David Uyi v Osamudiamen Abraham (aka John Imade, aka Pastor Osas Osakue of Light of Life Church)

In determining the meaning of allegedly defamatory material, the court must identify the single natural and ordinary meaning which the hypothetical reasonable reader would derive from the publication as a whole and in its context. The court should avoid strained or overly literal analysis, while rejecting meanings unsupported by the words or context.

Whether a meaning is fact or opinion is highly fact-sensitive. A bare allegation that a person acted dishonestly or misleadingly will generally be factual where it implies conduct without indicating the supporting facts. An inference concerning moral responsibility may instead be opinion. Conduct which attributes serious dishonesty, misleading behaviour, discreditable conduct or moral responsibility for harm may be defamatory at common law.

The claimant, a pastor, brought a defamation claim concerning four statements made by the defendant in a lengthy video published on Facebook and YouTube. The High Court ordered a trial on the papers of three preliminary issues: the meaning of each statement, whether each meaning was fact or opinion, and whether each meaning was defamatory at common law.

The court also dealt with consequential amendments to the Particulars of Claim, following the defendant’s consent and directions concerning the transcript and time markings. The central issues were how the video should be understood by an ordinary reasonable viewer and whether the resulting meanings were factual or opinion-based imputations.

1. Meaning. The court rejected the submission that the video was so florid, religiously specific and incoherent that it conveyed no defamatory meaning beyond personal hatred and religious disagreement. The publication had to be read as a whole, but its broad thrust was sufficiently intelligible to an ordinary reasonable viewer.
2. The single meanings were: (i) Statement I alleged that the claimant was intentionally and/or recklessly misleading his congregation and the wider public; (ii) Statement II alleged dishonest conduct towards members of his own congregation; (iii) Statement III alleged that he had supplanted the previous pastor by discreditable means; and (iv) Statement IV suggested that he had moral responsibility for the safety of his congregation and questions to answer about whether he had allowed members to come to harm.
3. The court applied the single-meaning and reasonable-reader principles in Stocker v Stocker, [2019] UKSC 17, Slim v Daily Telegraph Ltd, [1968] 2 QB 157, and Koutsogiannis v The Random House Group Ltd, [2019] EWHC 48 (QB). Context, publication mode and the publication as a whole were material. Unsupported meanings, including literal allegations of murder, theft of property, voodoo or being the Biblical Antichrist, were rejected.
4. Statements I, II and III were statements of fact. They were bare comments implying conduct without identifying supporting facts. Statement IV was opinion because it involved deduction and inference concerning moral responsibility rather than a positive assertion of legal or factual responsibility.
5. All four meanings were defamatory at common law. They attributed conduct or views contrary to common shared views, tended to lower the claimant in the estimation of others, and would have a substantially adverse effect on how people treated him. The claim proceeded subject to the preliminary determinations and the consequential pleading directions.

The judgment was a first-instance determination of preliminary issues in a defamation claim. A Senior Master had ordered the paper trial on 25 January 2024. Mrs Justice Steyn directed consideration of the proposed amendment on 7 May 2024.