Hegab v The Spectator [2025] EWHC 2043 (KB)
High Court Dismisses Mohammed Hegab’s Libel and Data Protection Claims Against The Spectator and Douglas Murray.
Factual Background
Mohammed Hegab, known online as “Mohammed Hijab”, is a British Muslim YouTuber and activist with a large following. In September 2022, the weekly magazine The Spectator published an article by Douglas Murray titled “Leicester and the downside with diversity”, which discussed serious unrest between Hindu and Muslim communities in Leicester and made reference to Mr Hegab’s actions during those events. The article portrayed Mr Hegab as a “street agitator” who had “whipped up a mob” at an anti-Israel protest in London and then “cropped up in Leicester” to inflame tensions by ridiculing Hindus, including remarks about reincarnation. These allegations were set against the backdrop of several incidents involving Mr Hegab in 2021 and 2022, notably events in Golders Green, a rally near the Israeli embassy in London, and the Leicester disturbances, which formed the factual context of the dispute.
These incidents in 2021 and 2022 set the stage for the defamation claim. Douglas Murray’s Spectator article in September 2022 drew a direct line between Mr Hegab’s conduct at the Golders Green and Israeli embassy protests and his role in Leicester, painting a picture of a recurring pattern of inflammatory behaviour. Mr Hegab objected to this portrayal. After the article’s publication in September 2022, he publicly challenged Murray to show where he had supposedly said the quoted words about “Hindus,” insisting that his actual target had been Hindutva extremists, not the Hindu community. When no retraction or correction was forthcoming, Mr Hegab started legal action, claiming that he had been defamed and that the article had caused serious damage to his reputation and livelihood.
Claimant’s Case and the Defendants’ Responses
The Libel Claim: Mr Hegab sued The Spectator and Douglas Murray for libel, claiming that the article’s allegations against him were false and defamatory. He argued that the natural meaning of the article was that he incited religious hatred and violence: that he “whipped up a Muslim mob” to target Hindus, disparaging them and their religion, e.g. mocking Hindus’ belief in reincarnation, in a way that portrayed him as a dangerous extremist. This, he said, was a fundamental distortion of what actually occurred: in his view, he had spoken only against Hindutva extremists, not Hindus as such, and he had not encouraged any violence. Mr Hegab argued that by misquoting him and suggesting he inflamed inter religious tensions, the article seriously damaged his reputation. He sought damages, including special damages for specific financial losses. According to Mr Hegab, several organisations cut ties with him as a direct result of the Spectator article. For example, he alleged he lost a £30,000 contract for a Ramadan fundraising campaign with a charity (Salam) the charity Salam, a £3,500-per-month ambassador role with the charity One Ummah, and a £1,500-per-month advertising deal with a supplements company (Nature’s Blends) a supplements company, Nature’s Blends. These opportunities were he said withdrawn in late 2022 after the article’s publication. In addition, Mr Hegab claimed the article led to a torrent of abuse and threats against him, worsening his mental health and causing personal distress, though the most severe example, an apparent death threat on Instagram, had no clear link to the article.
The Data Protection Claim: Alongside libel, Mr Hegab also brought a claim under the UK Data Protection Act 2018. This was an alternative legal route based on the premise that The Spectator processed his personal data, being his name and information about him, in publishing the article, and did so inaccurately. He argued that the article contained false personal data about him, for example, attributing to him words about “Hindus” that he never said, and that this inaccuracy caused him harm. If the court found that the technical requirements of defamation, such as the “serious harm” threshold under the Defamation Act 2013, were not met, Mr Hegab hoped to nevertheless obtain relief by showing a breach of data protection law.The data protection claim would succeed only if the article was “materially inaccurate” in respect of his personal data.
Defences and Responses: The Spectator and Mr Murray stood by the article and mounted robust defences. Their primary defence was truth: they maintained that, even if certain words in the article were slightly mistaken, such as saying Mr Hegab mocked “Hindus” when he actually said “Hindutva”, the overall imputation of the article was substantially true. They argued that Mr Hegab did engage in the behaviour described, he was, in fact, a “street agitator” who had whipped up crowds on multiple occasions, using inflammatory language as if aimed at other religious groups. In support, the defence pointed to extensive video evidence of what Mr Hegab actually said and did in Leicester and London. For example, while Mr Hegab quibbled over the term “Hindus”, the defendants argued that his audience and everyone present in Leicester understood his ridicule was directed at the Hindu men on the opposing side, a distinction between Hindutva and Hindu that the defence characterised as a red herring. The second defendant, but not the first defendant, accepted that the article contained a minor error in using the word “Hindus” instead of “Hindutva” when quoting Mr Hegab. However, they contended this did not alter the gist: according to them, Mr Hegab’s speech implicitly targeted Hindus, by attacking a core belief of Hinduism and calling the group pathetic, weak, cowardly people, and thus the sting of the article was justified.
The defendants also put Mr Hegab to strict proof on the issue of serious harm to his reputation. Under section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, a libel claimant must demonstrate that the publication has caused or is likely to cause serious reputational harm. The defence argued that Mr Hegab would be unable to meet this threshold. They pointed out that Mr Hegab himself has a significant social media presence far larger than The Spectator’s readership; indeed, Mr Hegab’s own videos, including the Leicester speech which he published online, have been viewed many times more than the article was read. Any damage to his reputation, they argued, was more likely self inflicted by his own controversial content rather than by a single column in a political magazine. Moreover, the defendants cast doubt on the authenticity and credibility of Mr Hegab’s alleged financial losses. The timing and wording of the emails he produced from the charities and companies were, the defence suggested, suspiciously convenient, coming weeks after the article and containing formal, legal language itemising losses, as if written for the claim.
Finally, on the data protection issue, the defence’s position was straightforward: if the article’s imputations were true in substance, then there was no inaccuracy and thus no breach of data protection law. They also argued that data protection should not be misused as a fallback for an unmeritorious defamation claim. Essentially, you cannot label true information as “inaccurate” personal data just because it is unflattering.
Judge’s Factual Findings and Witness Credibility
Golders Green & London Protest Findings
Mr Justice Johnson examined Mr Hegab’s conduct during the May 2021 incidents and found it to be exactly as described in the Spectator article and deeply problematic. In Golders Green, the judge concluded that Mr Hegab deliberately used “grossly offensive” tactics under the guise of debate, finding this approach to be disingenuous. The court did not accept Mr Hegab’s excuse that he was unaware the van’s video screen showed a Holocaust image; this claim was deemed “not credible” given the coordination observed. The same van and imagery were used the next day at the BBC, and it was implausible that he could have missed such a provocative display right next to him. The judge also noted that Mr Hegab labelled the Jewish people he encountered as “Zionists”, “without any objective basis, and to suit his own narrative.” In other words, he assumed strangers were political opponents simply because they were in a Jewish area on a Saturday, an assumption the court found disingenuous. At the Israeli embassy rally, the judge found that Mr Hegab lied about key details: he told a police officer that the dogs were “able to attack”, and later claimed the dog was “jumping on him” and “was going to bite him”, to justify his threat to kill those dogs. In truth, video evidence showed the dog simply standing by its owner; there was “no basis” for alleging the dog was brought as a provocation or posed any danger. The judge determined that Mr Hegab’s proclamations about “vengeance” and “We love death” at the rally were calculated to “raise the temperature” of an already volatile confrontation. He rejected Mr Hegab’s later attempts to downplay those words with theological explanations; the judgment pointedly says: “Despite his protestations, the claimant was not genuinely seeking to explore matters of theology and eschatology with the group of masked men that he was addressing. The video is plain.” In short, Mr Hegab was “deliberately acting irresponsibly” and inciting aggression, even if he stopped short of directly calling for unlawful violence.
Leicester Findings
Turning to the Leicester events, the High Court likewise found that Mr Hegab’s involvement aggravated the unrest. Crucially, the judge rejected Mr Hegab’s contention that he had only targeted Hindutva extremists. He found this to be an “unreal construct” designed to obscure the reality that “those who subscribe to the Hindutva ideology are overwhelmingly Hindu”. In substance, Mr Hegab was ridiculing Hindu people, the opposing group in Leicester, by deriding a core tenet of Hinduism, reincarnation, and calling that group pathetic and cowardly. The judge observed that Mr Hegab “in terms, described them (that is, the Hindu men) as ‘pathetic, weak and cowardly’ such that he would ‘rather be an animal.’” This was precisely the gist reported in the article. The court found that Mr Hegab’s speech to the crowd of masked young men did have an inflammatory effect: it “exacerbated the tensions that had spilled over into serious public disorder the previous day”, by whipping up one community against another. Even if Mr Hegab subjectively believed he was diffusing tensions by targeting only “the Hindutva” as he claimed, the court found that objectively his actions intensified the discord. The judge noted that Mr Hegab chose his words very carefully to allow for later deniability, such as using “Hindutva” instead of “Hindu”, but concluded that “those explanations do not withstand scrutiny.” Everyone on the ground understood who his targets were. Thus, the factual core of Murray’s article, that Mr Hegab’s Leicester intervention was irresponsible and escalatory, was found to be true.
Credibility and Conduct as a Witness
Mr Justice Johnson’s judgment contains scathing assessments of his demeanour and truthfulness as a witness. He noted that Mr Hegab was “combative and constantly argumentative” in the witness box, more interested in scoring points and debating counsel than in candidly answering questions. On multiple occasions, Mr Hegab was caught evading questions, confronting the cross-examiner, or even launching into speeches. The judge remarked that the claimant “sought, at every turn, to debate with counsel… responding with (rhetorical) questions of his own, arguing his case rather than giving straightforward responses”. He even denied acting as a vigilante in Leicester, a denial the judge found “untenable.” Importantly, the court found that Mr Hegab lied on significant issues during his testimony. For instance, his claims about not seeing the Holocaust imagery, or about the dog “jumping on him” and “was going to bite him”, were deemed false. The judge concluded that because Mr Hegab’s evidence was riddled with such falsehoods, it was “his evidence, overall, is worthless.” In a stark phrase, the judgment states that Mr Hegab’s evidence was “not credible” and even “confected.” His alleged financial losses were one example, the judge found the supporting emails from organisations suspicious and “contrived for the purpose of these proceedings,” having appeared in a conveniently detailed form shortly before he sent his legal letter of claim. Where Mr Hegab claimed that the Spectator article caused him reputational ruin, the judge observed that Mr Hegab’s own videos and conduct have likely done equal or greater damage to his reputation. Notably, evidence showed that after being dubbed an “instigator in chief” in some media, Mr Hegab actually embraced the notoriety, he even sold T-shirts proudly emblazoned with that label. This undermined the sincerity of his claim that the article seriously harmed him. In summary, the court found Mr Hegab to be an unreliable and untruthful witness, which meant his claims of reputational harm and loss of income were not supported by credible evidence.
Court’s Analysis of Defamation and Outcome
After weighing the evidence, Mr Justice Johnson systematically addressed the legal questions of the case in his judgment. The key conclusions of the High Court’s decision can be summarised as follows:
Defamatory Meaning: The meaning determined by the judge was “The claimant is a street agitator who has whipped up a mob on London’s streets, addressed an anti-Israel protest in inflammatory terms, and exacerbated frayed tensions (which had already spilled over into public disorder) between Muslim and Hindu communities in Leicester by whipping up his Muslim followers including by ridiculing Hindus for their belief in re-incarnation reincarnation and describing Hindus as pathetic, weak and cowardly in comparison to whom he would rather be an animal.” Such an imputation clearly met the common law test for defamation.
Reference to the Claimant: Although the article did not spell Mr Hegab’s name exactly as in the court papers, the judge had no difficulty finding that the article did refer to Mr Hegab. It named “Mohammed Hijab” which is the very alias Mr Hegab uses on his YouTube channel and social media. Any reader familiar with him, particularly given his online notoriety, would know he was the person meant. The judgment notes that Mr Hegab “has many more social media followers than The Spectator has subscribers” so within the relevant community, the identification was obvious. Therefore, Mr Hegab cleared the hurdle of showing that the defamatory statement referred to him.
Serious Harm to Reputation: The claim failed at this stage. The High Court held that Mr Hegab had not proven proved that the Spectator article caused (or was likely to cause) or was likely to cause serious harm to his reputation. While acknowledging that the allegations were serious by nature, the judge emphasised that one must look at evidence of actual impact. Several factors led the court to conclude that no serious reputational harm had been established:
- Mr Hegab’s existing reputation and reach: he was already a polarising figure with a massive online audience, and his own content, such as the Leicester video he posted, showed him engaging in the very behaviour in question, in even more vivid detail than the article described. The judge found that “the material published by [Mr Hegab]… is at least as reputationally damaging to him as the article,” so the Spectator piece did not add any additional serious harm beyond what he had himself put into the public domain.
- Lack of evidence of fallout: despite nearly three years elapsing since publication, Mr Hegab could not show a substantial drop in his follower count, engagement, or other concrete indicators of public disfavour attributable to the article. His assertions of lost contracts were unsupported by reliable evidence and were deemed “confected.” The court gave no weight to self-serving messages from organisations that conveniently blamed the article.
- Mr Hegab’s own stance on publicity: ironically, Mr Hegab seemed to thrive on controversy. The judge noted that Mr Hegab “positively revelled in any form of publicity,” even monetising it. For example, selling “Instigator-in-Chief” “instigator in chief” merchandise after being so labelled. This undercut the notion that his reputation had been seriously harmed against his will.
- No lasting damage detected: the court found “no other credible evidence” that anyone thought worse of Mr Hegab because of the article, nor evidence of any lasting reputational or career setback beyond his own assertions. Taking all this together, the statutory threshold was not met. The judge wrote that since publication, Mr Hegab’s large social media presence has remained intact, and it was unlikely at this point that the article would cause serious harm in the future either. Therefore, by operation of section 1 of the Defamation Act 2013, the libel claim had to be dismissed on this ground alone.
Truth Defence: Although strictly speaking the case could have been disposed of for lack of serious harm, the judge went on to address the defence of truth for completeness. He held that the defendants succeeded in proving the article was substantially true in its defamatory gist. The court’s reasoning mirrored its factual findings: Mr Hegab did behave as a “street agitator” at the London protests, approaching gatherings with intent to provoke and rally crowds with inflammatory rhetoric. Also, in Leicester, objectively he did ridicule and insult a group of Hindu men in a manner likely to stir up his followers against them, thereby aggravating an already tense situation. The judge explicitly found that even if Mr Hegab personally believed he was only targeting extremist ideologues, that distinction was not genuine or persuasive given the context. Thus the sting of the article, that Mr Hegab fanned the flames of communal conflict, was true. The judgment states: “even if the claimant had succeeded in showing serious harm, the claim would fall to be dismissed because the defendants have established that the defamatory imputation conveyed by the article is substantially true.” In short, truth would be a complete defence to the libel.
Data Protection Claim: In light of the above conclusions, the court swiftly disposed of Mr Hegab’s data protection claim. Since the article’s imputations were found to be substantially true and “not materially inaccurate,” there was no basis for claiming any personal data inaccuracy under the Data Protection Act. Mr Hegab’s counsel conceded that if the libel failed on truth or serious harm grounds, the data claim could not succeed. The High Court accordingly dismissed the data protection claim as well. It was therefore unnecessary to analyse further issues such as whether pursuing the claim was an abuse of process, or whether any separate privacy/publication concerns arose.
Final Outcome: Mr Justice Johnson dismissed both of Mr Hegab’s claims in their entirety. In his concluding remarks, the judge reiterated that the article in question did defame Mr Hegab at common law and undoubtedly referred to him. However, crucially, the claimant failed to prove serious harm to reputation, and the defendants proved the truth of the defamatory meaning. Either of those findings alone would defeat the libel claim. Here, both did. The result is that Mr Hegab is not entitled to any compensation or relief, and he will likely be liable for the defendants’ legal costs. The judge’s decision emphasised that courts will not lightly intrude on public interest commentary, especially where a claimant’s own actions, captured on video, substantiate the comments made.
Mr Hegab’s attempt to use both libel and data protection law to silence or punish a critic backfired. The High Court found that the criticisms published by Mr Murray were substantially true and that Mr Hegab’s reputation suffered no serious further injury from their publication. The claims were accordingly dismissed, with the judge making no secret of his view that the claimant’s own conduct and credibility in the case left much to be desired. The judgment stands as a clear victory for The Spectator and Mr Murray, and a cautionary tale about the risks of bringing a defamation lawsuit when the facts do not firmly support one’s cause.
The judgment confirms three practical points. First, claimants must prove actual serious reputational harm by evidence, not by assertion. Secondly, contemporaneous video and social media material will be examined closely and may be as damaging, or more damaging, than the publication complained of. Thirdly, where the defamatory sting is substantially true, data protection law will not provide an alternative route to relief. For publishers and commentators, careful reliance on verifiable source material remains a robust defence. For claimants, the case underlines the importance of evidential rigour on impact and loss.
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Disclaimer: This article provides general information only. It does not constitute legal advice and must not be relied upon. You should obtain legal advice on the facts of your case.