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5RB : Cases : Mengi v Hermitage (No 2)
Mengi v Hermitage (No 2)
Case Reference [2012] EWHC 3445 (QB)
Court High Court, Queen's Bench Division
Judge The Honourable Mr Justice Bean
Date of Judgment 30 Nov 2012
Summary
Libel - internet blog - justification - reply to attack qualified privilege
Facts
The Claimant is a prominent Tanzanian businessman who owns various media interests, including the Tanzanian Guardian and Nipashe newspapers, through his IPP group of companies. In 2004 the Defendant and her husband, Stewart Middleton, bought the lease to a farm in Tanzania from the Claimants brother, Benjamin Mengi. A dispute arose, in which Benjamin sought to have the lease assignment set aside. He mounted a campaign of harassment against Mr Middleton in particular, threatening to kill him, taking out vexatious court actions and involving the local police and courts in the issue of trumped up charges. Mr Middleton was as a result repeatedly arrested and then imprisoned. In 2008, the Defendant and Mr Middleton abandoned their farm and fled Tanzania in fear for their lives. In 2009 the Defendant set up a website which described the dispute. In relation to the Claimant, the Defendant alleged on her website that he had encouraged a campaign of journalistic terrorism in the form of deliberately inaccurate, abusive and defamatory attacks by his IPP media outlets against her and her husband, which campaign had facilitated Benjamins corruption of local officials and intimidation of the Defendant and Mr Middleton, and therefore assisted Benjamin in grabbing back the farm, and that the Claimant had lied during a meeting with the British High Commissioner to Tanzania in 2005, when he had made certain promises concerning the farm dispute and IPPs coverage of it, which he had had no intention of keeping. The Defendant also made similar allegations in two emails about which the Claimant complained, which she sent to the Lutheran Church in Tanzania and to the African Media Initiative organisation.
Issue
Were the defences of justification and qualified privilege made out?
Held
The allegations of IPPs journalistic terrorism, and the Claimants support through it of his brothers corrupt campaign to grab the farm were substantially true.
5RB : Cases : Mengi v Hermitage (No 2)