quote tweet stating that the Claimant is ‘harassing decent people and their families’ has published or caused to be published defamatory words of the Claimant, the imputation of which is that the Claimant is engaged in the commission of the criminal offence of harassment. This is inherently likely to cause serious damage to the reputation of the Claimant.
(e) The Claimant is a public figure in her own right and, from time to time, acts as a commentator on television and radio. The Defendant, as a registered charity, has a certain level of credibility such that the public impugning of the Claimant's character by the Defendant is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the Claimant.
(f) The Claimant has a significant following on Twitter amounting to approximately 3,800 followers. The Claimant is followed by senior journalists, lawyers and politicians, including the Speaker of the House of Commons.
(g) The Claimant will rely on the extent of publication, amounting to at least 45,000 Twitter users, and potentially many more by way of re-tweets, quote tweets and replies. Further, the timing of the publication coincided with a social media and mainstream media frenzy concerning the arrest of Mrs Farrow. The tweet was published on an unlocked Twitter account, identifiable as the account of a registered charity to the world at large. The Defendant itself had 2,399 followers to whom the tweet was directly published, because it appeared in their Twitter timeline.
(h) The Claimant was opportunistically and viciously defamed by the Defendant for political purposes as a method of attacking a transgender woman in the public eye. The transgender debate, of which the parties are both contributors to, is a public debate attracting widespread attention and intrenched views on all sides. It is to be inferred, in all the circumstances, that the defamatory allegations against the Claimant were repeated and disseminated more widely in the course of this debate.
The Claimant acts as a media commentator and has provided commentary for RT, BBC and ITV. Inherently, as a result of being a regular commentator for media organisations, the Claimant has a reputation capable of being seriously damaged.”
(C) Application to Dismiss the Claim
On 2 December 2022, the Defendant filed an acknowledgement of service indicating an intention to defend the claim. It did not file a defence....
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