05/02/2020 Galloway v Frazer & Ors [2016] NIQB 7 (27 January 2016) [19] On 20 January 2015 there was an exchange of skeleton arguments and authorities. On 22 January 2015 the case was adjourned to 6 February 2015 in the light of further amendments to the statement of claim and the stated intention of the plaintiff to further amend his statement of claim. A further proposed amended statement of claim was received on 26 January 2015. This application was listed for hearing before Gillen LJ but was adjourned. It then came before me and at the request of the parties was further adjourned. There were then further adjournments until the first hearing commenced on 14 May 2015. The oral submissions were finished on 26 June 2015. Eventually at the eleventh hour an affidavit was filed by Mr Durkan, a solicitor in KRW Law, on behalf of the plaintiff, averring that the plaintiff had a good cause of action filling in the hole which had previously been identified in respect of Order 11 Rule 4(1)(b) and which had been the subject of much argument. Final written submissions, made at the request of the court, were received before the end of the Michaelmas Term. During that period, namely up to the end of June, there had been further iterations of the statement of claim. A great deal of court time has been expended in hearing this bitterly contested application. The court has over 20 ring binders closely packed with documents and authorities. Each side has submitted initial skeleton arguments which have then been supplemented with further skeleton arguments. However, these are skeleton arguments in name only. They come fully fleshed out, running to many, many paragraphs. They are laden with myriad cases, burdened with text book extracts and interspersed with various statutory provisions. The effort expended by both sides has been truly prodigious, unfortunately some of it could have been better directed. [20] URL1 was taken down within a matter of minutes of being flagged by the plaintiff's solicitors. URL2 was flagged on 27 August 2014 and was taken down on 12 September 2014 and was blocked for viewers in Northern Ireland on 18 September 2014. The draft statement of claim introduced in the manner not in accordance with the Rules two further videos URL3 and URL4. These have now been taken down. I understand that URL2, URL3 and URL4 are blocked to anyone attempting to access them from the United Kingdom. However, they were or had been capable of being accessed from other countries by using addresses that appear to YouTube to be from outside the jurisdiction for a further period of time. [21] URL1 has been removed. There is no transcription. The court is left completely in the dark about what is alleged to have been captured on the video footage and what, if anything, on that video has infringed the plaintiff's rights. [22] URL2 claims, inter alia, that the plaintiff is a "tramp" who supports and "encourages terrorism" including those Islamic terrorists who "behead American citizens". It is obviously defamatory, attributing to the plaintiff's extreme political views that would be condemned by right thinking people in this country. In Northern Ireland especially, right thinking people would, given the province's troubled history, regard support for terrorism as wholly unacceptable. They would regard the support of a public representative for Islamic terrorists who carrying out beheadings of innocent civilians as being totally beyond the pale. [23] URL3 complains that the plaintiff is against Protestantism, Christianity, that he is anti-unionist, and anti-Jew. Much of the video content relates to the first named defendant and it could not in any way be described as being defamatory of the plaintiff and, indeed, does not even relate to him. There is no pleading which sets out what parts of the video are the subject of complaint and why it is alleged that these defame or otherwise injure the plaintiff. This is most unsatisfactory. [24] URL4 primarily relates to the refusal of the Protestant people who live at Cluan Place to be blackmailed. There are two references to the plaintiff. The first relates to the refusal of the people in Cluan Place to be blackmailed by the plaintiff and the video concludes with the comment that the plaintiff should 'go and get stuffed'. It has not been articulated in any pleading as to why the video is defamatory of the plaintiff. Nor has any pleading set out how this comprises private information. Again this is unsatisfactory. No attempt has been made to set out what part of the video defames the plaintiff. Most of the video, on any assessment, is not critical of the plaintiff. However, the suggestion that the plaintiff was attempting to blackmail those people living in Claun Place, even in the context in which it occurs, might arguably be said to lower the plaintiff in the estimation of right thinking people. file:///Users/nerissa/Downloads/Columbia CSV/Galloway v Frazer & Ors [2016] NIQB 7 (27 January 2016).htm 5/26