Martin Hibbert and another v Richard D Hall [2024]

The Manchester Arena terrorist attack on 22 May 2017 resulted in the loss of 22 innocent lives and hundreds more injured. The attack at the Manchester Arena has left a lasting impact, and many will never forget the 2017 arena bombings and how the community united in the days and weeks that followed.

Martin Hibbert was the closest survivor to the Manchester Arena bombings. He suffered from 22 shrapnel wounds and his life was saved by emergency surgery. Mr Hibbert’s daughter was also seriously injured in the bombing. The family had sought to keep their daughter out of media coverage following the bombing. Both suffered life-changing injuries.

Mr Hibbert and his daughter commenced legal action against Richard Hall in harassment, infringement of data protection rights and misuse of private information. The claim succeeded in harassment, and in this blog we look at the harassment claim.

Mr Hall operates and is responsible for a website through which he publishes articles, and produced YouTube videos (until the channel was closed for a breach of YouTube’s own terms) and later moved to another platform. He published a false narrative that the Manchester Arena attack was an elaborate hoax, carefully planned by elements within the state and involving ordinary citizens (including Mr Hibbert and his daughter) as crisis actors, in which no one was injured or died. The Court was asked to consider whether through his publications and steps taken to “investigate” his claims, Mr Hall had engaged in conduct amounting to harassment. Mr Hall’s position was that the events did not happen and a journalistic investigation did not amount to harassment.

What is harassment?

Section 1 of the Protection from Harassment Act 1997 prohibits a person engaging in a course of conduct which “amounts to harassment” and which they know or ought to know amounts to harassment. Put another way, the conduct is designed or calculated to and does cause that person alarm, fear or distress. The conduct can include speech. 

As harassment is both a civil and criminal action, the conduct must meet a threshold of oppression and gravity that might sustain criminal liability. 

What did the Court consider?

The Court considered the following main issues:

a) Did the Defendant pursue a course of conduct amounting to harassment of the first and / or Second Claimant?

b) Did the Defendant know or ought he to have known that such conduct amounted to harassment of the first and/or Second Claimant.

c) Was the pursuit of the course of conduct by the Defendant in the particular circumstances reasonable?

d) Have the Claimants suffered from anxiety and / or distress as a result of the Defendant’s conduct?

In deciding the case, the Court considered three questions

Question 1) Did the Defendant engage in a course of conduct?

In answering this question, the Court referred to (a) continuing publication of 4x videos (b) a film and book published and circulated in 2018-2020 (c) repetition of the same false narrative in about 12 shows per year across 2018 and 2019 and (d) the Defendant attending the Second Claimant’s home, knocking on the door, when there was no answer he went to speak to neighbours, and leaving a camera recording for three hours which captured the Second Claimant. The footage was subsequently deleted and not published.

The Court concluded that the Defendant had engaged in the conduct as alleged.

Question 2) Did any such course of conduct amount to harassment?

In addressing this question, the Court considered what we would know as a privacy argument. Did the Defendant’s article 10 freedom of expression outweigh the Claimants article 8 right to privacy? The Court rejected Mr Hall’s attempt to rely on article 9 freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as the criterion is demonstrating a belief, not an opinion or viewpoint.

The Court decided that the Defendant was ‘negligent, indeed reckless’ and that his conduct was an abuse of media freedom. At the point in time, for instance, that the Defendant visited the home, the nature and outcome of the Arena attack had been extensively reported. He further knew that the family were shielding the Second Claimant from any media coverage and that she had been severely injured in an extremely traumatic incident and should be treated as a vulnerable young person. The Court found that the way in which Mr Hall subjected the Claimants to deeply distressing “analysis”, repeated publication of false allegations, attacks on Mr Hibbert’s honesty, dismissing the obvious and speculation as being far from responsible journalism, but targeted for his own commercial gain and to cause serious distress to those that are vulnerable. 

Question 3) Did the Defendant know, or should he have known, that the conduct amounted to harassment?

The Court accepted that, subjectively, the Defendant did not know that his course of conduct amounted to harassment but concluded that Mr Hall pursued a course of conduct that he ought to have known amounted to harassment.

Defences

The Court considered defences put forward by Mr Hibbert. He relied on s.1(3)(a) of the PHA that his conduct was for the dominant purpose of the detection or prevention of crime. He also relied on his course of conduct being reasonable in the circumstances. Both defences failed.

Defence of detection or prevention of crime?

The Court decided that this defence is only available if the ‘dominant’ purpose of the course of conduct is detection or prevention of crime. Mr Hall gave the Court no evidence that this was his purpose.

Defence of reasonable course of conduct

The Court decided that the Defendant “brought no sensible critical analysis.” His approach was “blinkered and irrational.”

Conclusion

The Court concluded that the Defendant’s course of conduct had alarmed and distressed Mr Hibbert. Initially Mr Hibbert suffered a degree of upset but when he discovered that the Defendant had tracked down and filmed his daughter, that was extremely distressing. The effect on the Second Claimant was decided in the context of her cognitive injury and the Court stated that it had caused “real, lasting and persistent anxiety, and enormous distress.”

Damages

In conclusion of the judgment, the Court invited submissions on relief. There was a further hearing on 8 November 2024 when damages were awarded in the sum of £45,000 and an injunction granted. Mr Hibbert would receive £22,500 and his daughter £22,500. The Court has also decided that the Defendant will pay 90% of legal costs.

Financial damages in harassment cases are calculated using the Vento bands, my colleague Rhiannon recently wrote a blog about the bands when they were revised recently.

Comment

The decision explores the concept of responsible journalism and is thought to be the first to explore this in the context of a harassment claim.