Sands v Bond & Ors [2023] NIKB 134

July 8, 2025

Record Libel Damages in Sands v Bond: Defamation, Online Harassment, and Unmasking Anonymous Trolls

The decision in Sands v Bond & Ors [2023] NIKB 134 was handed down in December 2023, but remained unpublished due to reporting restrictions designed to protect the integrity of ongoing disclosure proceedings. The claimants had sought a Norwich Pharmacal order to compel disclosure of the identities of those behind the Tattle Life website. That process ultimately succeeded in unmasking the operator, Sebastian Bond. Only after Bond was identified and the anonymity barrier lifted did the court release the full judgment publicly in June 2025. The delay reflects the procedural complexity of online defamation claims involving anonymous defendants, where the enforcement of legal rights is often contingent upon successful identification of the parties responsible. The publication of the ruling now serves both to vindicate the claimants and to signal the courts’ resolve in confronting reputational abuse committed behind the veil of digital anonymity.

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A young Northern Irish couple, the Sands, had endured years of abusive, defamatory posts on the gossip forum “Tattle Life”. They sued the website’s operator, ultimately identified as Sebastian Bond and two associated companies, for defamation and harassment. McAlinden J’s judgment strongly condemned anonymous online abuse, awarded a record, breaking £300, 000 in damages, £150, 000 per claimant, and applied aggravated and exemplary (punitive) damages in a libel context.

Defamation and Online Harassment: The Court’s Findings

The court found that content on Tattle Life defamed the claimants and also amounted to unlawful harassment. The posts, made by anonymous users, “utterly trashed” the reputations of Donna and Neil Sands, falsely accusing them of serious misconduct. Because the defendants did not appear or defend, judgment was entered in default. The court had granted an injunction early on to restrain further harassment, yet the abuse continued even after that order.

Under Northern Ireland law, defamation remained governed by common law and the Defamation Act 1955 (NI), since Northern Ireland did not adopt the Defamation Act 2013 used in England and Wales. Thus, there is no statutory serious harm threshold in NI libel claims, unlike in England and Wales, where claimants must prove serious reputational harm. Here, however, the gravity and persistence of the publications left no doubt that the Sands’ reputations were seriously damaged. Additionally, the Protection from Harassment (Northern Ireland) Order 1997, analogous to the English Protection from Harassment Act 1997, provides a cause of action for a course of conduct causing alarm or distress. McAlinden J held that the defendants’ conduct clearly breached that law: the couple endured a sustained campaign of targeted online abuse, which qualified as harassment as well as defamation.

It was straightforward for the High Court to conclude that the claimants had been grossly defamed and severely harassed. The defendants’ total failure to participate in the proceedings, coupled with the ongoing posts, left no factual issues to try, only an assessment of damages. McAlinden J noted Tattle Life’s extensive reach, reportedly up to 12 million monthly visitors, and that a Google search of the claimants’ names quickly turned up the defamatory thread, greatly amplifying the reputational harm.

Aggravated and General Damages: A Global Award

For the compensatory aspect of damages, the court made a single global award to each claimant covering both defamation and harassment. McAlinden J cited authority that where possible, a global award should be made in relation to the defamation and harassment injuries to avoid double, counting the harm. He referenced Triad Group Plc v Makar [2020] EWHC 306 (QB), an English case which suggested a combined damages range of £40,000 to £80,000 in such situations, in Triad, the High Court gave a single global award and indicated that range.

McAlinden J followed that approach but found Sands warranted the upper end, or beyond, of the usual range. Several aggravating factors justified a substantially higher sum for general damages:

Severity of allegations:

Core aspects of the claimants’ personal and professional lives were attacked.

Volume and duration:

The abuse lasted for years and even continued after court injunctions, showing blatant disregard for the law.

Reach:

The defamatory content was widely accessible, the site had a large audience and the thread appeared readily on Google, exacerbating reputational harm and exposure.

Callous conduct:

The postings were made with absolutely callous disregard for the harm caused. Moreover, the defendants, as site operators, refused to remove the content when notified of the lawsuit, aggravating the damage.

In light of these factors, the judge awarded each plaintiff £75,000 in general damages, including an aggravated damages component. He made no distinction between the two claimants, as both were equally defamed and harassed. The £75,000 figure was meant to compensate the serious harm to reputation, vindicate their names, and console their distress. It also reflected the aggravating conduct: much of that sum effectively constituted aggravated damages, additional compensation because the defendants’ defiance of court orders heightened the injury to the claimants’ feelings. By way of context, £75, 000 per person far exceeds typical libel awards in recent English cases, but McAlinden J considered this case exceptional.

Exemplary Damages and the Elton John Principles

Beyond compensatory and aggravated damages, Sands is notable for an award of exemplary damages in a libel case. Such damages are rarely given in defamation; they aim not to compensate the victim but to punish the wrongdoer and deter others. At common law, per Rookes v Barnard [1964] AC 1129, exemplary damages are allowed only in limited categories, one being where the defendant’s conduct was calculated to make a profit exceeding any compensation payable to the plaintiff. In media/libel cases, this principle allows punitive awards against publishers who deliberately or recklessly defame someone for commercial gain.

McAlinden J cited the case of Elton John as setting out the governing principles for exemplary damages. This refers to John v MGN Ltd, Elton John’s libel case against the Sunday Mirror in the 1990s. In that case, a jury’s very large exemplary award for a knowingly false story was upheld in principle by the Court of Appeal, because of the paper’s profit motive and reckless disregard for the truth, but reduced as manifestly excessive. The Elton John case confirmed that while punitive damages can be awarded for cynical, profit, driven defamation, they must be proportionate and based on solid evidence of outrageous conduct. Key considerations include the defendant’s state of mind, a calculated plan to gain financially, and whether compensatory damages alone would be insufficient as punishment or deterrent.

In Sands, McAlinden J had no doubt that exemplary damages should be awarded. He described the Tattle Life operation in scathing terms that fit the classic rationale for punitive damages.

The website existed to anonymously trash people’s reputations for entertainment,“the deliberate infliction of hurt and harm on others”, and the operators were “peddling untruths for profit” via advertising and traffic. The defendants shielded the abusers’ anonymity to make it “practically impossible” for victims to identify or sue them. These findings epitomise the scenario for which punitive damages are intended, as in Rookes v Barnard and John v MGN,  a defendant who intentionally defames for profit, assuming any payout is just a cost of business.

He accordingly awarded £75, 000 in exemplary damages to each claimant, in addition to the £75, 000 general/aggravated damages, effectively doubling each award to £150, 000. The judge stated this punitive sum was significant but not excessive in the circumstances.

McAlinden J awarded indemnity costs against the defendants, given their contemptuous disregard for the proceedings, underlining the court’s disapproval and ensuring the claimants could recover their full legal costs.

The “Triad” Case and Combining Defamation & Harassment Claims

McAlinden J relied on the English case Triad Group Plc v Makar [2020] EWHC 306 (QB) as a guide on damages. In Triad, a combined defamation, and, harassment campaign, the High Court gave a single global award and suggested a typical total range of £40,000 to £80,000 for such cases.

Following that approach, McAlinden J made a single global award in Sands, treating the defamation and harassment as one indivisible harm. This avoided double recovery while fully reflecting the damage. Even so, Sands went far beyond the usual Triad range. £75, 000 compensatory was itself at the top of that range, and the additional £75, 000 punitive doubled it. The £150,000 per claimant is the largest libel award in Northern Ireland’s history. While English courts have generally been more restrained in libel damages, the extreme combination of factors in Sands, broad online publication, anonymous abuse, and profit, driven defamation, warranted an exceptional outcome.

Anonymity, Online Vilification, and the Court’s Stance

McAlinden J also spoke forcefully against anonymous online abuse. He condemned the conduct on Tattle Life as “quite appalling”, noting it even continued after legal action began. The judge stated that anonymous internet postings and the cross, border nature of the web “conspire to prevent speedy justice”, making it difficult to hold culprits accountable. In a typical libel case, a claimant can directly sue the known publisher; here the Sands had to fight a long technical battle, over four years, including lifting reporting restrictions,just to identify the site’s operator. This saga illustrates that victims of online defamation often need to seek disclosure orders, e.g. Norwich Pharmacal orders, to unmask anonymous wrongdoers.

McAlinden J’s description of the defendants’ conduct as “extreme cynicism” and profiting from people’s misery serves to stigmatise such behaviour.

Conclusion

The High Court’s ruling in Sands v Bond is a powerful statement against anonymous online harassment. McAlinden J’s judgment demonstrates that courts can apply traditional defamation and harassment laws to the modern scourge of internet abuse. The case resulted in a record £150,000 per claimant, reflecting both the severe harm and the court’s resolve to deter and punish the wrongdoers. It drew on Northern Irish and English legal principles (from Triad on damages to the Elton John example on exemplary damages) and may influence future libel cases.

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