The plaintiff claimed two of these postings were defamatory of her.
In the first, the author, among others, “thanked” the plaintiff for “watching her postings with an eagle eye” and in a subsequent posting she sarcastically referred to their “celebrity status” following the media reports.
The judge said in the full context of the postings, the woman seemed to ridicule the plaintiff on a public forum, which was belittling, but he deemed the second posting as the most damning.
In this the first defendant wrote: “To all moms and dads - what do you think of people who allow step brothers to bath their little sisters each night, simply because it would make the mother’s life easier?”
Comments posted in response included someone saying “Not a chance” and “Hell, will never allow that.”
The context of this posting is that the plaintiff (at the time) regarded her former husband as a good father and as he worked abroad, she often sent him pictures of their children.
She forwarded him three pictures of the children in the bath (which were handed to court as exhibits). One picture shows a white board with simple addition sums in a red marker, with the 16-year-old stepson demonstrating something.
Another showed the boy being pelted by the children with a wet sponge. The plaintiff told her husband the children got a mathematics lesson in the bath.
These pictures apparently sparked the posting and the plaintiff said it was malicious as it portrayed her as a bad mother, allowing an inappropriate relationship between her stepson and the children
‘This is obviously a jovial domestic moment. Only a depraved mind can see impropriety therein,” the judge remarked.
He added that there was an exchange of messages on the defendants’ walls and it was clear that they referred to and were part of an attack on the plaintiff, to which several people responded.
Regarding the second posting, the judge said: “It suggests that the plaintiff encourages and tolerates sexual deviation, even paedophilia. Some of the defendants’ friends lapped it up with relish and added their own snide comments, compounding the damage to the plaintiff’s reputation.”
In awarding damages, he said an apology in the same medium (Facebook) would have gone a long way towards mitigating the damages and clearing the name of the plaintiff.
The defendants, however, hold the view that they were entitled to publish whatever they liked, about anybody. According to them Facebook is open to everyone and everyone’s opinions.
The judge remarked that they, instead, raised technical defences.
