Mr Justice Griffiths has today handed down judgment following the recent eight-day trial of the libel claim brought by campaigner Sasha Rodoy against Optical Express Ltd, a provider of refractive eye surgery. The claim related to the publication of four letters which the company had sent to patients who had referred in correspondence to Ms Rodoy and her website ‘Optical Express Ruined My Life’.
Ms Rodoy sued on the statements that she is a fraudster, that she trolls Optical Express and its staff online, and that the trolling has been to such an extent that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that she was placing the safety of staff members at risk.
After hearing six days of evidence, the Judge found that Ms Rodoy had suffered serious harm as a result of each letter published, but that the allegations complained of were substantially true. In particular, the Judge found that Ms Rodoy’s conduct over a period of years in the 1990s in which she had dishonestly sold false stories to the media for significant sums about the entirely fabricated “Decoy Dolls” detective agency she purported to run amounted to fraud. Though historic, this justified the description of Ms Rodoy as a fraudster in the present tense because her character had not changed.
The letters were also published on occasions of qualified privilege and the claim of malice was rejected.
Adam Wolanski KC and Victoria Simon-Shore acted for the Defendant, instructed by Keoghs LLP.
William Bennett KC and Felicity McMahon acted for the Claimant, instructed by Seddons LLP.
The judgment can be found here.