CASE STUDIES
Case Studies
Mr C
Mr C contacted us after serious untrue allegations of sexual harassment were made against him by a Parish council chairman in a Parish meeting in 2011. The allegations were reported in several newspapers.
Mr C’s previous solicitors were unable to secure the required apology and damages (or response from the perpetrator) and he was referred to us as experts in defamation. After a detailed case analysis we assisted Mr C to sue for slander.
A trial was due to take place in late October 2014 however following negotiation a statement in open court was read on 3 October 2014 in which the Defendant accepted that his allegations were untrue and apologised to Mr C. The Defendant gave an undertaking not to repeat the allegations and paid substantial damages and costs.
5RB’s Adam Speker was instructed as counsel by us on behalf of Mr C.
Mr A
Mr A, a professional practitioner, contacted us after his local paper, which was widely read, reported in print and online that he had been found guilty by his regulatory body of serious misconduct charges.
We quickly identified that the newspaper was reporting unproven and unfound allegations as findings. Mr A had been rebuffed by the newspaper when he tried to deal with the publication amicably. He came to us and we quickly identified that a threat of legal action would focus the newspaper into listening to Mr A’s concerns.
Following negotiation the newspaper published a correction and paid Mr A damages and his legal costs.
Mr B
Mr B ran an independent online retailer competing with major online household "names". A disgruntled customer, Mr X, suffered an item lost in the post and took to social media (using a pseudonym) to outline his unhappiness at a delayed refund. The client had hoped the matter would "blow over".
By the time Mr B came to us for urgent help Mr X’s page had hundreds of negative additional comments. These extent of the rumours led to further pages and also customers were cancelling orders when they read the rumours.
We identified that rapid action be taken to remove the pages. We wrote a detailed letter before claim to Mr X (despite his using a pseudonym) who quickly removed his page. We wrote to the publishers of the website and secured the removal of the majority of the hundreds of posts and pages, including the most damaging comments.
Mrs C
Mrs C was the subject of unfounded allegations of criminality on a blog. The comments were made by an ex-friend; Mrs Y. Mrs Y repeated the allegations to our client’s employer and the landlord of her employer’s premises. This was extremely distressing and embarrassing for Mrs C and her employer.
Due to the seriousness of the false allegations and the unwillingness of Mrs Y to settle proceedings were issued in the High Court. Using the Court’s procedures we secured Mrs Y’s defence and counterclaim being thrown out and our client’s full costs ordered to be paid by Mrs Y. Proceedings are ongoing with assessment of damages for our client and further costs.
Mrs D
Our client, a boarding kennel owner, was subject to very damaging false rumours on social media regarding animal welfare.
After a swift review we sent a detailed letter before claim to the perpetrator Mrs Z threatening legal action unless an apology was forthcoming. The letter was sent by post and by email to Mrs Z (on a weekend). Within half an hour Mrs Z visited our client’s premises, gave a sincere personal apology, and agreed to publish a sincere apology and correction of her (now removed) defamatory comments. Needless to say Mrs D was delighted with the result.
