Ex-wife’s Facebook libel slur costs her £200,000
A WOMAN who posted on Facebook that her ex-husband tried to kill her is facing a legal bill of more than £200,000 after losing an appeal against a libel ruling.
Nicola Stocker made the claim about millionaire property developer Ronald Stocker during an online exchange with his new partner Deborah Bligh in December 2012.
Mr Stocker, 67, won a libel case against his exwife at London’s High Court in 2016 after Mr Justice Mitting ruled the comments wrongly painted him as ‘dangerous and thoroughly disreputable’.
The judge said the libel was ‘ not trivial’ and assessed compensation at £5,000, although Mr Stocker did not want a penny.
Mrs Stocker, 50, of Longwick, Buckinghamshire, challenged the ruling at the Appeal Court. After three judges rejected her case she will have to pay costs of about £200,000 from the earlier libel trial, plus any further costs from the appeal. Lady Justice Sharp said yesterday: ‘It is unfortunate that attempts to resolve this litigation, including by mediation, have proved unsuccessful.’
During the trial the court heard the allegations about Mr Stocker of Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire, were published to 21 individuals who had authorised access to the page. They were also visible to 110 of Deborah Bligh’s friends and to their Facebook friends. Mr Justice Mitting had said when ruling in Mr Stocker’s favour that a comment on Facebook was the same as one posted on an office noticeboard, and Mrs Stocker had no right to assume it was private.
The judge found Mr Stocker did ‘in temper’ attempt to silence his ex-wife, but he was not satisfied he had threatened to kill her and therefore her comments had a defamatory meaning.
Challenging his decision, Mrs Stocker said his conclusion on the meaning of her posts was wrong and he had not applied the correct legal test when deciding if she had ‘published’ the comments.
Dismissing her appeal, Lady Justice Sharp said the judge made no error in reaching his decision.
Sitting with Lord Justice McFarlane and Sir John Laws, she said Mrs Stocker ‘was the originator of the libel, was aware that the Facebook platform concerned was a semi-public one, and deliberately posted on that platform without thinking about who else might see what she posted’.