High Court hands down defamation preliminary trial judgment in Paisley v Linehan

The High Court has handed down judgment in the defamation Preliminary Trial in Paisley v Linehan.

The Claimant, David Paisley, is a gay man and former actor and LGBT and women’s rights campaigner. The Defendant, Graham Linehan, is a ‘gender critical’ campaigner and well known television writer (the creator of Father Ted).

Mark Henderson, instructed by Paul Greenberg at Cohen Davis Solicitors, is counsel for the Claimant. 

The claim in defamation concerns seven publications on the Defendant’s Substack blog. In his judgment, Deputy High Court Judge Aidan Eardley KC explained how Substack operated, and that:

"The Defendant says that the principal purpose of the Defendant’s Substack is to publish articles about issues connected to gender ideology and to women’s rights. The Claimant says its principal purpose is to oppose trans rights and members of the LGBT community who support such rights. I do not need to decide, for present purposes, which of these descriptions is more apt." [3]

The Preliminary Issues were the questions of meaning and whether the statements were defamatory of the Claimant, and whether each statement was one of fact and/or opinion.

The Defence admitted that 6 of the 7 publications were defamatory at common law. The Defendant contended that the remaining one was “just idle gossip which no reasonable reader would take seriously (vulgar abuse in other words)”. [32] The Claimant had taken issue with this, arguing that “the statement that someone is a possible paedophile is not something liable to be understood as the stuff of idle gossip.” [31] The Judge concluded that although opinion, the statement was defamatory, inter alia because “paedophilia carries such stigma in society that even the suggestion that there is a real possibility someone is a paedophile has a tendency to have a substantially adverse effect on their reputation.” [37]

The Defendant contended that the six admittedly defamatory articles were largely statements of opinion whereas the Claimant argued they were statements of fact. The Judge noted that:

"[15] In Blake v Fox [2023] EMLR 12 at [32]-[34] & [55] (upheld on appeal)  Nicklin J accepted a submission that certain words (e.g. “racist”) are more inherently likely to be classified as opinion than others (e.g. allegations of criminal conduct). He also acknowledged however that, “even the use of heavily value-laden judgment terms in a publication may not prevent a finding that the overall effect of a publication is to convey an allegation of fact”, and I was shown a number of cases in which Judges have held that words which might be thought to be evaluative in character (including “homophobia” and “misogyny”) have been held to convey statements of fact in the context in which they were used: see e.g. Alam v Guardian News and Media Ltd [2023] EWHC 2847 (KB) at [63]-[69] (Griffiths J). Ultimately, it is all dependent on the context."

His judgment concluded:

"[101] One reason why I have rejected the Defendant’s case, in respect of this publication and others, that the statements complained of are expressions of opinion, is that I do not accept his apparent premise. He appears to suggest that statements about someone’s personality or the quality of their actions are (or perhaps are inherently likely to be) expressions of opinion. But very many allegedly defamatory statements will concern the claimant’s personality or the quality of their conduct. That in itself will not suffice to render the statement an expression of opinion. The authorities show that even highly value-laden terms can be used to convey factual allegations. It all depends on the context as to whether the reasonable reader will understand that they are being told a matter of established fact or whether they will recognise they are seeing the subjective view of the writer about a person’s character or conduct. I accept that this can pose problems for writers who return to the same subject repeatedly: there is a tendency for statements that may have started out as recognisable opinion to be condensed over time and reduced to a shorthand formulation that strikes readers of later articles as pure assertions of established fact. However, it is the particular statement complained of that must be looked at (in its proper context) so the fact that a defendant may have made the same allegation by way of comment on another occasion will not assist if the statement under consideration would strike the reader as factual in nature.

Conclusion

[102] The publications complained of bear the following meanings. They are all defamatory of the Claimant at common law. The parts of the meanings that are underlined were conveyed by way of expressions of opinion.

Publication 1 

The Claimant has an unhealthy interest in small children and there is a real possibility that he may be a paedophile. 

Publication 2            

The Claimant has targeted a lesbian woman by making a complaint to the police that appears to be vexatious, and this is the latest step in his campaign of misogynistic and homophobic harassment, in the course of which he has lied. 

Publication 3 

The Claimant has engaged in a campaign of bullying and harassment aimed at silencing women who disagree with him, including by making spurious and vexatious complaints to the police. 

Publication 4 (article only) 

The Claimant bullied Ceri Black into removing an allegation from a Twitter thread that he was spreading an anti-safeguarding line even though that was an apt description of what he does because he seeks to normalise adult nudity in the presence of children. This bullying behaviour is evidence that the Claimant is a dangerous narcissist and misogynist and a vexatious troll who deserves to be charged with wasting police time. 

Publication 5 

The Claimant is a serial harasser of women who has made vexatious legal complaints. 

Publication 6 

The Claimant is an extreme misogynist who is continuing to harass women by making vexatious complaints to the police. 

Publication 7 

The Claimant has harassed and terrified Marion Millar by making a meritless complaint to the police and is now engaging in the same conduct in relation to Ceri Black. He is an aggressive, sadistic, misogynistic bully."