Graham Linehan lost defamation case

[Christinapple]

Post from David Paisley on bluesky on Feb 5th. See also a summary screenshot of the statements.

bsky.app/profile/davidpaisley.bsky.social/post/3lhhcgpjkmc2c
"The High Court has ruled in my defamation case against Graham Linehan, finding that the statements he published were defamatory at common law. Huge thanks to my legal team for their support throughout this process. You can read the full judgment here:

caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/228"

Hopefully IMO this judgement along with the UK's Online Safety Bill should send a message and clear up any ambiguity that unfounded accusations made against gay or trans people may be defamation with legal consequences, and that platforms now have legal responsibility over the content they publish.

The link above won't be clickable because it thinks the end quote is part of it. Try this one instead:

caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/228

You never give up, do you?

Mumsnet gave permission for the topic to be reposted with clarification.

This is about comments left on Glinner's blog by third parties, and not anything directly published by him, isn't it?

I do hope your last, now deleted, attempt at this thread taught you a thing or two about defamation

Glinner didn't write the defamatory comments, neither did he endorse them. In fact, he reprimanded the commenter for writing them.

This kind of judgement is very worrying, because neither Glinner nor anyone else can realistically stop people writing defamatory comments on their blog.

Paisley could have chosen to sue the person who made the defamatory comment, but no doubt he has his own reasons for pursuing Glinner.

It raises the alarming prospect that anyone could go onto someone else's blog and, using a pseudonym and VPN, make defamatory comments that then get the blog owner sued. If I were a TRA, I wouldn't be gloating about this ruling, I'd be very worried. Of course, TRAs are not known for their capacity for critical thinking.

The problem for him is that it was his substack and he didn't delete the comments (which he responded to).

Its worth reading the ruling which isn't that long and in fact it sounds like the court this was a complete waste of time and piffle.

And the poor Judge had to sit down and read SubStacks guidance on comments.

I'm not going to paste in the final judgement because it includes the phrase that caused the problem.

https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewhc/kb/2025/228

But agree with comment up thread that maybe commentators should think twice before posting in a grandstanding manner, is the outcome is not them, but the person whose article they are commenting on end up paying the price of their need to be bombastic.

It's rather sweet to see some people's wish to be a main character. It's very touching to see that the thread has been retouched and relaunched after a rocky start although it's become no more accurate.

OP might have revisited the discussions from long ago as to what constitutes publication and conferred a duty to remove adverse comments. Rather like the wish of so many people to censor women's discussion on places like MN.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3438714-Bunbury-s-Public-Service-Announcement-2?

@Christinapple "unfounded accusations made against gay or trans people may be defamation"

Why specifically gay or trans people? Does defamation not cover anyone else?

Nobody else matters to @Christinapple

I did try to read that judgment, honestly, but it was so tedious I had to skip bits. Long bits.

But it was clear that the case was essentially extremely petty, given that Paisley took the case out against Linehan who didn't even write the offending comments. I can only hope the damages will be cursory.

@Christinapple What crime do you think that Glinner was guilty of? And why?

😂post on reddit, no one here gives a fuck 😂😂😂

Clear and to the point.😍

I'm just going to repeat what I said on your last thread.

Let s/he who is without sin cast the first stone.

Zzzzz

Such a good use of the over £100k people donated to him to fight this 🙄 When will people stop funding these grifters

It's not over until the Fat Man at the Bus Stop sings, "Ribbons!!! Aargh!!!" 😱

"For clarity: This was a Trial of Preliminary Issues (TPI) ruling, in addition to a previous ruling, this means the court has now found all statements defamatory at common law. However, this is not the end of the case. This is an important step forward but further legal proceedings are likely ahead."

https://bsky.app/profile/davidpaisley.bsky.social/post/3lhhmfnzhqc2c

So this ruling was just about whether the statements were defamatory - not that Glinner has been found guilty of defamation.

Don't let the facts get in the way of a good story Bosky...

Did Chris jump the gun then? Or the shark?

😆

Quote from one of the replies on the bluesky thread:

"The next stage would presumably be for Graham to provide a defence as to how his defamatory opinions were legitimately/reasonably founded, and as to what reasonable cause he had to believe the rest of his defamatory statements were factual."

So the onus would now be on Mr Linehan to prove the published statements? Is he able to do that?

Mumsnet gave permission for the topic to be reposted with clarification.

All the to you MNHQ. All of it.