Mohammed Yasin Chaudhry & Anor v Abrar Qureshi

In a libel claim concerning online video interviews, publication of another person’s allegations may convey the allegations as fact where the publisher adopts or endorses them. The court must determine the single natural and ordinary meaning from the publication as a whole, including its context and presentation.

Under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, serious harm may be established by inference from the gravity of the allegations, the claimant’s position, the scale and circumstances of publication, and evidence of actual impact. Under section 4, public interest publication requires a reasonable belief, assessed flexibly and in all the circumstances. Failure to investigate or seek comment is not automatically fatal, but is highly relevant where serious criminal allegations are published about prominent public figures.

The claimants, prominent politicians from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, sued a journalist over two videos published on YouTube and Facebook. The videos contained an interview with a former employee who made allegations of blackmail, corruption, sexual assault, torture and misuse of public resources.

The defendant admitted publication and reference, but disputed defamatory meaning and serious harm and relied on the public interest defence under section 4 of the Defamation Act 2013. The principal issues were the meaning of the publications, whether they were statements of fact and defamatory, whether serious harm was established, and whether the defendant reasonably believed publication was in the public interest.

1. Meaning and defamatory character. The court found that the videos conveyed Chase 1 meanings. The defendant’s introduction, leading questions, comments, captions and conclusion adopted and endorsed the interviewee’s allegations rather than presenting them neutrally. The publications conveyed statements of fact, not opinion, and imputed very serious criminal and immoral conduct. They were defamatory at common law.
2. Serious harm. The serious harm requirement had to be assessed in relation to each statement, although the reasoning could be expressed collectively. Serious harm was established by inference from the gravity of the allegations, the claimants’ prominence, the defendant’s substantial audience, the likely United Kingdom readership and the probable percolation of the allegations through social media and word of mouth. The claimants’ evidence of intrusive questions and negative comments reinforced that conclusion, although their accounts of the extent of reputational damage were partly exaggerated.
3. Public interest defence. The subject matter was of public interest and the defendant was accepted to have believed publication was in the public interest. However, he failed to prove that belief was reasonable. The court rejected his evidence that he had investigated the allegations or sought meaningful comment from the claimants. The videos were not balanced, the defendant endorsed rather than challenged the allegations, and the alleged disclaimers were not proved to have existed when the videos were published. These matters were particularly significant given the seriousness of the allegations and the defendant’s presentation as a responsible journalist. The defence therefore failed.
4. Relief. Judgment was entered for both claimants. Each was awarded £130,000 in compensatory damages, including a modest element for aggravating features. A final injunction was granted, and the defendant was ordered to publish a summary of the judgment under section 12(1) of the Defamation Act 2013, with the wording and publication arrangements initially left for agreement.

First-instance decision. No prior appellate decision is stated in the judgment.