Couple lose damages after suing gossip website

An award of £300,000 in damages for a couple who sued over abusive comments on controversial gossip website Tattle Life is to be set aside, a High Court judge has ruled.

Justice Humphreys identified failures to properly serve a writ in the case entrepreneurs Neil and Donna Sands took against the site's founder Sebastian Bond.

An order freezing £1.8m in his worldwide assets has also been lifted.

"I find that the plaintiffs have failed to establish that Mr Bond knew of these proceedings," the judge held.

In December 2023 the couple, from Country Antrim, obtained awards of £150,000 in damages each, plus legal costs, in an action over what they regarded as a form of "hate speech".

Proceedings centred on postings published on Tattle Life, which hosts message boards and comments about influencers, celebrities and other members of the public.

The couple launched a two-year legal battle to uncover the operator of the online forum.

Neil Sands, a 44-year-old technology entrepreneur, and his wife Donna, 35, who runs a fashion business, claimed they had been subject to a campaign of harassment, invasion of privacy, defamation and breach of data rights.

Another judge who previously dealt with their case said the site had been set up to deliberately inflict hurt and harm by allowing the anonymous trashing of reputations and "peddling untruths for profit".

In June last year Bond was publicly named as a founder of Tattle Life after reporting restrictions were lifted.

Assets linked to him and two companies based in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong were also frozen to ensure the damages award and associated costs could be met.

But Bond mounted a bid to have the judgment made against him set aside based on alleged failures to make full disclosures in court applications and flaws in how the writ was served.

Lawyers representing the website founder and Hong Kong company Kumquat Tree Ltd, both defendants in the original action, claimed an abuse of process and sought to set aside the court's offer for substituted service (SSO).

Earlier this year a solicitor for the couple accepted previous evidence had been incomplete and that information known about Bond should have been disclosed earlier.

An apology was offered for what was described as honest mistakes not intended to mislead or create any tactical advantage in the legal battle.

Ruling on the application, Justice Humphreys identified no improper motive and declined to strike out the action as an abuse of process.

However, he concluded the proceedings were not properly served in compliance with the SSO.

"No explanation has been provided by the plaintiffs' solicitors for the defective service of the application to enter judgment," he said.

It is also apparent that these irregularities were not mere technicalities.

"They had very serious consequences for the defendants in terms of the further steps the plaintiffs were able to take in obtaining judgment, injunctive relief and a worldwide freezing order (WFO)."

Justice Humphreys issued a declaration that the writ had not been served on either Bond or Kumquat Tree Ltd.

"The judgment against the defendants is set aside," he confirmed.

"It also follows in these circumstances that the WFO must be set aside insofar as it relates to the defendants."