Gravity of libel and post-publication trolling leads to award of aggravated damages in undefended defamation case

The facts

The claim related to a documentary that Charles Northcott, a journalist and filmmaker, had made for the BBC called ‘Sex for Grades: Undercover in Nigerian and Ghanaian Universities’. The defendant, an investigative journalist named David Hundeyin, published an article alleging that Mr Northcott had had an inappropriate personal relationship with a member of his team named Kiki Mordi and abused his position as director of the documentary.  

After provocative tweets from Mr Hundeyin, goading Mr Northcott and Ms Mordi into suing him, Mr Northcott did indeed issue proceedings. While Mr Hundevin had indicated in correspondence that he would defend the truth of what he wrote (and referred to Mr Northcott’s claim as “obvious attempts at SLAPP litigation”), he did not acknowledge service, file a defence or appear at any of the hearings in the proceedings. 

The outcome

In his judgment, Mr Justice Julian Knowles was prepared to draw an “obvious inference” from this non-engagement that Mr Hundeyin “knew [the allegations] were false, and could not be defended”. He went further in his judgment, stating unambiguously that “it should be clearly understood by all reading this judgment that these very serious allegations were wholly untrue”. 

Mr Northcott obtained default judgment and was awarded damages of £95,000, including aggravated damages because of Mr Hundeyin’s conduct post-publication, namely embarking on a “campaign of trolling and persecution in a manner calculated to cause [Mr Northcott] and Ms Mordi maximum distress and damage”.

In addition, the damages award was increased by the fact that Mr Hundeyin had failed to comply with an injunction to take down the article in July 2024, as well as the seriousness of the libel itself. The Judge placed the seriousness above that in Packham v Wightman (where a TV presenter was accused of dishonesty) and Ware v French (where the claimant was accused of being a ‘rogue journalist’) but below Sloutsker v Romanova, where the claimant was accused of having taken out a contract for the murder of the defendant’s husband. 

The Judge also ordered that Mr Hundeyin publish a summary of the judgment under section 12 of the Defamation Act 2013 and for the website operators concerned in publications to remove the relevant parts of the offending article under section 13. 

Takeaways

Default judgment is rare in defamation claims, and it is particularly strange here that Mr Hundeyin was so bullish in maintaining the truth of his allegations before proceedings were issued and then so reluctant to engage with the claim once issued. 

This leads naturally to the inference drawn by the judge: that Mr Hundeyin must have considered himself in reality unable to defend his words. 

If nothing else, this is a reminder that while you may defame in haste (particularly in an online world), you repent at leisure, and if you are going to goad someone into issuing a claim, you better be prepared to defend it. 

With thanks to Kaya Sapanoglu for his help in drafting this article.