The Court of Appeal (Civil Division) has refused Mohamed Hegab permission to appeal against the judgment of Johnson J in the High Court ([2025] EWHC 2043 (KB)), which dismissed Mr Hegab’s claims in libel and data protection, brought against the publisher of The Spectator magazine, and the journalist Douglas Murray.
The claimant, Mr Hegab, sought permission to appeal inter alia on grounds of bias, attacks on the judge’s ruling in favour of both defendants’ defences of truth under s.2 Defamation Act 2013, and criticism of the judge’s ruling on the issue of serious reputational harm under s.1 of the Defamation Act 2013, which the claimant did not prove at trial.
Warby LJ refused permission to appeal, finding that there was no prospect of the claimant successfully challenging the judge’s cogent and proper reasoning on the defence of truth, and that the judge was plainly entitled to make the findings he did as to the claimant’s dishonesty. The ground of appeal relating to bias was similarly dismissed. Warby LJ did hold that it was open to argument that the judge had erred in deciding the issue of serious harm in similar or comparable ways to the judge at first instance in Blake v Fox, by reference to the Court of Appeal’s reasoning in Blake v Fox [2025] EWCA Civ 1321. However, given the inevitable failure of any challenge to the successful truth defence in this case on appeal, any appeal even on this issue would have been academic, and accordingly, permission was refused.
The Order on Permission to Appeal can be found here.
William Bennett KC acted for Douglas Murray. Greg Callus and Hector Penny acted for The Spectator.