Mohammed Hegab v The Spectator (1828) Limited & Anor

The claimant sued in libel and under the Data Protection Act 2018 in respect of an article published by the first defendant and written by the second defendant. The court determined the single meaning of the article as a factual imputation that the claimant was a street agitator who had whipped up a mob, addressed an anti-Israel protest in inflammatory terms, and exacerbated tensions between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester by ridiculing Hindus and describing them as pathetic, weak and cowardly. The court applied the Defamation Act 2013 provisions on serious harm (section 1) and the defence of truth (section 2), and rejected the claimant’s evidence on key matters as not credible. The claims were dismissed: the publication had not caused (and was not likely to cause) serious harm, and, in any event, the defendants established the substantial truth of the defamatory imputation.

This is a first instance trial concerning libel and a linked data protection claim arising from an article published in The Spectator about the claimant’s conduct in London and Leicester. The claimant sought damages for defamatory allegations and for alleged breaches of data protection law. The principal issues were:

• what single meaning the article conveyed and whether it referred to the claimant;
• whether publication caused or was likely to cause serious harm to reputation (Defamation Act 2013 s.1); and
• whether the defendants could defend the claim by establishing that the imputation was substantially true (Defamation Act 2013 s.2).

The court summarised the factual background (incidents in Golders Green and at an anti-Israel rally in May 2021; a Sapience Institute seminar; and disturbances in Leicester in summer 2022) and analysed extensive video and documentary material. The judge made detailed credibility findings, rejecting substantial parts of the claimant’s evidence as untruthful or unreliable, including on his use of a van as a prop, his professed ignorance of certain images, his account of events at the rally and his asserted basis for attributing responsibility to the Hindutva rather than to Hindu men generally.

The court held that the article did refer to the claimant (by a recognisable transliteration of his name) and conveyed a factual, defamatory meaning that included that he ridiculed Hindu belief in reincarnation and inflamed tensions. On serious harm, the judge concluded the claimant had not proved actual serious reputational damage nor the likelihood of such harm because (inter alia) the claimant’s own widely viewed videos were at least as damaging, his social-media following and monetisation mitigated probable impact, and the evidence of claimed financial losses was unconvincing and contrived. On truth, the judge found objectively that the claimant had behaved as described in the article, that his speech ridiculed a central tenet of Hinduism and aggravated existing tensions, and that the defendants would have succeeded on truth even if serious harm had been proved. The data protection claim failed because the article was not materially inaccurate. The court therefore dismissed the claims.

First instance: The claim is dismissed. The court found the article conveyed a defamatory factual meaning that referred to the claimant, but the claimant failed to prove that publication caused or was likely to cause serious harm. Further, the defendants established that the imputation was substantially true. The data protection claim failed as there was no material inaccuracy. The judge also made detailed adverse credibility findings about the claimant and found the claimant’s evidence on financial losses unsatisfactory.