Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari v Syed Tauqeer Bukhari

Serious harm under Defamation Act 2013, s 1, is a question of fact established by evidence of actual impact or by cumulative facts supporting a reasonable inference. Publication and relevant republication may be considered, but readership estimates require caution.

Harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 requires persistent, targeted and oppressive conduct exceeding ordinary upset. A public figure’s status is relevant, but does not justify relentless personal abuse. The objective reasonableness defence requires more than political prominence or asserted public interest.

Where harassment has an international dimension, the claimant must experience its effects in England and Wales, but need not experience them exclusively there.

The claimant sued his cousin over 249 tweets and embedded videos published between September 2019 and March 2020. He alleged that 40 publications were libellous and that the publications collectively constituted harassment under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

The earlier procedural decisions determined the meanings of the publications and rejected attempts to plead truth and other substantive defences. At trial, the central issues were whether any publications caused serious reputational harm, whether the campaign amounted to harassment, whether the defendant could rely on reasonable conduct, and whether the claimant experienced the harassing effects in England and Wales.

1. Libel. Applying [2019] UKSC 27, the judge treated serious harm as a factual issue requiring evidence of actual impact or facts supporting an inference. Relevant considerations included the gravity of the allegations, the claimant’s reputation and status, the characteristics of the readership, engagement with the publications, likely republication and grapevine effect. The court rejected vague and unpleaded alleged business consequences.
2. Five tweets and three videos caused serious harm. The remaining publications did not cross the threshold, having regard to limited or uncertain readership, repetition, low engagement, incidental content or insufficient contextual gravity.
3. Harassment. The 249 publications formed a persistent, deliberate, targeted and oppressive course of conduct. Their frequency, repetition, taunting character, tagging of the claimant and media organisations, and objectively foreseeable alarm and distress exceeded ordinary irritation. The claimant’s status as a public figure required broader shoulders but did not require him to tolerate the campaign.
4. The publications were not journalistic material. The heightened protection applicable to journalistic coverage therefore did not arise. The defendant ought objectively to have known that the conduct amounted to harassment.
5. The defence under s 1(3)(c) failed. Political prominence, wealth, association with an anti-corruption government and alleged public interest did not make repeated allegations reasonable. Nor did the asserted exhaustion of other avenues, particularly since the defendant had not tried to contact the claimant directly.
6. Following the approach in the [2016] EWHC 3110 (QB) line of authority, the claimant had to experience the harassing effects in England and Wales. That requirement was met. The effects need only be experienced there to more than a minimal extent and need not be experienced exclusively there.
7. The claimant was awarded £40,000 for libel, including aggravated damages, and £3,000 for harassment. The claim for a final injunction was refused because there was no real risk of renewed publications.

First instance judgment. The judgment records earlier procedural decisions in the same litigation but does not describe an appeal to this court.