Mohammed Hegab v The Spectator (1828) Limited & Anor

Serious harm under section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 requires proof of actual serious reputational harm or a factual likelihood of such harm. The court assesses the impact of the publication, rather than merely its capacity to cause harm.

For the truth defence, the court objectively assesses what the claimant did and said, and asks whether the defamatory imputation is substantially true. A difference in wording does not prevent substantial truth where the publication fairly conveys the substance of the claimant’s conduct.

Where substantial truth is established, a data protection claim based on alleged inaccuracy cannot succeed.

The claimant brought libel and data protection claims against the author and publisher of an article concerning disturbances between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester. The article described him as a street agitator who had inflamed tensions and ridiculed Hindus for their belief in reincarnation.

The claimant contended that he had referred only to the Hindutva ideology, not Hindus generally. The defendants denied serious harm and relied on substantial truth. The central issues were the article’s meaning and reference, serious harm, the truth defence, and whether any material inaccuracy remained for the purposes of data protection.

1. Meaning and reference. The article referred to the claimant despite using a different transliteration of his name. Its meaning was that he was a street agitator who had whipped up a mob in London, addressed an anti-Israel protest in inflammatory terms, and exacerbated existing tensions between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester by whipping up Muslim followers, including by ridiculing Hindus for reincarnation and describing them as pathetic, weak and cowardly. That was a defamatory statement of fact.
2. Serious harm. Section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 2013 requires a factual inquiry into whether serious reputational harm was caused or was likely to be caused. The claimant did not discharge that burden. His own much wider social-media output, including the Leicester speech, was at least as damaging; reliable evidence of lost followers, income or reputation was absent; his evidence was rejected; and the passage of almost three years without credible evidence of serious harm made future serious harm unlikely.
3. Truth. Although the claimant used “Hindutva” rather than “Hindus”, the court objectively found that he was addressing a group understood to be largely Hindu. His speech ridiculed a feature of Hinduism, asserted the superiority of Islam, and exacerbated tensions that had already resulted in serious disorder. The defamatory imputation was therefore substantially true. The truth defence would have succeeded even if serious harm had been proved.
4. Data protection. It was accepted that substantial truth meant there was no material inaccuracy capable of founding the data protection claim. That claim therefore failed.
5. The defendants were responsible for the relevant publications. The claims were dismissed on the merits. It was unnecessary to determine the alternative strike-out application.