05/02/2020 Galloway v Frazer & Ors [2016] NIQB 7 (27 January 2016) "The articles did not constitute an abuse of freedom of the press which the pressing social needs of a democratic society required should be curbed." The Court of Appeal went on to say at paragraph [35]: "The fact that the articles have caused him distress is not of itself established harassment. It would have to be shown that the respondent knew or ought to have known it was harassing the appellant. While the articles contain some factual errors and misuses of some private information that does not of itself show the respondent set out to harass the appellant as opposed to printing a story in which it was intended to expose those aspects of the appellant's life which the respondent regarded as justifying exposure in the public interest in the exercise of its right of free expression." [86] The affidavit sworn by the plaintiff complains that the defendant's speech as captured on URL2 caused him to feel threatened, harassed and degraded. There can be no doubt that accusing an elected politician of being a supporter of terrorism and of the people who are "beheading American citizens" is going to alarm anyone so accused and to cause him distress. In particular he complains of a personal attack upon him in London. This however relates to damage caused outside this jurisdiction and the likelihood is that any such viewing of URL2 was carried out in England as well. [87] In Dowson v Chief Constable of Northumbria [2010] EWHC 2612 (QB) at [142] Simon J offered a summary of what must be proved in order for a claim in harassment to succeed: (i) It must be conduct which occurs in at least two occasions. (ii) Which is targeted at a claimant. (iii) Which is calculated in an objective sense to cause alarm or distress. (iv) Which is objectively judged to be oppressive and unacceptable. (v) What is oppressive and unacceptable may depend on the social working context in which conduct occurs. (vi) A line has to be drawn between conduct which is unattractive, unreasonable, and conduct which has been described in various ways: torment of the victim, of an order which would sustain criminal liability. I consider that making the video available for an appreciable period of time when Google knew or should have known (on the present evidence) that it would harass the plaintiff and distress him, constituted a "course of conduct". There can be no doubt that somebody will be guilty of pursuing a course of conduct if that person keeps publishing newspaper articles or blogs which are designed to degrade and/or upset the victim. There cannot be any practical difference between that as a course of conduct and someone who keeps posted (and fails to take down) a video which achieves exactly the same result. Whether the video is taken down each evening and reposted each morning has no practical effect. The video is available for downloading over a period of time [88] Taking all the evidence into account I am satisfied that there is a good arguable case for the following reasons: (a) The content of URL2 capturing as it does the comments made by the defendant outside the Ulster Hall, is capable of causing harassment to the plaintiff. (b) The plaintiff has been harassed. (c) Making available of the video on YouTube and its downloading during a period of 23 days between when it was first flagged and taken down occurred in Northern Ireland. file:///Users/nerissa/Downloads/Columbia CSV/Galloway v Frazer & Ors [2016] NIQB 7 (27 January 2016).htm 23/26