23 May 2025
DEFAMATION (US) – Baby Reindeer defamation trial delayed due to appeal
The much anticipated Baby Reindeer defamation case - which was expected to go to trial on 6 May this year – has been postponed after Netflix appealed a previous decision in the case.
A woman called Fiona Harvey brought a $170 million defamation claim against Netflix after she said she had been identified as the character Martha who is portrayed in the series as a convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison. Harvey says she has never been convicted of stalking.
Netflix tried but failed to get Harvey’s defamation claim dismissed last year.
The court found at the time that Netflix could have defamed Harvey by stating that the series was based on a true story and that Netflix had failed to hide Harvey’s identity - so the case should proceed to trial.
Netflix then filed an appeal against that decision claiming, amongst other things, that Harvey’s claim does not allege that a provably false statement of fact was made about her in the series.
As part of its appeal, the streamer also claimed that Harvey’s reputation had already been tarnished by past news stores that had detailed her previous harassment and stalking of public figures.
Zoom-in brief will continue to follow the case and will report on the outcome of the appeal when known.
MISCELLANEOUS (UK) – Sky wins summary judgment in Britannia plagiarism case
Benjamin Crushcov’s claim against Sky and others that his original television script was stolen and used without permission in the production of the Sky series Britannia, has been dismissed and summary judgment has been granted to the defendants.
Unusually, this case was not a claim for copyright infringement. Instead Crushcov alleged an unlawful conspiracy between the defendants to cause him loss by unlawful means.
He relied upon allegations of theft, breach of trust and fraudulent misrepresentation against the first defendant, and of fraudulent misrepresentation against the second and third defendants who claimed they were unaware of his script until he contacted them with his complaint.
Crushcov claimed that he had written his fictionalised historical drama series, Tribus, as a university project, that an acquaintance of his had stolen his material and passed it to the producer of Britannia and that the television series was broadcast by Sky.
Crushcov was seeking £6.5 million in damages, appropriate accreditation and a formal apology.
Both Britannia and Tribus were set around the period of the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43 and both looked at the historical events from the point of view of the Britons.
When comparing the works the Court found that not only were the stories completely different, but Crushcov’s descriptions of the similarities were so general that they could apply to a great many things which do not resemble each other in any significant way.
The Court did not find the script had been plagiarised. Once that part of the case was taken out of the equation Crushcov’s whole case was largely undermined.
In addition, the Court found there was no positive or direct evidence of the way in which Crushcov alleged his script had reached the producer – all there was were “a few straws in the wind about possible connections” and the Court found that his case had no real prospect of success.
Crushcov, who represented himself in court against three barristers, said he planned to appeal.
DEFAMATION (UK) – Court strikes out claim from man who said he was falsely outed as gay
A man from Afghanistan who was suing The Guardian for defamation – for mistakenly publishing a photo of him next to an article that he said falsely suggested he was gay - has had his claim struck out.
Safiullah Ahmadi had claimed the publication of the article – about the murder by the Taliban of a gay student called Hamed Sabouriin – had left him fearing for his life.
The article was first published in October 2022 under the headline “Gay Afghan student ‘murdered by Taliban’ as anti-LGBTQ+ violence rises” alongside a photo that Ahmadi said was of him.
The photo was removed from the online article later the same day after The Guardian realised that it had been published in error.
Ahmadi claimed he had still been put at risk because of the homophobic views that are prevalent in Afghanistan. He said he had been forced into hiding and was seeking £100,000 in damages.
In granting The Guardian’s application to strike out the claim, the Court held that a reasonable reader would not conclude, after reading the full article, that it was about Ahmadi or that it meant he was gay.
The Court noted that apart from the photograph, nothing in the article referred to Ahmadi and merely suggesting that a person is gay is not of itself defamatory.
The Court concluded that Ahmadi did not have a real prospect of establishing that he had sustained or was likely to sustain serious harm and his claim had no real prospect of success.
The case is another example in a long line of cases where the use of the wrong person’s photograph has led to a claim for defamation.
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