advice on liabless and maliciousness accusation

[Bigone]

An acquaintance of mine and some of her friends are administrators on a group on Facebook, two of the administrators took a dislike to other administrators of the group, and left the group, the two women who left the group continued to personal message each other making nasty scathing and disrespecting remarks about the administrators of the group, an unknown member of the group kept sending one of the ex administrators, screen shots from the group, which she sent to the other ex administrator via Facebook personal messaging, making scathing remarks about the pictures of the administrators.

Later on the two ex administrators had a fall out and one of them decided to pass on screen shots of the messages to one of the administrators of the group, she was livid, and passed on the screenshots to the other administrators, she then put copies of the some of the message screenshots on her Facebook timeline, and added the name of the ex administrator who had written them, to name and shame her.

Some one in the group took a screen shot of the post and sent it to the women, whose partner contacted the administrator and said that naming her was liabless and malicious and unless she apologised to her for naming her, by letter and on a Facebook post that she would be seeking legal action against her, the administrator does not want to apologise as everything in the messages was fact and the copies of the personal messages were freely sent to her by one of the ex administrators involved in the message.

Does anyone have any idea how she stands legally with this, she has since deleted the post, thanks in advance for any replies

[jaguarsuk]

Firstly they all need to grow up and stop arguing on Facebook, my god they're supposed to be adults not bloody teenagers!

If this partner of the adulchild decided to issue legal proceedings under the Defamation Act 2013 the defence would be s2. Truth, s3. Honest Opinion or both.

The other thing to note is that bringing a claim under the Defamation Act 2013 for Libel would be via the High Court costing a fortune to initiate and therefore he/she is talking utter tripe unless they have money to burn.

Facebook has a fantastic feature called "Block," so if you don't like someone use it instead of being petty, slagging each other off and/or engaging in he said, she said like teenagers.

2 Truth


(1)It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true.

(2)Subsection (3) applies in an action for defamation if the statement complained of conveys two or more distinct imputations.

(3)If one or more of the imputations is not shown to be substantially true, the defence under this section does not fail if, having regard to the imputations which are shown to be substantially true, the imputations which are not shown to be substantially true do not seriously harm the claimant’s reputation.

(4)The common law defence of justification is abolished and, accordingly, section 5 of the Defamation Act 1952 (justification) is repealed.

Source: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...tion/2/enacted


3 Honest opinion


(1)It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the following conditions are met.

(2)The first condition is that the statement complained of was a statement of opinion.

(3)The second condition is that the statement complained of indicated, whether in general or specific terms, the basis of the opinion.

(4)The third condition is that an honest person could have held the opinion on the basis of—

(a)any fact which existed at the time the statement complained of was published;

(b)anything asserted to be a fact in a privileged statement published before the statement complained of.

(5)The defence is defeated if the claimant shows that the defendant did not hold the opinion.

(6)Subsection (5) does not apply in a case where the statement complained of was published by the defendant but made by another person (“the author”); and in such a case the defence is defeated if the claimant shows that the defendant knew or ought to have known that the author did not hold the opinion.

(7)For the purposes of subsection (4)(b) a statement is a “privileged statement” if the person responsible for its publication would have one or more of the following defences if an action for defamation were brought in respect of it—

(a)a defence under section 4 (publication on matter of public interest);

(b)a defence under section 6 (peer-reviewed statement in scientific or academic journal);

(c)a defence under section 14 of the Defamation Act 1996 (reports of court proceedings protected by absolute privilege);

(d)a defence under section 15 of that Act (other reports protected by qualified privilege).

(8)The common law defence of fair comment is abolished and, accordingly, section 6 of the Defamation Act 1952 (fair comment) is repealed.

Source: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/...tion/3/enacted

[Amethyst]

So your friend is the admin of a FB group, where a couple of the admins left on bad terms and have tried to create issues ever since.

Best thing - IGNORE them. Ban anyone who passes screenshots of things in the group, out of the group and make it clear that is the rule.

Do not allow discussion of the issue at all, no mention of the previous administrators, no discussion of the other group... just shut anything relating to them down.

Make her own personal account private and remove any friends who aren't friends.

Have you seen this message/letter from the partner of whoever that threatens legal action ? Has she responded ? If she hasn't yet then a copy would be good to do a reply IF NEEDED. DOn't go off half cock, and start quoting the Def act and whatnot back at them …. if you are the completely reasonable adult you come out on top and the others just look like idiots.

And yes it is all childish nonsense but I understand ( running a forum lol ) that these things can cause tremendous stress and upset, and have learnt, over many years....the best way to deal with things is to IGNORE … and get on with doing whatever the group is actually there to do.

[Bigone]

..........

[Amethyst]

In that case ignore my post.

Without seeing the post and knowing what the defamatory words are alleged to be and the meaning attributed to them it's impossible to know whether the other party might have a case.

[Bigone]

Firstly they all need to grow up and stop arguing on Facebook, my god they're supposed to be adults not bloody teenagers!

If this partner of the adulchild decided to issue legal proceedings under the Defamation Act 2013 the defence would be s2. Truth, s3. Honest Opinion or both.

The other thing to note is that bringing a claim under the Defamation Act 2013 for Libel would be via the High Court costing a fortune to initiate and therefore he/she is talking utter tripe unless they have money to burn.

Facebook has a fantastic feature called "Block," so if you don't like someone use it instead of being petty, slagging each other off and/or engaging in he said, she said like teenagers.

JAGUARSUK Thank you for the useful legal information you have provided, but I only asked for thoughts on the legal side of things, NOT a lecture on the people involved being childish

[jaguarsuk]

JAGUARSUK Thank you for the useful legal information you have provided, but I only asked for thoughts on the legal side of things, NOT a lecture on the people involved being childish

And that attitude is probably why you are here seeking help to the problem you have.

[Amethyst]

In that case ignore my post.

Without seeing the post and knowing what the defamatory words are alleged to be and the meaning attributed to them it's impossible to know whether the other party might have a case.

In case you missed that in the edit.

[Bigone]

In that case ignore my post.

Without seeing the post and knowing what the defamatory words are alleged to be and the meaning attributed to them it's impossible to know whether the other party might have a case.

Sorry Amethyst apologies , Some confusion here, the reply was aimed at Jaguarsuk not you, I just put it in the wrong place. I have just been informed that the administrator has now taken legal advice and been told she has nothing to answer to
thank you for your replies

[Bigone]

Thank for any comments, the administrator in question has now taken legal advice and been told she has nothing to answer to

[Amethyst]

That's good news, presumably she has managed to get some advice where they have looked at the postings and the threat of legal action made - which is what is necessary in these situations. We deal with far too many defamation complaints - they hardly ever result in actual court action.

My comments still stand on distancing herself from the people who seem to be out to cause problems for her and the group. These things tend to escalate until someone walks away.