Singh v Singh [2025] FCA 1531

(a) An email sent on 22 April 2023 by Harjinderpal Singh Gill included the following:

Secretary sent a email in the last week of February 2023 and commettie didn't give any input till today that what you have investigated regarding President's matter because he is Baptised Sikh and moreover he is the top most representative of the Sikhs in Australian Capital Territory where all the Sikhs come to express their agendas during conflicts. ... Mr Melli, I and friends asked him privately but he denied to update that what happened. Being BAPTISED Sikh it's first duty to keep high moral as per the teachings of Guru Sahib Ji.

(b) On 24 April 2023, Amrit Paul Singh Sidhu sent an email stating, in part:

Few Weeks ago an email was circulated to wider Canberra people that an office bearer of CSA is infected with Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD).

We all life members are being frequently asked by general public during any social interactions and even new csa members that "how can you allow an office bearer infected with STSs, why don't he resigns from the committee instead of maligning the image of Sikh community."

We don't have any answers to date and when asked by some CSA members the person said "you prove it".

How can other general members know this until he provides a doctors certificate for last two years showing he had/has no STDs.

Being an Amritdhari Sikh he need to truthful and keep high moral and immediately produce the medical evidence in front of whole community for last two years.

We are feeling ashamed and more important is the organisation's name is harmed.

This person is still representing organisation is using the position to cause harm to CSA and as per rule 66c of associations act he must resign or produce a doctors certificate from last 2 years (since he is In the office)

(c) On 27 April 2023, Inderpreet Gulati wrote an email that included the following:

This matter is escalating in other communities as well. We are being asked that what's going on in CSA sikh community. This matter had to be resolved before the current situation has been occurring. This is very important for the office bearer to clear this matter with providing proof that he not have the sickness of Three words till the email has been sent. I want to know the truth because of his position as office bearer of CSA and his position of Amritdhari Sikh. I and friends asked him nicely but he didn't give the proof.

(d) On 21 May 2023, Harbans Singh Melli wrote, in part:

I have sent two pervious emails before this one today. I consider the matters in this email and the other two emails raise issues that have caused and are causing damage to the CSA's reputation as the peak body representing Sikhs in the ACT and surrounding areas.

When is the CSA committee going to consider and respond to the views on the many issues expressed by CSA members in emails?

I consider that the views expressed by the members below are relevant as any allegations that an office bearer has contracted a disease has significance particularly as Section 66C of the Associations Incorporation Act 1991 stipulates that a committee member must not use his position to cause detriment to the association. The members have considered that the allegations against the office bearer are causing reputational damage to the CSA. They have proposed a course of action to refute the matters raised by the anonymous email that was sent in February 2023. One of the proposed resolution to the issue is for the office bearer to provide a medical certificate for the last 2 years that the office bearer has not contracted the disease that was the subject matter of the anonymous email.

1. It may be observed that a leitmotif recurring throughout that email correspondence was a call for the applicant to produce a medical certificate or other evidence that would demonstrate that he did not have (and had not previously had) a sexually transmitted infection, in the absence of which it was said that he should resign.
2. Those calls were repeated at a meeting of the Association held on 27 May 2023. Notice of that meeting had been provided on 24 May 2023, when the Secretary of the Association sent an email to all members, enclosing an agenda of three items, the second of which was:

Complaints Against CSA ExCom Members: We will discuss and work towards resolving any outstanding complaints against ExCom members in a fair and transparent manner. Your concerns are important to us, and we are committed to addressing them.

1. There was conflicting evidence about precisely what happened at the meeting when that agenda item was reached. At the very least, it was common ground that the applicant was asked by at least one of the respondents to produce a medical certificate, that he refused to do so, and that the meeting broke up shortly afterwards.
2. It appears that at some point before the 27 May 2023 meeting, however, the applicant had provided a medical certificate (dated 3 February 2023) to the Assistant Secretary of the Association. Emails record the Assistant Secretary saying that he had informed the fourth respondent (the Secretary) of that fact (although it appears that he did not show him the certificate). At some point on or after 30 May 2023, but before 4 June 2023, the applicant then provided a further medical certificate (dated 30 May 2023) to the Assistant Secretary.
3. On 2 June 2023 a letter, dated the previous day, was sent from the email address of the Secretary of the Association to the membership. The letter was on the Association's letterhead, and was signed by the respondents, who were five of the nine members of the Executive Committee, including the Vice-President, the Secretary, and the Assistant Treasurer. This is the letter upon which the applicant sues. It said:

Dear Members of the Canberra Sikh Association and Mr Satnam Singh,

Re: Joint Request for Consent to Disclose Personal Information

We, the undersigned, five of nine members of the Executive Committee (ExCom) of the Canberra Sikh Association (CSA), write to inform you of a matter of significant importance requiring immediate attention and action.

We are formally seeking the consent of Mr Satnam Singh, the incumbent President of CSA, to disclose certain personal information obtained from him and another CSA member. Due to its nature, this information requires explicit written consent from Mr Singh before it can be shared with the rest of the CSA members and ExCom.

This action is governed by Australian law, specifically the Privacy Act 1988, including the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs). As per APP 6, an entity must not use or disclose personal information for a purpose other than its original intent unless the individual concerned provides consent or an exception applies.

In this context, the CSA is requesting consent to share information about Mr Singh for a purpose not originally intended at the time of collection. We believe preserving the integrity and transparency of our Association is essential; withholding such information could potentially compromise these values.

Should we receive Mr Singh's consent, the undersigned, five of nine members of the ExCom, plan to share this information in its entirety with all CSA members. Subsequently, a decision regarding Mr Singh's CSA membership will be made in accordance with clause 3.7.3 of our constitution. This ensures adherence to our bylaws and respect for all parties rights.

As stated in clause 3.7.3 of the CSA Constitution: "The Executive Committee suspend the membership of the member whose conduct in not considered to be in the best interest of the Association. Such suspension shall be reviewed by the Annual General Meeting at the request, in writing to the Secretary, of the suspended member."

Considering the seriousness of this matter, we are providing Mr Singh a period of 28 days from the date of this letter to either give written consent for disclosure or tender his resignation in the best interest of the CSA. Furthermore, he is given the opportunity to provide a comprehensive written account, supported by authorised records and evidence, to clear his name.

We have arrived at this decision collectively, after careful consideration, underlining our commitment to the welfare and future of the CSA.

We appreciate your understanding and cooperation in this sensitive matter. We are grateful for your continuous support and dedication to the Canberra Sikh Association.

1. A written consent was attached to the letter.
2. The letter elicited a diversity of responses. Some recipients questioned the propriety of the letter for reasons including that it was inappropriate to request the applicant's consent through open correspondence to the entirety of the Association's membership. Others were spurred to demand a response from the applicant, or for action from the Executive Committee. For example, in an email within a continuation of the chain to which I have previously referred, Gurminder Singh Girgla wrote, on 4 June 2023:

If he is genuine and clean than to close the matter, the simply method is to produce a letter from Doctor that he didn't have any disease to close the matter; win the confidence of the community and counter these so called fake news.

To similar effect, Satinder Pal Singh wrote, on 16 June 2023:

A letter was issued on 1 June 2023 signed by 5 of 9 ExCom members requesting the President to give his consent to disclose certain personal information. I think it will be in his own personal interest and integrity to do so in order for him to come clear. The 5 ExCom members mentioned in the email that they have important information regarding the President of CSA and we are keen to have a disclosure.

1. On 25 June 2023, the applicant spoke at a meeting of community elders, known as the Gurdwara Sahib Sangat. He said that over the previous four to five months there had been "many fake rumours spread" about him that he had contracted a disease. He said that he had brought medical certificates with him, and that anyone wishing to inspect them could do so after the meeting. It would appear that those certificates were the two certificates that he had earlier provided to the Assistant Secretary of the Association. The certificates simply stated that the applicant was "physically fit to do his work" (or "physically fit to return to his volunteer work"), and did not disclose whether he had (or had not) previously suffered from any sexually transmitted infection. They did not quell the controversy, and emails on the topic continued to pass between members of the Association.
2. There was another meeting of the Gurdwara held on 16 July 2023. At that meeting, a decision was made that the applicant should no longer be allowed to speak from the microphone at the Gurdwara.
3. On 20 August 2023, the applicant arrived at the temple to discover that pamphlets addressed to the community had been left lying around. Those pamphlets expressed dissatisfaction with the leniency afforded to the applicant in circumstances where he had had an "illicit relationship with a foreign woman even while he was in married life", and where he had tarnished the dignity of the Gurdwara by speaking on its stage, "despite being dirty for the last 10 months".
4. On 18 October 2023, a meeting of the Association was held. The applicant sought to speak at the meeting, but was prevented from doing so. The 1 June letter was projected onto a screen. The applicant then resigned as President.

1. To place the particular issue I am required to determine in context, it is useful to begin by saying something about the way that the parties have framed their respective cases.
2. The applicant disavows any reliance on a true innuendo arising from the circulation of, and subsequent controversy generated by, the anonymous email. That is to say, the applicant sues only on the natural and ordinary meaning of the words of the 1 June letter. The natural and ordinary meaning of those words is that which the ordinary, reasonable reader would, in the context in which they were used, give to them. No doubt in some cases there may be debate as to the outer limits of the matters to which reference may be had as context (see generally Greek Herald Pty Ltd v Nikolopoulos (2001) 54 NSWLR 165; [2002] NSWCA 41 (Mason P, Wood CJ at CL, Young CJ in Eq)). In others, a question may arise as to the general characteristics of, including the knowledge possessed by, the ordinary, reasonable reader of a publication directed to a specific audience (see, e.g., Nevill v Fine Art and General Insurance Company Limited [1896] UKLawRpAC 58; [1897] AC 68 at 72-73 (Lord Halsbury LC); Switzerland Australia Health Fund Pty Ltd v Shaw (1988) 81 ALR 111 at 119 (Woodward J); FAI General Insurance Co Ltd v RAIA Insurance Brokers Ltd (1992) 108 ALR 479 at 496 (Foster J)). Here, however, the applicant has explicitly framed his case on the basis that the natural and ordinary meaning of the 1 June letter is to be determined without reference to knowledge of the allegations contained in the anonymous email.
3. For their part, the respondents embrace the applicant's forensic choice, and so join in eschewing reference to extrinsic facts in determining the meaning of the 1 June letter. That is to say, they disclaim any argument that, to some or all of those to whom it was published, it carried an innuendo meaning different from that conveyed by the natural and ordinary meaning of its words (see, e.g., Cornes v The Ten Group Pty Ltd (2012) 114 SASR 46; [2012] SASCFC 99 at [193] (Blue J); Johnston v League Publications Limited [2014] EWHC 874 (QB) at [40] (Sir David Eady)). In common with the applicant, therefore, they say that the 1 June letter cannot be interpreted through the prism of the controversy generated by the anonymous email.
4. It is, of course, "open to a plaintiff in a defamation proceeding to choose upon what imputations he or she relies": Australian Broadcasting Corporation v Chau Chak Wing (2019) 271 FCR 632; [2019] FCAFC 125 at [16] (Besanko, Bromwich and Wheelahan JJ). That choice extends to the decision to rely, or not, on innuendo meanings in addition to, or in substitution for, the ordinary natural meaning of the published matter. By defining the scope of the plaintiff's claim, the particular choice made will have a range of consequences for the proceeding (the permissible bounds of any defence of justification being an example to which some considerable attention has tended to be paid over the years). Relevantly for present purposes, however, it is a choice that focusses, and thus delineates, the serious harm inquiry.
5. The fundamental nature of that issue was described by Lord Sumption (with whom Lords Kerr, Wilson, Hodge and Briggs JJSC agreed) in Lachaux v Independent Print Ltd [2020] AC 612 at [14]:

The reference to a situation where the statement "has caused" serious harm is to the consequences of the publication, and not the publication itself. It points to some historic harm, which is shown to have actually occurred. This is a proposition of fact which can be established only by reference to the impact which the statement is shown actually to have had. It depends on a combination of the inherent tendency of the words and their actual impact on those to whom they were communicated.

1. In many cases, the key controversy in relation to the serious harm element will be the existence, nature, and extent of any adverse impacts on the claimant's reputation. Those are matters to be proven by evidence, either direct or by way of inference from all of the circumstances of the case. Depending on the particular circumstances involved, a range of different considerations may be relevant to the way in which inferences are drawn (see, e.g., Sivananthan v Vasikaran [2022] EWHC 2938 (KB) at [44] (Collins Rice J); Mond v The Age Company Pty Limited [2025] FCA 442 at [402] (Wheelahan J)). In Lachaux, Lord Sumption identified a non-exhaustive list of circumstances that may support an inference of serious harm to which approving reference has frequently been made (see, e.g., Mond at [370] (Wheelahan J)). They were (see Lachaux at [21] (Lord Sumption)):

(a) the inherent tendency of the defamatory matter and its actual or probable impact on those to whom it was published, in other words, the gravity of the imputations;

(b) the extent of publication, any likely republication, and any likely "grapevine effect" or "percolation";

(c) whether there was a prompt apology, and the breadth of the audience to which any apology was published;

(d) the reputation of the publisher - a defamatory publication by a generally reputable publisher that is represented as being reliable and the product of research might be more capable of causing serious harm than one by a publisher that is not so reputable;

(e) the medium of the publication - a transient publication might cause less harm to reputation than one in print or which is available for viewing online for an extended period or indefinitely;

(f) the situation of the applicant, including the applicant's existing reputation in the relevant sector;

(g) the identity of the persons to whom the defamatory matter was published; and

(h) the inherent probabilities generally.

(See also, more generally, e.g., Deeming v Pesutto (No 3) [2024] FCA 1430 at [525]- [534] (O'Callaghan J); Peros v Nationwide News Pty Ltd (No 3) [2024] QSC 192 at [55]- [72] (Applegarth J).) Importantly, the necessary focus on the actual effect of the publication means that the Court is concerned with the impact of the defamatory material on the specific audience, rather than amongst a notional cohort of ordinary reasonable readers: Greenwich v Latham [2024] FCA 1050 at [174] (O'Callaghan J); Mond at [369] (Wheelahan J).

1. In the present case, however, it was uncontroversial that the applicant had suffered serious harm to his reputation. The real question was what caused it. In that context, the applicant's choice of imputations may assume particular significance. That is because that choice serves to define the "defamatory matter" in relation to which a causal connection to serious harm must be established. In so saying, I do not overlook that the serious harm element "relates to the publication of defamatory matter, not defamatory imputations": Peros (No 3) at [49] (Applegarth J). That fact may have significance for the way that the Court should go about determining the existence of serious harm in circumstances where there is a debate as to the precise formulation of the imputations relied upon (and is thus a topic to which I will need to return). But the selection by an applicant of particular imputations does serve to define the sense in which the published matter is contended to be defamatory, and thus the respect in which it must be shown to have caused serious harm.
2. To take an extreme example, a mass-media publication stating that a person had been drunk in public and was a murderer might quite uncontroversially be accepted to have caused serious harm to the person's reputation. It is possible, however, that the issue would be more contentious if the only imputation sued upon was that of drunkenness. In those circumstances, satisfaction of the serious harm element could not proceed by reference to the impact of the publication on the person's reputation in an undifferentiated way. It would be necessary to disentangle the impacts of the publication in the respect sued upon, from those in its other respects.
3. This does not mean, of course, that the serious harm inquiry should proceed by reference to the impact of pleaded imputations (either individually or collectively). It is important to bear in mind that it is the impact of the published matter, albeit in its defamatory meaning, that is in issue. This distinction is, for reasons that I will come to explain, significant in the resolution of the present issue.
4. Equivalent care may need to be taken in relation to the impact of other publications on a person's reputation. Such publications may contain allegations anywhere along a spectrum from precise identity with the subject matter of the publication sued upon, to those which differ in substance but which relate to the same sector of the plaintiff's reputation, to those which are entirely separate and distinct. In circumstances where there exist multiple publications capable of impacting upon a person's reputation, it will usually be necessary for a plaintiff to do more than simply prove the fact of harm to his or her reputation: it is the link between the publication in question and the demonstrated harm that must be shown. (The precise extent to which the impact of different publications will need to be considered separately will, of course, depend on the particular facts: see, e.g., Mond at [381]-[383] (Wheelahan J)).
5. The general point was expressed succinctly by Collins Rice J in Blake v Fox [2024] EWHC 146 (KB) at [157]:

[A defamation claimant] has to be ready in the first place to show, by reference to evidence and inherent probability, how his reputation - what people think of him - is seriously harmfully impacted in real life by their publications, as distinct from his, or indeed anyone else's, or anything else. That is what defamation law requires - demonstration of actual impact, and what difference a publication makes or is likely to make in real life.

1. (The decision in that case was overturned by the Court of Appeal, relevantly, because of errors in the reasoning relating to the factual findings of causation: see Blake v Fox [2025] EWCA Civ 1321 at [77]- [86] (Warby LJ). To the extent that that decision raises broader issues about the way in which general prior bad reputation may be proved, those same issues do not arise in this case, and I need not express any opinion about them. I do not regard the decision of the Court of Appeal as detracting from the force of the passage I have just quoted.)
2. The need to isolate harm caused by parts of a publication, where other parts are also likely to have harmed a claimant's reputation, and to isolate harm caused by other publications, is not experienced uniquely in the context of the new serious harm element. It does appear to be the case that because, prior to the introduction of the serious harm element, a defamatory publication was presumed to harm a person's reputation, less attention has traditionally been paid to questions of causation in the law of defamation than in other torts. But defamation, in common with all torts, has only ever permitted a claimant to recover damages for losses actually caused by the wrong committed.
3. Associated Newspapers Ltd v Dingle [1964] AC 371 provides a well-known example of the fact that questions of causation have always arisen independently of any need to prove serious harm. As Lord Radcliffe observed in that case (at 394):

The judge's task in arriving at a figure of damages for the defamation contained in the article of June 16 was not a simple one. He had first to eliminate from his mind that small part of the imputation that he found to have been justified .... Next the judge had to eliminate that part of the article that consisted of extracts from the select committee's report .... Having done all this, he had to ascertain and measure what was the actionable defamation and assess a figure of damages in relation to the injury it had caused. It is not disputed, I think, that he had to do this much to arrive at a proper figure ....

1. Lord Denning expressed the point as follows (at 410):

The "Daily Mail" are only responsible for the damage done to the plaintiff's reputation by the circulation of the libel in their own newspaper. They are not responsible for the damage done to the plaintiff's reputation by the report of the select committee or by the publication of extracts from it in other newspapers. If the judge isolated the damage for which the "Daily Mail" were responsible from the damage for which they were not responsible, he would have been quite right, see Harrison v Pearce [1858] EngR 43; (1858) 1 F&F 567.

1. The difficulty of isolating the impact of one of several publications has led Courts in some cases to proceed by analogy to approaches to causation adopted in cases of so-called indivisible physical injuries (as to which, and generally, see Bonnington Castings Ltd v Wardlaw [1956] UKHL 1; [1956] AC 613 (Viscount Simons, Lords Reid, Tucker, Keith of Avonholm and Somervell of Harrow); Amaca Pty Ltd v Ellis (2010) 240 CLR 111; [2010] HCA 5 at [66]- [68] (French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Heydon, Crennan, Kiefel and Bell JJ); Amaca Pty Ltd v Booth (2011) 246 CLR 36; [2012] HCA 52 at [64]- [70] (Gummow, Hayne and Crennan JJ); Strong v Woolworths Ltd (2012) 246 CLR 182; [2012] HCA 5 at [23]- [27] (French CJ, Gummow, Crennan and Bell JJ); Willmot v Queensland [2024] HCA 42 at [133] (Edelman J)). A famous expression of the idea in the context of the tort of defamation is found in the judgment of Devlin LJ in the Court of Appeal in Dingle v Associated Newspapers Ltd [1961] 2 QB 162 at 189-190:

If a man reads four newspapers at breakfast and reads substantially the same libel in each, liability does not depend on which paper he opens first. Perhaps one newspaper influences him more than another, but unless he can say he disregarded one altogether, then each is a substantial cause of the damage done to the plaintiff in his eyes.

1. But the issue has always been recognised to be highly fact dependent. As Warby J observed in Sicri v Associated Newspapers Limited [2020] EWHC 3541 (QB) at [178(2)-(4)]:

So, if the evidence establishes some identifiable item or category of damage which is indivisible, and that the defendant's wrongful conduct was 'a cause', the defendant will be liable in respect of the whole of that damage. Any risk of injustice to the defendant falls to be dealt with by means of a claim for contribution against the joint tortfeasor(s) who were also responsible for the whole: Rahman v Arearose Ltd [2000] EWCA Civ 190; [2001] QB 351 [19] (Laws LJ).

But this principle does not apply in a case where the evidence shows that (a) each tortfeasor caused some part of the damage, but (b) neither caused the whole, and (c) the claimant would have sustained some part (but not all) of the damage if only one of the torts had been committed, but (d) on the evidence, it is impossible to identify with any precision what part or element of the damage has been caused by which defendant. In such a case:

"The fact-finding court's duty is to arrive at a just conclusion on the evidence as to the respective damage caused by each defendant, even if it can only do it on a broad-brush basis which then has to be translated into percentages."

Rahman v Arearose [21-23] (the citation is from [23]).

This is also the approach that must be adopted, in my view, to a claim for general damages for libel or misuse of private information where the evidence shows that several publishers simultaneously published the same, or similar, content and the Court is seeking to identify an appropriate figure for the overall, or general impact, of the wrong committed by one of those publishers. This is not a case of a single indivisible item or head of loss or damage caused by concurrent tortfeasors, for reasons explained by Laws J in Rahman v Arearose. The harm is non-material and cannot, in itself, be observed. Usually, the right inference will be that some publishers caused some damage by defaming the claimant, or wrongfully conveying his private information, to one group of readers; and other publishers caused other damage by traducing the claimant, or exposing his private information, to different or additional readers. The evidence is likely to suggest such a conclusion, but without enabling the court to be precise.

1. The circumstances in which harm to a person's reputation is in truth an "indivisible" injury may perhaps be more limited than has been assumed in many cases. Certainly, in the context of the serious harm element, as Wheelahan J observed in Mond at [383]:

If it is permissible to draw an inference of actual harm to reputation on the basis of the nature of the imputations and the extent of publication of the defamatory matter sued on, then it might follow that it is permissible to evaluate whether that inference should be drawn in the context of all the surrounding circumstances, including other and prior publications to similar effect, at least where those publications were to the same persons. There may be other causation issues that arise in the law of torts generally that may bear upon the requirement in s 10A of the Defamation Act that an applicant must prove that the publication of a defamatory matter sued upon caused serious harm to reputation. Applegarth J adverted to some of these issues in Peros, including whether causation for the purposes of s 10A is made out by proving a material contribution to indivisible harm to the applicant's reputation: see Peros at [75]. See also: Bonnington Castings Ltd v Wardlaw [1956] UKHL 1; [1956] AC 613; Amaca Pty Ltd v Ellis [2010] HCA 5; 240 CLR 111 at [66]-[68] (French CJ, Gummow, Hayne, Heydon, Crennan, Kiefel and Bell JJ); Amaca Pty Ltd v Booth [2011] HCA 53; 246 CLR 36 at [64]-[70] (Gummow, Hayne and Crennan JJ). However, it is important to bear in mind that harm to reputation is not like a bodily injury. A person's reputation exists in the minds of others, and it may not be homogeneous. It is the impact of the defamatory matter on those to whom it was published that falls for consideration. That impact may result in serious harm without being uniform.

1. So, save where there is a proper basis for concluding that a number of different publications are in fact each a cause of the total harm suffered by a plaintiff (at least in the sense of having materially contributed to it), the proper approach is for the Court to ascertain, as best it can, the consequences attributable to each. That conclusion involves no inconsistency with what is sometimes referred to as the "rule" in Dingle: as Applegarth J explained in Peros (No 3), that case is concerned only with the kind of evidence that is admissible to prove bad reputation, and is not otherwise relevant to the broader topic of causation: see, e.g., at [118], [127], [241], [248]. (The status of Dingle in the context of the Evidence Act 1995 (Cth) is not something I need presently to consider.)
2. The precise way in which the harm, if any, caused by the defamatory matter sued upon may be isolated will, of course, depend on the particular factual context in which the question arises. In some cases regard to the differential effect of other publications (or parts of publications) may be appropriate, in others it may be possible to answer the question solely by reference to the defamatory matter upon which an applicant sues. In some cases, the question of the applicant's prior reputation will assume significance, in order to establish the baseline against which the impacts of the defamatory matter sued upon should be measured, in others it may not: see, e.g., Birenbaum v H&A Nominees Pty Ltd [2025] FCA 1345 (Bromwich J); Selkirk v Wyatt (2024) 302 FCR 541; [2024] FCAFC 48 at [98] (Besanko, Anderson and O'Sullivan JJ); Peros (No 3) at [67]-[72] (Applegarth J); Mond at [382] (Wheelahan J); Sivananthan at [56] (Collins Rice J).
3. Resolution of the issue of causation in the present case (indeed, even the correct framing of the issue for resolution) has not been assisted by the extreme and unequivocal positions advanced by each side. Indeed, as will become clear, the parties' arguments have served largely to conceal the real issue. Those arguments, I hope without travestying them, may be summarised as follows:

(a) For the applicant: the impact, if any, of the anonymous email was spent by the time the 1 June letter was published. The anonymous allegations had been given no credence, and no harm had been caused to the applicant's reputation by them. Indeed, they had been all but forgotten. The letter was thus, in effect, a new and independent event, making serious but non-specific allegations, all against the backdrop of an unsullied reputation. Although the letter did not allege specific wrongdoing, it conveyed a charge that the applicant "had done something morally shameful and [was] hence unfit to be a member" of the Association. All adverse impacts on the applicant's reputation can thus be traced to the letter.

(b) For the respondents: the applicant's reputation had been destroyed by the anonymous email. He was already regarded as unfit to hold office, because he had not answered the allegations that he had contracted a sexually transmitted infection as a consequence of his infidelity. In the circumstances of that known controversy, the vague and non-specific insinuations contained in the 1 June letter could not possibly have had any additional impact on the applicant's reputation. The continuing deterioration of the applicant's fortunes after the publication of the letter was entirely a function of the playing out of the pre-existing, but ongoing, controversy sparked by the anonymous email, and the imputations conveyed by the letter added nothing to the applicant's woes.

1. In other words, both sides assumed that the answer to the question of serious harm would flow more or less directly from the resolution of an anterior question concerning the impact of the anonymous email on the applicant's reputation. That prior question, in turn, was assumed to admit of only two possible answers: either the applicant's reputation had been destroyed, or it was unscathed. On neither side's case, therefore, was there any occasion to examine the impact of the publication of the defamatory matter in the context of an ongoing controversy tracing its origins to the anonymous email in February. On the applicant's case, that controversy had ended; while on the respondents', all the damage to the applicant's reputation had already been done.
2. This binary perspective goes some way to explaining, I think, the parties' common emphasis on the applicant's forensic decision not to plead an innuendo meaning. For the applicant's part, the allegations in the anonymous email were truly irrelevant: they were not mentioned in the 1 June letter, and their impact in the real world had petered out before its publication. As for the respondents, on their view of the world, the applicant must have been driven, by necessity, to frame his imputations in a way that was not confined by the allegations in the anonymous email. From their perspective, because of the impact of the anonymous email, reliance on the natural and ordinary meaning of the 1 June letter was the applicant's only hope for constructing the potential for some new and different harm.
3. The problem with all of this is that it overlooked a third, on one view obvious, possibility: that the anonymous email had caused some harm to the applicant's reputation, without finishing it off. If that was an accurate description of the circumstances in which the 1 June letter was published, then a more nuanced inquiry was called for. In particular, some care would be required in order to ascertain whether the 1 June letter in its defamatory sense was a cause of any demonstrated impact on the applicant's reputation, as distinct from any other effect of that letter, or from any other publication, event, or circumstance.

1. Before turning to consider whether the applicant has proven serious harm, it is necessary to address a preliminary matter; namely, the basis upon which the defamatory meaning of the 1 June letter should be determined for the purposes of the serious harm inquiry, in circumstances where the respondents contend that the more serious imputations pleaded by the applicant are simply untenable.
2. It has been observed that the serious harm element "relates to the publication of defamatory matter, not defamatory imputations, and therefore a judge determining the issue of serious harm is not required to find that a certain imputation was conveyed": Peros (No 3) at [49] (Applegarth J). His Honour thus concluded that ordinarily a court should "proceed on the basis that the defamatory matter that was published conveyed the imputation or imputations pleaded by the claimant, imputations to a substantially similar effect, or imputations of a similar degree of seriousness". A similar approach was approved by a Full Court of this Court in Selkirk at [58] (Besanko J, Anderson and O'Sullivan JJ agreeing), where it was said:

It seems to me that the primary judge approached this issue by assuming that the publication carried the defamatory meanings pleaded by the appellant. ...There was no error in his Honour proceeding in that way. It amounted to putting the appellant's case at its highest for the purpose of determining the issue of serious harm.

1. There is no doubt that proceeding in such a manner is an available course of action. I am not convinced that it is required, however, or even that it ought necessarily to be regarded as the default position. Certainly, the decision in Selkirk to which I have just referred does not mandate such an approach. In many, if not most, cases, determination of questions of meaning at the same time as serious harm would not imperil the determination of the serious harm element "as soon as practical". In some cases, it may be that unless meaning were to be determined at the same time as special harm, that would constitute a special circumstance justifying the postponement of the issue. In cases where there is a substantial debate about meaning, there is a real risk that determination of the serious harm issue may proceed on the basis of an assumption that is ultimately not made good. In such circumstances, the legislative policy intended to be achieved by s 122A(5) (i.e., the early termination of cases that do not involve serious harm) may be frustrated.
2. When the parties sought a listing for the determination of the serious harm element in these proceedings, they did not seek to have issues of meaning determined at the same time. It followed that the order that was made did not provide for the separate determination of meaning. Although by the time the matter was allocated to me the respondents were open to having meaning decided as well, the applicant resisted that course and said he may be prejudiced if that were done. In those circumstances, subject to one qualification, I will proceed on the basis (without deciding) that the publication sued on carried meanings substantially to the effect of those pleaded.
3. The qualification to which I have just referred is one that Applegarth J raised in Peros (No 3). His Honour there observed that in cases where "the more serious imputations were clearly untenable and liable to be struck out", a different approach to that which he otherwise favoured might be warranted. I consider that, in circumstances where an imputation is simply not capable of being conveyed by a publication, it would be wrong to assess the existence of serious harm on the basis that it was.
4. I have already set out the imputations that the applicant alleges were conveyed by the 1 June letter. The respondents submitted that three of those imputations were liable to be struck out, namely:

(a) The Applicant has engaged in conduct that is not in the best interest[s] of the [Association].

(c) The Applicant is untrustworthy in that he has access to personal and sensitive information about other [Association] members.

(d) The Applicant is dishonest by not providing a comprehensive written account, supported by authorised records and evidence, to clear his name.

1. I will deal with each in turn.
2. The test for whether an imputation should be struck out is well-known, and no issue of any novelty or complexity arises here (see, e.g., Farquhar v Bottom [1980] 2 NSWLR 380 at 385-6 (Hunt J)). The question is whether the 1 June letter was reasonably capable of conveying the pleaded imputation to the ordinary reasonable reader (with all of the features attributed to that construct in the authorities) and, if so, whether it was capable of defaming him.

Imputation (a): The applicant has engaged in conduct that is not in the best interests of the Association.

1. I am satisfied that the 1 June letter was capable of conveying imputation (a). The critical features of the letter seem to me to be as follows:

(a) The letter is a request that the applicant consent to the disclosure of information that the respondents have already obtained ("disclose certain personal information obtained from him and another CSA member"). In other words, the letter is not merely a request that the applicant disclose information about a topic; it proceeds on the basis that specific information exists and is known to the respondents.

(b) The letter attributes to the information in the possession of the respondents a particular quality or character. In particular:

(i) Non-disclosure (or "withholding") the information "could potentially compromise" the Association's values of "integrity and transparency". In one sense, of course, withholding information will always have the potential to compromise the value of transparency, regardless of the content of the information. Similarly, to say that the non-disclosure of information has the potential to compromise the value of integrity may not imply anything about the information itself. These statements, however, when read in the context of the letter as a whole (and in particular those portions to which I am about to turn), do seem to me to be capable of conveying that the information relates to misconduct, and thus that concealing it would imperil the Association's laudable values.

(ii) If permission to disclose the information is granted, then the respondents intend to "share this information in its entirety" with all Association members, and then "a decision regarding [the applicant's] CSA membership will be made in accordance with clause 3.7.3" of the constitution. The letter goes on to quote that clause, which provides that a member's membership may be suspended where their "conduct is not considered to be in the best interest[s] of the Association". In other words, the 1 June letter drew an explicit connection between the information in the respondents' possession, and conduct of the applicant that may not be considered to be in the best interests of the Association. True it is that the letter does not expressly state that the applicant's conduct was not in the best interests of the Association (as opposed to providing grounds for that question to be determined in accordance with the constitution), but, particularly when the next following features of the letter are taken into account, I consider that the 1 June letter is capable of conveying the pleaded imputation.

(iii) The letter commenced with the statement that the writers were informing the membership of "a matter of significant importance requiring immediate attention and action", and went on to note "the seriousness of this matter". All of this tends to support the conclusion that the ordinary reasonable reader would understand the respondents to be saying that the information that they had in their possession demonstrated that the applicant had in fact not acted in the best interests of the Association. Reinforcing that view is the fact that the letter goes on to:

(A) give the applicant a choice between providing the consent requested, or tendering his resignation; and

(B) offering the applicant the opportunity to "provide a comprehensive written account, supported by authorised records and evidence, to clear his name".

1. Having regard to those features of the letter, I do not accept the respondents' submission that imputation (a) can only arise from a reading of the 1 June letter that is "strained and utterly unreasonable". I do not think that the letter merely discloses a suspicion, or that it is nothing more than a request that the applicant provide consent in relation to unspecified information. While it is true that the information is not specified, and thus neither is the precise conduct in which the applicant is said to have engaged, the letter makes plain that the information would justify the suspension of the applicant's membership of the Association on the ground that he had engaged in conduct that was not in the Association's best interests. The absence of any pleaded innuendo or extrinsic facts to clarify exactly what the applicant is said to have done does not seem to me to matter, when the letter clearly enough conveys that the applicant has engaged in conduct sufficient to justify the suspension of his membership. As Gleeson CJ observed in Drummoyne Municipal Council v Australian Broadcasting Corporation (1990) 21 NSWLR 135 at 137:

The attribution to a person of an act or condition may be done with a high degree of particularity or it may take the form of the most generalised and non-specific abuse. It is a feature of certain forms of defamation that one can read or hear matter published concerning a person and be left with the powerful impression that the person is a scoundrel, but find it very difficult to discern exactly what it is that the person is said or suggested to have done wrong.

Imputation (c): The applicant is untrustworthy in that he has access to personal and sensitive information about other CSA members.

1. On no view is imputation (c) capable of being conveyed by the 1 June letter.
2. It is plain, on any reasonable reading of the letter, that it is calling for the applicant to consent to the disclosure of information about himself. Indeed, the letter justifies the need for consent on the basis that the Australian Privacy Principles apply, which are said to prohibit disclosure of information "unless the individual concerned provides consent". I can discern nothing in the letter that even hints at the applicant having access to information about other members of the Association, let alone that he has such access in circumstances that make him untrustworthy.
3. I confess that I did not understand the applicant's submissions in support of this imputation.
4. It follows that I will assess serious harm on the basis that the 1 June letter did not convey imputation (c).

Imputation (d): The applicant is dishonest by not providing a comprehensive written account, supported by authorised records and evidence, to clear his name.

1. The defamatory sting of imputation (d) is to be found in the imputation of dishonesty. That is to say, it ascribes a particular quality to the applicant's failure to do a specified thing.
2. I do not think that imputation (d) is capable of being conveyed by the 1 June letter. That is for at least the following reasons:

(a) The letter does not say that the applicant has failed "to provide a comprehensive written account, supported by authorised records and evidence, to clear his name". Rather, the letter states that he is being "given the opportunity" to do so. I do not think that the letter is capable of being read so as to imply that the occasion for the provision of such an account has already arisen, and has been declined by the applicant. It follows that the letter does not accuse the applicant of the omission that is said to constitute his dishonesty.

(b) Even if I were wrong about that, and the letter is capable of conveying that the applicant has failed to provide a comprehensive written account to clear his name, I can see nothing in the letter capable of suggesting that such a failure is dishonest. The failure to provide an account might be argued to imply a number of different things, but dishonesty is not obviously one of them.

(c) I have also considered whether the imputation should be construed so that the reason the applicant is said to be dishonest is because of the (unspecified) underlying conduct that is insinuated, in relation to which he has not provided an account sufficient to clear his name. On that construction, the relevance of the failure to provide an account is that it reinforces or substantiates the credibility of the allegation of underlying dishonesty. Such a construction, however, does seem to me to warrant the description "strained and unreasonable". There is nothing in the letter that is capable of conveying that the underlying conduct indicates dishonesty on the part of the applicant.

1. For those reasons, I do not think that the 1 June letter is capable of conveying imputation (d), and I will assess serious harm on that basis.

1. It follows that, for the purposes of determining the serious harm element, I will proceed on the basis that the 1 June letter carried the following defamatory meanings (or imputations to a substantially similar effect, or imputations of a similar degree of seriousness):

(a) The applicant has engaged in conduct that is not in the best interests of the Association.

(b) The applicant has potentially compromised the integrity and transparency of the Association.

(c) The applicant is unfit to be a member of the Association in that his continued membership of the Association may be suspended or terminated.

1. The respondents submitted that the second and third of those imputations were so vague as to be virtually harmless. I do not think that is right, largely for the reasons I have given above, although it may be accepted that they are of a lesser gravity than the first. In any event, it is not necessary that the applicant establish that every pleaded imputation has caused serious harm to his reputation. He need only prove that the publication of defamatory matter has had that effect.
2. I also pause here to note that it may be accepted that, in one sense, those meanings are separate and distinct from any meanings that might have arisen by way of true innuendo by reason of knowledge of the allegations first made in the anonymous email, the ensuing controversy, or the applicant's response to them: see, e.g., Domican v Pan Macmillan [2019] FCA 1384 at [29]- [32] (Wigney J); Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Zeccola (2015) 91 NSWLR 341; [2015] NSWCA 329 at [49] (McColl JA). But be that as it may, the natural and ordinary meanings relied upon by the applicant are apt to encompass possible innuendo meanings of no lesser (or substantially lesser) seriousness than those that the applicant has disavowed. That is to say:

(a) the general charge that the applicant "has engaged in conduct that is not in the best interests of the Association" is broader than, but may encompass, a variety of specific charges that he engaged in conduct not in the best interests of the Association (including, for example, that he engaged in an extra marital affair in the course of which he contracted a sexually transmitted infection, or that he failed to respond to allegations of that kind in an appropriate manner);

(b) the general charge that the applicant has "potentially compromised the integrity and transparency of the Association" is broader than, but may encompass, a variety of specific charges alleging conduct having that effect (which might include allegations of infidelity and related accusations, or allegations concerning his response to such allegations); and

(c) the general charge that the applicant "is unfit to be a member of the Association in that his continued membership of the Association may be suspended or terminated" is broader than, but would encompass, a variety of specific charges concerning his alleged lack of fitness for office including, once again, the allegations of infidelity and related matters, and his response to them.

1. The validity of this observation is supported by the fact that the respondents have pleaded a defence of justification in relation to each of the imputations that I am considering in the context of the serious harm element, the essence of which is that the applicant's conduct in response to the allegations contained in the anonymous email means that each of the imputations is substantially true. (I note, however, that the respondents' justification defence does not plead that the allegations contained in the anonymous email were themselves true.)
2. The point of this observation is to demonstrate that the significance that all parties appeared to attribute to the applicant's forensic decision not to plead any innuendo meanings is, in my view, misplaced. The applicant's disavowal of innuendo meanings does not mean that the actual impact of the selected natural and ordinary meanings on his reputation, and any harm that might have been attributed to an innuendo meaning, are mutually exclusive. The extrinsic facts that might have permitted the applicant to plead an innuendo meaning are equally facts by reference to which the existence of serious harm caused by the defamatory matter in fact sued upon must be determined. And where the defamatory meaning relied upon by the applicant is general, and subsumes within it particular meanings that might have been pleaded as innuendos, the harm does not cease to be caused by a general meaning simply because it can also be regarded as having been caused by a more specific meaning.
3. Put another way, this is not a case where an applicant has chosen to sue on a meaning with a substantively different quality or dimension to another not sued upon (the drunkenness versus murderer example, above, for instance). The meanings upon which the applicant sues are broader than the innuendo meanings that might have been relied upon and to that extent it would be open to the respondents to justify them on a range of bases having nothing to do with the allegations contained in the anonymous email and its sequelae. But the availability of a narrower meaning does not operate to carve out that meaning from a broader one that encompasses it.
4. It follows that the fact that the 1 June letter landed in the midst of an ongoing controversy arising out of the allegations made in the anonymous email, and that it was its publication in that context that caused serious harm to the applicant's reputation, does not mean that it ceased to be the defamatory matter upon which the applicant sues that caused that serious harm. This recognition does not involve assessing the existence of serious harm by reference to a meaning other than that pleaded by the applicant; on the contrary, it involves nothing more than assessing the actual impact of the defamatory matter upon which the applicant sues.
5. I am satisfied that approaching the matter in that way is within the bounds of the applicant's case as advanced. Although that case was put with something less than complete clarity, one proposition that emerged clearly enough was that it was necessary to have regard to the actual effect of the 1 June letter. As the applicant's counsel put it: "it's not important what's in their mind, irrespective of what's in their mind or what the words were, it's actually the actual impact of the publication, that's the matter complained of".

1. Given the way the parties approached the issue, the logical starting point for the assessment of the impact of the defamatory matter contained within the 1 June letter upon which the applicant sues is the state of his reputation immediately before it was published. I have already foreshadowed that the parties advanced antipodal submissions in this regard. Neither, I find, captures the true position.
2. Before turning to explain my findings, though, I should say something about a general feature common to the evidence of the witnesses on the topic of the applicant's reputation. Both sides called a number of witnesses, each of whom was a member of the Association or the broader Canberra Sikh community. Almost without exception, those witnesses, at some point in their evidence, made broad conclusory statements about whether the applicant's reputation had or had not been harmed at various times. Various of the respondents' witnesses told me, for example, that after the anonymous email, the applicant's reputation "was drowned and declining rapidly", that it was "not good", that it "went down", or was "totally down", and he that had a "bad reputation". For their part, the applicant's witnesses gave evidence in which they asserted that the anonymous email had no impact on the applicant's reputation, but that after the 1 June letter his reputation was "seriously damaged", "severely harmed", or statements to a similar effect.
3. I did not find such evidence to be particularly helpful. That is for at least two reasons. First, I gained the impression that many witnesses found it difficult to distinguish clearly between the impact of different publications or events on their own opinion of the applicant, and the impact on his reputation generally. There is no doubt a natural human tendency to assume that other right-minded people will form the same impression of events as we do ourselves, and I think it is likely that such an assumption influenced the high-level evidence given by the witnesses in this case. The second reason is that, being little more than the expression of a conclusion in the form of an opinion, it is difficult to test or assess such evidence independently of an understanding of the factual observations that underpinned it. For that reason, I was assisted to a much greater extent by those parts of a witness' evidence that comprised direct observations of events or behaviour.
4. In any event, ultimately, I do not accept either side's submission about the impact of the anonymous email on the applicant's reputation in the absolute way in which they were put. I do not accept the applicant's submission that the allegations raised in the anonymous email were given no credence, and that the whole affair was quickly put to rest. Nor, though, do I accept the respondents' case that the anonymous email totally destroyed the applicant's reputation.
5. I did not understand there to be any dispute that the subject matter of the anonymous email was a serious and significant matter for the members of the Sikh community. There was a broad consensus among the witnesses that it would be very damaging to the reputation of a leader of the Sikh community to have been unfaithful to his wife, and to have contracted a sexually transmitted infection as a result. Such conduct would be regarded as incompatible with leadership of the Association. It is perhaps enough to record that the applicant agreed that it would be a "serious thing" in the Sikh community to be accused of such behaviour, and another witness called by the applicant, Dr Dhillon, agreed that the allegations in the anonymous email were "serious allegations".
6. The real issue of controversy in this regard was whether, despite the serious nature of its subject matter, the email was ignored on the basis that it was sent anonymously. Dr Dhillon's evidence, for example, was that while the allegations would ordinarily be "the kind of information that would spread among the community very quickly", when they were sent anonymously, the community would ignore them.
7. While I am satisfied that, for some members of the community, the anonymous nature of the email meant that they gave the allegations no credence, for others it plainly did have an effect.
8. For one thing, it is clear that the email was not simply ignored by those who received it. Rather, the evidence showed that the email was forwarded on to other members of the community, and that its contents were discussed widely (including by people who had not received the email). In this way, the fact and contents of the email became widely known. For example:

(a) Gurpreet Singh Badwal gave evidence that he did not receive the email directly, but was shown a copy by someone who did. After that, he spoke to a further two or three people about it.

(b) Parvinder Kaur (the applicant's former wife) gave evidence that she was not included on the original distribution of the email, but had it forwarded to her by a friend. She said that she had been approached 15-20 times, both at the Gurdwara and at her work, by people wanting to discuss the allegations in the email.

(c) Sukhpal Singh said that he did not receive the email directly, but heard about it from "a lot" of his friends. He also heard "lots of people" talking about the allegations in the email on a "couple" of occasions.

(d) Dilmohan Singh gave evidence that he did not receive the email. But shortly after it was sent, he attended the Gurdwara and observed multiple groups of people talking about an email and the allegations it contained. He said that people came up to him and asked, "Did you hear about the email?".

(e) Paramjot Singh Malhi did not receive the email, but recalled people talking about it and the allegations it made.

(f) Rajveer Kaur Brar said that lots of people were talking about the email, and gossiping about the applicant's character.

(g) Babaljeet Singh recalled there being "a lot of gossip about that email".

(h) Gurdeep Singh witnessed "dozens of conversations" about the email.

(i) Bodh Singh observed "many conversations every weekend at the Gurdwara where people had conversations about Satnam and the contents of the anonymous email".

(j) After the anonymous email was sent, the applicant received many phone calls and messages of support. When Dr Dhillon accompanied the applicant to the police station after the email was sent, he observed the applicant to be "continually receiving phone calls". That would tend, to some extent, to confirm both the wide dissemination of the email, or knowledge of its existence, and the fact that it was not simply ignored out of hand.

(k) The fact that, on 22 February 2023, the Executive Committee of the Association sent an email to the entire membership requesting them to disregard the anonymous email supports the conclusion that the email was not regarded as inherently inconsequential. It would also, no doubt, have had the effect of drawing the fact of the existence of the email to the attention of those who had not received it, which may have prompted inquiries to be made.

1. I did not understand the applicant to dispute that the fact of the email, and the nature of the allegations it made, became widely known throughout the community (that is, well beyond those members to whom the email was addressed). No witness gave evidence that they were unaware of the email, or said anything to suggest that there might have been any substantial number of community members (or indeed any community members) who were not aware of it. The content of the email was salacious and controversial. It related to the President of the Association. The subject matter of the allegations was a topic of importance to the community. The evidence of those witnesses who said that the topic of the email spread quickly and widely throughout the community is thus inherently plausible, and I accept it. I am thus satisfied that the fact and content of the email quickly became common knowledge throughout the Canberra Sikh community.
2. The fact that the allegations in the anonymous email spread widely does not mean, of course, that they were believed, or otherwise had an impact on the applicant's reputation. On that question, I am satisfied that the anonymous email did not engender any general or widespread belief in the Canberra Sikh community that its allegations were true. The position was instead more nuanced:

(a) Some people, of which the witnesses called by the applicant were an example, did not believe the allegations at all. Indeed, they were not prepared to give any credence to accusations made anonymously without any supporting evidence.

(b) Others, however, did believe the allegations to be true. There was evidence, which I accept, that some people were expressing the view that the applicant was a "bad person", which is consistent with them believing the truth of the allegations. Others were saying that "Satnam is a cheater" and "Satnam has a disease", and related sentiments that are consistent with the speaker having accepted the truth of the allegations. Gurpreet Singh Badwal gave evidence that one reason why some people believed the allegations was that the applicant's wife was "openly talk[ing]" about the allegations, and that this added credibility to the anonymous email. It was uncontroversial that the applicant's wife had spoken to several members of the community, and that she had been approached by a number of people asking her whether the allegations were true. I find that to be a plausible explanation for why some people were prepared to believe the truth of what had been said in the anonymous email. Others were no doubt inclined, for whatever reason, to believe the allegations. But the evidence did not support a conclusion that anything other than a relatively small proportion of community members fell into this category.

(c) More commonly, it seems that people's reaction was to consider that a serious issue had been raised in relation to which the applicant needed to respond. The following passage from the cross-examination of Paramjot Singh Malhi (one of the respondents' witnesses) captures what I am satisfied was the dominant reaction:

And was his reputation destroyed or just an impact? --- No, it was destroyed because everybody, you know, especially ladies, elders, they were talking about it: does he really have that contagious disease? Because it all happened after the pandemic. So there was a distress in the community, and everybody was worried that - is it a true thing or not? So they should be - you know, they are more concerned about this.

...

In what way was his reputation destroyed? --- You know, the first email have serious allegations against him, and in our community, you know, most of the people do not have really much idea about this thing, that - how the disease spread from each other, so they - they are just concerned that if that email has come, if he really has that serious problem, it should be disclosed by - you know, there should be an investigation. It should be transparent, and everybody should know about this, and he should - being a president, this is a big thing for everybody in our community because president should lead by example. So if he has serious allegation - so I believe till that time, I was not pretty sure that - how true it is because it is just an email. But everybody was looking forward upon the committee to do the investigation upon this, and it should be very transparent, and everybody should know about this.

(Emphasis added)

Similar sentiments were expressed by a number of witnesses, and they are consistent with contemporaneous documentary evidence to which I will turn shortly. I am thus satisfied that the reaction of a substantial portion of the community to the email was to the effect that the applicant needed to respond to the allegations by producing evidence to refute them. The intensity of these calls grew as time went by, and the applicant did not respond.

1. So, the evidence showed, as might be expected, that different people reacted to the anonymous email differently. At least to some extent, there appears to have been a correlation between an individual's reaction and his or her personal or political alignment with the applicant (cf. Palmer v McGowan (No 5) [2022] FCA 893 at [433] (Lee J)). I do not think that it was controversial that, as in many community associations, there were different factions or groups seeking to participate in the governance of the Association. The applicant (and he was not alone) certainly regards the respondents as his political opponents, and sees the promotion of the allegations against him as part of a political campaign to undermine him and his Presidency. The respondents, for their part, emphasised their concern for the upholding of appropriate standards and the promotion and safeguarding of the reputation of the Association, rather than any more Machiavellian motivation. It is not necessary to enter into this aspect of the debate. It is sufficient for present purposes to observe that there were some people who immediately dismissed the anonymous allegations as nothing more than the cowardly sniping of someone trying to harm the applicant, others who were prepared to believe it, still others who thought that the issue raised was too important to be ignored, and yet others, no doubt, who weren't quite sure what to think.
2. The evidence of the applicant and those witnesses called by him that they did not observe the anonymous email to have any impact on the way that people regarded the applicant can, thus, to a point, be accepted. But it must be acknowledged to be evidence that is limited by the perspective of those giving it. I accept that the applicant received a large number of messages of support, and I accept that there were members of the community who took the view that allegations made in an anonymous email were not credible. Amongst such people, no doubt, it would have appeared that the applicant's reputation was unaffected.
3. Equally, however, I accept the evidence of the respondents' witnesses that to their observation the applicant's reputation was seriously damaged by the anonymous email. The applicant's challenge to that evidence was, in broad terms, that it should be rejected as inconsistent with objective facts including that the applicant was not removed as President of the Association, and that he continued to perform public roles in that capacity. The short answer to that challenge is that I do not consider those objective facts to be inconsistent with the existence of damage to the applicant's reputation in some, even large, segments of the community. Beyond that, the witnesses said (and I accept) that there was a process involved in removing a President from office, and there was a view that that process could not be undertaken without obtaining the applicant's consent to disclose his personal information. In other words, they had formed the view that it was not possible to remove the applicant as President without taking further steps, and it was to that immediate end that efforts were directed between February and 1 June 2023, when the letter seeking the applicant's consent was sent.
4. Once again, the critical point is to appreciate the limitations of the evidence given by the respondents' witnesses arising by reason of the circles in which they moved. The respondents submitted that their witnesses came from a diversity of professions, and that it could be inferred from that that they represented the community as a whole. But I do not think that it is safe so to assume. The Association had over 500 members, and the Canberra Sikh community as a whole is presumably larger than that. No witness gave evidence that satisfied me that they were in a position to assess the state of the applicant's reputation across the whole community.
5. In any event, it will be apparent from what I have said that to a large extent I do accept the evidence of the respondents' witnesses that the anonymous email (and the events that flowed from it) did have a significant impact on the applicant's reputation. But it did not destroy it. Rather, in the eyes of most members of the community, the anonymous email had cast a pall over the applicant's reputation, in the sense that a suspicion had been raised, and an onus cast upon the applicant to clear his name.
6. To be clear, it follows from what I have just said that I do not accept the evidence of either side's witnesses to the extent that it suggested a monolithic quality to the reaction of the community to the anonymous email. Reactions fell along the spectrum I have described.
7. It is important to emphasise, however, that of those who did not dismiss the anonymous email out of hand, people were more inclined to consider that the applicant needed to explain himself, rather than unquestioningly to believe the truth of the allegations. That is to say, the anonymous nature of the email did appear to be generally acknowledged as a factor diminishing its reliability. As Prabhdeep Singh Sandhu (the fourth respondent) said in cross-examination, the fact that the email was sent anonymously "created a doubt in the minds of everyone, including executive committee, that what the content of that email - how much of it is true". The dominant response of the segment of the community who had not dismissed the anonymous email may thus generally be characterised as suspicion sufficient to warrant a proper investigation of, including the provision of a response by the applicant to, the allegations. In that way, the reputation of the applicant in the eyes of the majority of the community was harmed, but not destroyed.
8. That general response may be observed in the emails that were sent from April onwards, to which I have already referred. They included:

(a) An email of 22 April 2023 from Harjinderpal Singh Gill to the Secretary and a number of other members of the Association, in which he complained that the Executive Committee had not been transparent with the membership. One example of his complaint was the fact that no information had been disclosed about the existence or results of investigations into the "President's matter". He referred to the fact that he, and other members of the Association, had privately approached the applicant for further information, but had been rebuffed.

(b) An email of 24 April 2023, from someone identified in the email chain only as Jagjit, but who I understand to be the third respondent, in reply to the previous email, supporting the sentiments expressed within it. He said "if the rumours were / are fake so why the required information cannot be disclosed", and expressed the view that there was no reason why a medical certificate could not be provided.

(c) An email of 24 April 2023, from Amrit Paul Singh Sidhu, in the same chain, which referred to the fact that life members of the Association were "frequently asked by general public during any social interactions and even new csa members that 'how you can allow an office bearer infected with STDs, why don't he resigns from the committee instead of maligning the image of Sikh community'" and stated that "a doctors certificate for last two years showing he had/has no STDs" should be provided.

(d) An email of 27 April 2023 from Inderpreet Gulati, also in the same chain, stated that the "matter is escalating in other communities as well" and that people were being "asked what's going on in CSA sikh community". It was said to be "very important for the office bearer to clear this matter with providing proof that he not have the sickness of Three words". It was said that that various people had "asked [the applicant] nicely" for proof, but he declined to provide it.

(e) An email of 21 May 2023, from Harbans Singh Melli, in the same chain, which included the following:

I consider the views expressed by the members below are relevant as any allegations that an officer has contracted a disease has significance particularly as Section 66C of the Associations Incorporation Act 1991 stipulates that a committee member must not use his position to cause detriment to the association. The members have considered that the allegations against the office bearer are causing reputational damage to the CSA. They have proposed a course of action to refute the matters raised by the anonymous email that was sent in February 2023. One of the proposed resolution to the issue is for the office bearer to provide a medical certificate for the last 2 years that the office bearer has not contracted the disease that was the subject of the anonymous email.

...

I consider that the Committee must organise a meeting next Sunday, 28 May 2023 to discuss all these issues. ...

1. The demands that the applicant provide evidence to refute the allegations were made directly to him at the meeting of the Association held on 27 May 2023. The evidence as to the number of people present varied. The applicant remembered that there were "around 30 or 20" people present, with another "six or seven" online. The evidence of Dr Dhillon was broadly consistent with that. Another of the applicant's witnesses recalled 60 to 70 people being present. The respondents' witnesses tended to remember a greater number of attendees. The precise number does not seem to me to matter; on any view it was not a meeting at which all or even substantially all of the members of the Association were present. Many hundreds of members were not there. Overall in that regard:

(a) I am not satisfied that any inference can be drawn one way or another as to the level of attendance at the meeting. There was no evidence as to the usual number of attendees at such meetings, and so I am unable to know whether interest in the subject matter of the meeting was higher or lower than usual. In any event, the notice of the meeting referred to a number of proposed agenda items, so it would not be possible to know what topic explained any increased or decreased attendance. Furthermore, the terms in which the agenda item relating to the applicant was expressed were cryptic, and would not obviously have alerted people to the issue to be discussed.

(b) Even in relation to those who were present, it is not possible to conclude that the meeting involved a general or consensus attitude. There was a dispute as to precisely who asked for the applicant to produce a medical certificate, but the weight of the evidence supports the conclusion that it was the fourth respondent, and perhaps also some but not all of the people who had sent the emails calling for a medical certificate that I have described above. In other words, on no view was there a general clamour for the applicant to produce medical evidence. The fourth respondent did, however, give unchallenged evidence that after the meeting broke up, he and the other respondents were approached by members of the Association and were asked to seek the applicant's written consent so that the matter could be brought to a head. That supports a finding that the number of the people at the meeting who considered that the applicant should produce a medical certificate was greater than those who made a request during the meeting itself. But that still does not prove anything like unanimity of opinion among those present.

(c) It does seem clear, however, that the principal resistance experienced by those calling for the production of medical certificates was the applicant's refusal to do so, as opposed to disagreement that he should have to, or lack of interest in the issue. That is, the evidence did not disclose the manifestation of a body of opinion at the meeting to the effect that the calls for the applicant to explain himself were unjustified and emanating from a small, unrepresentative, minority of vocal individuals. In other words, the evidence did not support the applicant's primary submission that the issue was already a dead letter in the minds of most or all members of the Association.

(d) Overall, therefore, I am not satisfied that the evidence concerning the meeting of 27 May 2023 demonstrates more than that which was already apparent; namely, that a substantial number, but not all, of the members of the Association considered that if the applicant was to continue in his position, he needed to produce evidence to rebut the allegations that had first been made in the anonymous email.

1. The refusal of the applicant at the meeting to produce medical evidence which could be subjected to scrutiny by the Association was evidently the catalyst for the respondents to send the 1 June letter. To summarise my conclusions concerning the state of the applicant's reputation immediately before they did so:

(a) The anonymous email had produced a lasting effect on the reputation of the applicant among most members of the Association and the wider Canberra Sikh community:

(i) Some people, albeit likely a relatively small proportion, believed the allegations to be true and had formed highly adverse views about the applicant's moral character, and his lack of fitness to hold office in the Association.

(ii) A much larger portion of the community, indeed I am satisfied that it was likely to be a substantial majority of the community, were not sure if the allegations were true, but considered it to be incumbent upon the applicant to produce evidence refuting them, and were concerned that unless and until he did so, the interests of the Association were being harmed. They thought less of the applicant to that extent.

(b) For another segment of the community, again a relatively small proportion of the whole, the anonymous email had not affected their opinion of the applicant at all.

1. What, then, was the effect, if any, of the 1 June letter on the applicant's reputation?
2. Ultimately, I think it is plain that the 1 June letter caused serious harm to the applicant's reputation. That is particularly so if all that is required to be proven is harm that is "at least not trivial or minor in nature" (Mond at [377] (Wheelahan J)). But even if some higher threshold is involved, I am satisfied that the applicant has cleared it. Even on the evidence of the applicant and the witnesses called by him, however, the harm that the 1 June letter caused resulted from those who received it linking it with the controversy generated by the allegations first made in the anonymous email, and not, as the applicant submitted, as a source of new, non-specific, but serious, aspersions cast upon him.
3. The applicant gave evidence that described, in a general way, the changes that he observed in how people interacted with him following the publication of the 1 June letter. While I consider the applicant to have downplayed the impact of the anonymous email, I do accept that there was a change in the way he was treated after publication of the 1 June letter. For example, he said that he "noticed a significant change in how other community members interacted with" him, that some of his friends avoided him, that he would be questioned about the 1 June letter by people at family and community functions, and that patronage of his businesses declined. To the extent that the way people treated the applicant changed following the publication of the 1 June letter, that is of course a matter capable of supporting an inference that the 1 June letter caused that change.
4. Some of the applicant's evidence was expressed in terms consistent with (or perhaps, more accurately, not inconsistent with) his reputation being harmed simply by reason of the non-specific disparagement of the 1 June letter. For example, he said that following the publication of the letter he "noticed that many community members began to suspect [him] of improper conduct". He said that people approached him and "asked if [he] was under official investigation", "asked [him] if [he] had done something worthy of termination", said things like "Satnam is not suitable for CSA roles as his character [is] blackened", and called him up "questioning what was wrong with [his] personal information".
5. Considered as a whole, however, it is clear that the applicant's evidence was that the change in his treatment flowed substantially, if not entirely, from the impact of the 1 June letter in the context of the ongoing controversy relating to the allegations first made in the anonymous email. For example:

(a) The applicant gave evidence that, following the circulation of the 1 June letter, "at temple gatherings I overheard CSA members saying "Satnam has issues and is a cheater and should be kicked out"." He gave evidence that in late 2023 his wife said to him that he was "known as a cheater with a disease", and when he asked her why, she said that "everyone in the community knows as the letter was very clear and it cannot be undone". Almost invariably, when the applicant gave evidence of the actual reasons that people's attitude towards him changed after 1 June 2023, it involved a link back to the specific allegations first made in the anonymous email.

(b) On 25 June 2023 the applicant spoke at the Gurdwara to a large crowd of people (the evidence as to the precise number varied, but the applicant estimated that there would have been about 100 people present). In explaining his decision to speak, the applicant said that he had not felt the need to speak to the community before the letter was sent because, as he put it, "everything fake". By that I understood the applicant to mean that he perceived the allegations, being contained in an anonymous email, had not been taken sufficiently seriously by the community to warrant a response. But, he said, after the letter was sent the "community start, like, thinking wrong about me". In other words, I understood him to be saying that the 1 June letter, on Association letterhead and signed by the respondents as members of the Executive Committee, gave the issue sufficient weight to begin to sway the opinions of members of the community. He then said:

Then I was very upset and even - I didn't listen phone calls, and even my - effect on my work, and then I decide to open announcement. I'm not wrong. I ... did nothing wrong, and that's why - because someone said I have [an STD]. Someone said I have STD, blah, blah. Then I - I - announcement from the main hall to the community, "I'm not wrong. I did nothing wrong." And - because I want to clear myself front of community.

He was then asked to confirm that the allegation he wanted to clear himself from was that he had a sexually transmitted infection, and he replied:

Yes, because STD allegation was through the email - the anonymously email, but when CSA sent the letter head on CSA, then they said, "We have personal information." And people don't know what type of personal information. They are guessing me.

The applicant's evidence thus confirmed that the real impact of the 1 June letter, to which he felt impelled to respond, was the suggestion that the respondents had in their possession personal information that substantiated or reinforced the allegations first made in the anonymous email. This evidence of the applicant's motivation in speaking at the Gurdwara, in the immediate aftermath of the publication of the 1 June letter, in circumstances where he had not previously perceived the need to do so, strikes me as highly probative of the way in which the 1 June letter had actually impacted the thinking of those who received it.

(c) The applicant's evidence that the 1 June letter had harmed his reputation to such an extent that his businesses had suffered, in a way that had not been experienced before it was sent, was also consistent with the fact that the letter reinforced and intensified the credibility of the earlier allegations. The applicant had owned a number of taxis, and he said that his "drivers did not want to drive for [him] anymore as they said 'Satnam was a wife cheater and has a disease['] in the later part of 2023". He then started a new business cleaning and repairing blinds, in relation to which he said:

I had not obtained one single order from within the Canberra Sikh community since then even though I actively promoted it to the community since it's start. I heard from members say in this period words to the effect of "Better to pay more elsewhere than give Satnam the sexually diseased cheater the money".

Once again, the fact that the impacts on his business were experienced in the later part of 2023 and beyond is consistent with the 1 June letter having caused some additional impact, over and above the dissemination of the anonymous email in February.

(d) Following the publication of the 1 June letter, there were a number of new requests for the applicant to provide medical evidence to prove that he did not suffer from a sexually transmitted infection. I have already referred to the fact that there had been requests of that kind after the anonymous email was sent, and that another request had been made at the meeting of the Association on 27 May 2023. There was then evidence that the issue of the need for medical evidence continued to be raised in emails between members of the Association from 4 June onwards. When he was taken to those emails, the applicant pointed out that they had been sent "after the letter, not before the letter". One email to which he was taken was sent on 30 July 2023 by a friend of his to the Secretary of the Association. The email said:

I am writing my concerns about running problem in committee and ONE of major issues in Canberra Sikh Association about STD to the president. please clear ASAP he have or not? It is creating very bad conflict in our community.

When he was asked about that email, the applicant said:

Yes, because that's why I said after the letter, my friend also comment on me, and this - he's my best friend, and he sent the email to the secretary. Even before the letter, no one sent to the - email to the committee, and only seven people, opposition of my group, that sending, but after the letter - that's why I said in my affidavits - because my friends, my colleagues and everyone thinking what wrong on me ...

What those emails show was that the effect of the 1 June letter was to revive, expand or intensify the calls for the applicant to produce medical evidence to rebut the suggestion that he had suffered from a sexually transmitted infection. It also supports the conclusion that the minds of people had been changed: the applicant's best friend, for example, joined the chorus of demands for action only after the 1 June letter had been published. The 1 June letter harmed the applicant's standing in the community because its members appear to have reacted to it in the context of the pre-existing allegations first made in the anonymous email. In other words, the general defamatory meanings conveyed by the letter, in the particular factual context in which they communicated, had a serious adverse impact on his reputation.

(e) The applicant referred to the distribution of pamphlets at the temple on 20 August 2023. The subject matter of the pamphlets was the applicant having had an "illicit relationship with a foreign woman even while he was in married life", and having tarnished the dignity of the Gurdwara by speaking on its stage, "despite being dirty for the last 10 months" (which is plainly a reference to the allegation that he had a sexually transmitted infection). The author of the pamphlets was evidently persuaded of the veracity of the allegations. I am satisfied that the distribution of the pamphlets indicates the extent to which the applicant's reputation had deteriorated in the aftermath of the 1 June letter, and the way in which that letter had intensified the impact of the anonymous email sent many months earlier.

1. The other evidence called by the applicant provides further support for a finding that the 1 June letter did cause serious harm to the applicant's reputation, albeit not in the way that the applicant submitted. That is to say, once again, it is not the case that the way in which the 1 June letter harmed the applicant's reputation was by publicising the existence of new serious, but non-specific, allegations about him at a time when his reputation was relevantly unsullied. Rather, the 1 June letter was published in the context of an ongoing controversy, and the defamatory meaning upon which the applicant sues had a particular impact in that factual context. The evidence upon which I have relied in particular includes the following:

(a) Kanwal Yuvraj Singh Gill was a member of the Association. He gave evidence that he observed many community members avoiding the applicant from 2 June 2023 onwards. He went on to say:

I heard words to the effect of from many community members and CSA members during this period that "Satnam is a cheater, Satnam has a disease, Satnam should not be a CSA member and should be kicked out, Satnam cannot be trusted.

He denied that people were expressing those views before the June letter. He said that he asked the applicant why his fortunes had fallen, to which the applicant said:

"Those bastards who sent the June letter have destroyed my reputation. Now people avoid me and I cannot even get elected again. People think I am a cheater and that I should be kicked out of the CSA".

He also said that after the 1 June letter "people believe in" the allegations that the applicant had engaged in sexual misconduct. All of this evidence reinforces the conclusion that there was a change in the way that the applicant was perceived after the 1 June letter, albeit that the effect on the applicant's reputation was connected with the allegation that he was a cheater and had a disease, and was not a result simply of the effect of non-specific allegations.

(b) Dr Jiwan Preet Singh Dhillon was also a member of the Association, and had served on the Executive Committee of the Association for a total of seven years over the past two decades, including as Treasurer. In his affidavit, he gave evidence of the change in treatment of the applicant that he observed following the publication of the 1 June letter. For example, he said that he had observed community and Association members avoiding the applicant, and that people started "speaking ill about him".

In cross-examination he was asked about the various emails sent in June 2023 and following asking for the applicant to produce medical evidence. He responded as follows:

There were few emails, but there was no email between 27 May and 2 June. There was no such email. ... There was no - not a single email, even ones which were been produced here, between 27 May and 2 June.

...

... Once that email, the [1] June letter, had gone out. After that, there were ... yes. There were many people asking for it after 2 June. And there were many people talking about it at the ... outside at the functions, the Punjabi functions, that was - and there were, like, big meetings and, like - because of that decision. But nothing before. Hardly anything before 2 June.

In relation to his reference to "many people talking about it", the following exchange occurred:

My question is ---? --- I ... these five people - those five people who write the emails, and the five peoples who are the respondents, yes, they were talking between February and 2 June. But after 2 June, there were, like, tens then hundreds of people talking about it.

...

Saying things like, "Satnam is no good. Satnam needs to move on. Satnam is a cheater"?---Yes, and there were, like, groups of 10, 15, 20 people standing ... and they were - I heard, like, people talking about that. And there was a meeting of 70 to 80 elders held on 16 June in which this was discussed very publicly.

So very publicly, people thought his general reputation was that he was a cheater ---? --- Well ---

In that he cheated on his wife? --- Well, there were people, yes. There - there were people, and there were people who said that, "Okay. If you're a cheater, then the evidence - the medical evidence should come on board, and it should be, like - yes, it should be seen on record, and not only the medical evidence, there should be evidence about the inappropriate sexual behaviour as well." So medical evidence is one thing, yes. That's important. That gives - that's just more of a - I would say a prima facie evidence that the person might have indulged in inappropriate sexual behaviour. But then - so - but then there were also people talking about that during the last eight years he has been here, there has not been a single complaint about sexual misconduct against him, despite the fact that for nearly four years he was on the committee. Two years as president and two years as vice president.

And that's the real issue, that you say that there has been no complaint against him ---? --- Yes.

--- for and the problem is that people think, within the Canberra Sikh community, that he has engaged in sexual misconduct? --- Well, the - well, his reputation was, like, people had become doubtful about his - whether he had committed - like, whether he was a cheater or not. After - after - after - once the letter - signed letter on the CSA letterhead through the CSA email had gone out, then people had really started doubting him.

That evidence strongly supports a finding as to a change in the treatment of the applicant following the 1 June letter. Again, it may be accepted that the harm to his reputation was caused by the credence that the 1 June letter gave to the allegations in the anonymous email, rather than because people believed that other, unspecified, misconduct had been uncovered. But, for the reasons I have given, it was the impact of the defamatory matter in the particular context in which it was published that caused the serious harm suffered by the applicant.

(c) Ravinder Singh Sahni was a member of the Association who had served as its Assistant Secretary in 2022-2023. He acknowledged in cross-examination that the anonymous email had had an impact on the applicant's reputation. But in his affidavit, in evidence that was not challenged in cross-examination, he recorded that the 1 June letter had severely harmed the applicant's reputation for reasons including that "its allegations became widely known among the community and in tarnished Mr Singh's previously good name as gossip was spreading and doubts were circulated in the community about him." He observed that "community members started avoiding him and in a community meeting held on 16 July 2023 for example he was asked to stop speaking from the microphone at the Sikh Temple". I did not understand his concession in cross-examination that the anonymous email had had an impact on the applicant's reputation before 1 June 2023 to be inconsistent with that evidence in his affidavit. In other words, I understood him to say that he observed an increase in the decline of the applicant's reputation following the publication of the 1 June letter. That evidence thus supports the conclusion that the 1 June letter caused an increase in the adverse reaction of the community towards the applicant.

(d) Dr Indar Pal Singh Kang was a founding member of the Association and had served as president for a total of five years in the past. Dr Kang was overseas for most of 2023, only returning in late September. It follows that he was not present during the period following the distribution of the anonymous email or the sending of the 1 June letter, and that the evidence he was able to give was limited to that extent. In any event, when he did return in late September 2023 his evidence was that he:

... could hear many community members speaking ill about [the applicant] saying words to the effect of "Satnam cannot be trusted and is bad for the CSA he is a bad person, he cannot be trusted and he cheats on his wife, and he has a disease".

It is difficult to make too much of Dr Kang's evidence, other than to observe that it is not inconsistent with the conclusions I have reached based on the rest of the evidence.

1. To the extent that the evidence of the respondents' witnesses was that the 1 June letter had no impact on the applicant's reputation, I do not accept it:

(a) To the extent that the evidence took the form of conclusory statements about a lack of impact, I have already explained why I do not find it helpful. I accept that, in the eyes of each of the respondents' witnesses, and others with whom they associated, the applicant's reputation may have already been irretrievably tarnished before the 1 June letter was sent. But I am satisfied that when regard is had to the evidence as a whole, that perspective was not shared by the community as a whole.

(b) In particular, when regard is had to the fact that, as I have found, a substantial majority of the community either did not believe the allegations, or was unsure as to their reliability and of the view that the applicant needed to produce evidence to clear his name, the contents of the 1 June letter were inherently likely to be influential. That is fundamentally for the reasons I have given above in connection with the question whether imputation (a) was conveyed. In short the 1 June letter stated that the five authors had information in their possession (i.e., they had "obtained" it), and that that information suggested that the applicant had not acted in the best interests of the Association. The information was said to be sufficiently serious that the applicant should resign if he did not provide consent, and was also given the opportunity to "clear his name". Taken together, those features of the 1 June letter, contained as they were in a communication on Association letterhead and signed by a majority of the Executive Committee, served to substantiate, or at least lend credibility to, what had previously been anonymous and unsubstantiated allegations. In those circumstances, the question of serious harm is, on one view, capable of resolution in a straightforward way: Monroe v Hopkins [2017] 4 WLR 68; [2017] EWHC 433 (QB) at [70] (Warby J).

(c) In any event, the evidence showed that, following the publication of the 1 June letter, the breadth and intensity of calls for the applicant either to provide evidence to exonerate himself or resign increased. The chain of events leading to the applicant's resignation in October 2023 was plainly influenced by the 1 June letter. It changed the attitudes of a material number of people in the community and thus added to the pressure on him. That supports the conclusion I have reached that the effect of the 1 June letter was to persuade more of the community than had previously been persuaded that the charges against the applicant were either true, or at least to intensify their view that serious and substantial allegations had been raised, which called for an explanation.

1. Overall, therefore, I am satisfied that the evidence shows that the defamatory matter upon which the applicant sues caused serious harm to his reputation. As I have already stated, that is not because, as the applicant submitted, his pristine reputation was sullied by the publication of serious, but non-specific, allegations. Rather, it is because the defamatory matter upon which he sues was published in the context of an ongoing controversy, with the result that the impact of that matter was pronounced. There was an appreciable change in the esteem in which the applicant was held in his community following the publication of the 1 June letter, albeit nowhere near to the extent that the applicant contended. But it is enough to satisfy the requirement of serious harm.
2. None of the other submissions made on behalf of the respondents provides a reason to find otherwise:

(a) First, the respondents submitted that the gravity of the surviving imputations was low, to the point that it is arguable that the contents of the 1 June letter were not defamatory. I do not agree. For the reasons I have already given, while the imputations conveyed by the 1 June letter were non-specific, that does not mean that they were not serious. They necessarily encompassed a range of possible misconduct and failings, including that alleged in the anonymous email, and in relation to the way in which the applicant had responded to those allegations.

(b) Secondly, the respondents submitted that the 1 June letter was published only to people who were already aware of the allegations first made in the anonymous email, and the controversy that ensued. I agree, for the reasons I have given, that it is likely that all those who came to know of the 1 June letter also knew of the anonymous email and its consequences. But that fact explains why the 1 June letter caused serious harm to the applicant's reputation; it gave credence to the earlier allegations that had hitherto been regarded as unreliable.

(c) Thirdly, the respondents submitted that it was relevant that the 1 June letter was not published with the authority of the Executive Committee of the Association, and was only a personal communication by five of the nine members of that body. I do not think that that matters much. The authors identified themselves, and each held a responsible and important role in the management of the Association. The real sting of the letter was to be found, not in its status as an official or otherwise communication of the Association, but in the representation that the authors had in their possession information upon which they based the statements they made.

1. For these reasons, I find that the applicant has established the serious harm element. The parties should confer, and provide a draft of any orders necessary to give effect to that finding, any issue of costs with which it is appropriate to deal at this stage, and orders for the case management of the balance of the issues in the proceedings by no later than 19 December 2025.

I certify that the preceding one hundred and four (104) numbered paragraphs are a true copy of the Reasons for Judgment of the Honourable Justice Owens.