In Hegab v The Spectator (1828) Ltd & Anor [2025] EWHC 2043 (KB), Mr Hegab sought damages in libel and under the Data Protection Act 2018 in respect of an article written by the second defendant, Mr Murray, and published in The Spectator. The article said that Mr Hegab was a street agitator who had whipped up his followers and made disparaging comments about Hindus in the context of disturbances between local Muslims and Hindus.

An important part of Mr Murray’s basis for his article was a video of a speech given by Mr Hegab in Leicester to a large group of (largely masked) men, during which he had said,

“if they believe in reincarnation … what a humiliation and pathetic thing for them to be reincarnated into some pathetic weak cowardly people like that. I’d rather be an animal. I’d rather be reincarnated as a grasshopper…” [1&2].

Mr Hegab said that it was clear from the context that he was not talking about Hindus in general but about the Hindutva, which he defined as an extremist far-right ethno-nationalist political ideology which was exclusionary and hostile to Muslims, Sikhs and Christians [4]. He argued that the article had fundamentally distorted what he had said and was therefore untrue and defamatory and that, despite him repeatedly pointing that out, it had not been withdrawn. The defendants accepted that Mr Hegab had used the word “Hindutva” and not “Hindus” but maintained that the meaning conveyed by the article was substantially true. They also denied that Mr Hegab had suffered serious harm [2].

Johnson J concluded that, in summary, the article conveyed the following meaning:

“The claimant is a street agitator who has whipped up a mob on London’s streets, addressed an anti-Israel protest in inflammatory terms, and exacerbated frayed tensions (which had already spilled over into public disorder) between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester by whipping up his Muslim followers including by ridiculing Hindus for their belief in re-incarnation and describing Hindus as pathetic, weak and cowardly in comparison to whom he would rather be an animal” [91].

That was a statement of fact which was defamatory at common law [92]; however, it was necessary for Mr Hegab to prove that the article had in fact caused him serious reputational harm or that it was likely to do so in the future [95] – and he had not discharged that burden [96].

First, the evidence showed that he had many more social media followers than The Spectator had subscribers, and his material was viewed many more times than the Spectator article was read. The material that he had published himself was “at least as reputationally damaging to him as the article” [97]. Second, it was not necessary to work on the basis that it was inherently difficult to provide evidence of reputational damage. He was very well known on social media, with a huge number of followers; if the article had caused him serious reputational harm it was “likely that would be reflected in a significant reduction in the number of his followers and/or a significant reduction in his income from his social media publications” – and there was no evidence that that was, in fact, what had happened [98]. Third, “no reliance can be placed on the claimant’s evidence”, and to the extent that he had given evidence that his reputation had been damaged, in the absence of support from other credible material that assertion took his case no further [99]. Fourth, there was

“some evidence that the claimant positively revelled in any form of publicity. He said in evidence that (up to a point) controversy increased the number of people who viewed his material and hence the value that could be realised from that content. When he was described as an “instigator in chief”, he had t-shirts printed, emblazoned with “instigator in chief”, which he sold via an Amazon outlet” [100].

Fifth, there was no other credible evidence of damage to his reputation occasioned by the article [101]. Sixth, it was now almost three years since the article had been published, and in the absence of any credible evidence that he had sustained serious reputational harm in that period, it was not likely that the article would cause such harm in the future [102]. Finally, Mr Hegab had relied on what he said was a death-threat in an undated Instagram message but:

“Nothing in the Instagram message references the article. It may have been written in response to the claimant’s video of his speech, or something else. There is no evidence that the article caused the death-threat to be made” [103].

Claim dismissed [104].