Small Claims Court - Claim for Defamation Possible?

[Bob-Hope]

Hi All,

I am new here but it is such a good idea I have read threads from this forum before.

I can go in to as large or as small detail as you request but is it possible todo a claim for damages due to defamation via the small claims court?

many thanks

[efpom]

In a word "NO" High Court action.

[R0b]

Except with consent of the parties.

[R0b]

Sorry I should qualify that - county court can hear defamation with consent but it’s not likely to be on the small claims track unless you can persuade a judge otherwise.

[Bob-Hope]

Bit of a nightmare .Most reasonable people would remove such comment from the outset when they received the letter from a solicitor as they have little to gain from keeping the review posted.

What happens if the original review that was posted on google which we have a screenshot of and the original solicitor contact letters etc, has been revised 3 weeks after the original posting to remove much of the damaging defamatory comments?

We have already incurred over £1000 in legal costs though sending letters to the customer and their employer. they mentioned the fact that it was 'fitted to a customers car' - even though i think was just to make them look like the big man.

The main legal expense was incurred as we had to send at least 4 letters before we got a response from them. that took about 3-4 months. I did get the opportunity to speak with the customer at one point, it was not highly productive but when asked why have you not responded to any of the letters which have been sent , they said 'did you send them recorded delivery etc' . We know full well they received and read the first letter as within that letter was the information / report of the company who tested the product . They only knew to contact this company because of this! Most of what they say is a total fabrication and i guess there are times in life where you feel you must make a stand

Also on the phone they said that if we took them to court and won we would get £1 a week as they have no money and bankrupt. I did say well at least we will get it back over time. I did a recent report on the customer and it shows no bankruptcy order or ccjs etc, so again more fabrication .

I am confident that we have followed the correct steps upto this point and we are able to show from day one we were willing to be reasonable and attempted many times to contact them avoid further action. Each time they have dodged to make us either incurr more cost or hope that we would just go away.

To be honest after the first letter spending £180 ish with a solicitor if they had signed the undertaking, removed the review, undertaken to not post anymore and also clarify the urls to the other internet sites they said they had posted on , then we would have not taken further action.

But where we are now, i feel that we must try at the very least recover some of the legal outlay.

Who do you think i should speak to? the firm i have been using has advised that counsel for a small claims track i guess to help set up the claim and establish damages will cost over £1500 + vat

sorry for the long message and i appreciate any reply / advice, pulling my hair out with this one now