Facebook defamation and privacy invasion costs man £22,000

The Court found/concluded that Grant Raphael had created a false profile and a false group which alleged his former friend Matthew Firsht was gay, owed business associates money and lied about paying it back.

The profile appeared to be Firsht's profile while the group page was about Firsht. The profile page falsely claimed that Firsht was gay. The group page said: "Mathew Firsht the managing director of Applause Store owes us a lot of money and has constantly lied about when he will pay us".

Raphael had claimed in court that strangers attending an impromptu party at his house had created the profile. Richard Parkes QC, sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court, said that Raphael's claims were "utterly implausible from start to finish".

The court awarded Firsht £15,000 in damages for the libel and £2,000 for the invasion of his privacy. His company, Applause Stores, was awarded £5,000 for the libel.

"The libel is…not at the top end of the scale, although it is serious enough to say of a successful businessman that (as I have found the words to mean) he owes substantial sums of money which he has repeatedly avoided paying by lying and making implausible excuses, so that he is not to be trusted in the financial conduct of his business and represents a serious credit risk," said Parkes in his ruling. "I do take into account also the effect on Mr Firsht of the unpleasant allegations against him which the Defendant made in his original Defence, and the fact that the Defendant has persisted to trial in a case which I have found to be no more than a lie."

"As far as the tort of misuse of private information is concerned, I accept Mr Firsht's evidence that it caused him, a very private person, great shock and upset. The information which has been conceded to be private, or which I have held in the private annex to this judgment to be private, related to his supposed sexual preferences, his relationship status (single or otherwise), his political and religious beliefs, and his date of birth. It seems to me that the most important information is that which relates to his supposed sexual preferences," he said.

Raphael and Firsht had been friends as teenagers and had worked together but had fallen out. Raphael is a freelance cameraman and Firsht runs his own company providing audiences for television programmes such as Big Brother and Britain's Got Talent.

Raphael claimed that on the night when the fake pages were created he had had a party at his flat and some strangers were there. He said that the pages must have been created on his computer by the strangers.

In his ruling Parkes expressed disbelief that these strangers would know enough about Mathew Firsht to create the pages and said that it was an unlikely coincidence that it would be Firsht that they would choose as the victim of their hoax. Raphael claimed that papers on his desk must have provided the strangers with the information they needed.

Firsht's lawyer told the court that the pages contained information about his relationship status, birthday, whereabouts and activities, and that they misrepresented his political views.

Raphael admitted to being a frequent user of Facebook and admitted accessing his own profile from home just before the fake profile was created.

Parkes said that it was undisputed that the pages had been created by a computer using Raphael's internet protocol addresss. "The main issue which I have to decide is whether Grant Raphael was responsible for putting up the false profile and for creating the group," he said.

Parkes said that he was convinced that it was Raphael that had created the pages and lied in court about not having done so.

"It seemed to me that he was a witness who believed in his own ability to talk himself out of trouble," he said. "It gives me no pleasure to conclude that he lied to me about his involvement in the creation of the false profile and group page, but that is the conclusion which I have reached."