Businessman awarded £22,000 for libel and breach of privacy on Facebook

This press release was sent to us by Olswang Law Firm;

First libel and privacy case relating to a Facebook user to reach trial in the UK

Applause Store Productions Limited and its Managing Director, Mathew Firsht, were today awarded £22,000 in the High Court for libel and breach of privacy relating to false allegations and private information on a fake profile and group on Facebook.
Richard Parkes QC, sitting as a Deputy High Court Judge, made the award against Grant Raphael, a former school friend of Mr Firsht, who the Judge found to be responsible for the Facebook material. In doing so, the Judge found that Mr Raphael's case was "nothing more than a lie".

Mr Firsht discovered the fake Facebook profile in July 2007 after surfing the internet with his brother. The fake profile and the group "Has Mathew Firsht lied to you?..." accused Mr Firsht and Applause Store of being unable to pay their debts and having lied to avoid paying them. The Judge awarded Mr Firsht and Applause Store £15,000 and £5,000 respectively to compensate for these false and defamatory allegations. He also awarded a further £2,000 to Mr Firsht for breach of privacy for the publication of information on the fake profile about his religion, false allegations that he was gay, and various other private details.

Mr Firsht commented:
"What Mr Raphael did was extremely offensive, embarrassing and may have caused serious damage to the reputation of myself and Applause Store, which I have spent years building into what it is today.

The case never needed to go this far. Had Mr Raphael owned up at the beginning and apologised, the matter could have been dealt with without the need for a lengthy and distressing legal process. Instead, Mr Raphael stuck his head in the sand and will now have to pay the consequences for having lied to both myself and the court. I hope that this Judgment will at least send a warning out to users of Facebook and other social networking websites that they cannot recklessly post defamatory and private material with immunity. Having been vindicated by the Court, I now look forward to getting on with my life and putting this episode behind me."

When Mr Firsht discovered the Facebook material, it was anonymous. He complained to Facebook, which cooperated and removed the offending material immediately. He then obtained a disclosure order to discover that the fake profile and group had been created from the home of Mr Raphael on the 19 and 20 June 2007. When asked by Mr Firsht's lawyers, Olswang, for his explanation, Mr Raphael claimed that he had had a party and that strangers who attended that party must have been responsible for the Facebook material. Mr Raphael then signed an affidavit of that effect, which left Mr Firsht with little choice but to sue.

In his judgment, Richard Parkes QC said that he found Mr Raphael's case to be a lie, and that his explanation of the events on 19 June was "utterly implausible from start to finish". Mr Raphael was a “glib and loquacious” witness who was “always prepared…to talk his way out of a difficulty, with no apparent insight into the implausibility of some of his answers”. He was a witness who "believed in his own ability to talk himself out of trouble".

Ashley Hurst, an Associate at Olswang who acted for Applause Store and Mr Firsht, said:
"This decision is likely to send shock waves amongst the social networking community. There are many similar instances of libel and breach of privacy which go unchecked every day. People need to realise that libel and privacy laws in the UK apply just as much to online media as they do to newspapers. The case also goes to show that with a combination of sophisticated tracing techniques, use of the court process and careful assembly of evidence, anonymous users of the internet can be brought to justice." Counsel for the Claimants (Applause Store and Mr Firsht) at the trial was Miss Lorna Skinner of Matrix Chambers.