Tweets sent by Katie Hopkins to Jack Monroe allegedly suggesting the food writer supported the defacing of war memorials were not defamatory because the Mail Online columnist was a “professional controversialist” merely engaging in robust political debate, a court has heard.
Monroe is suing Hopkins over the tweets, sent in May 2015, arguing that the messages were libellous, led to abuse and death threats and caused “serious harm” to the blogger’s reputation.
On the second day of the hearing at the high court in London, Jonathan Price, for Hopkins, said her messages would not have been viewed by readers in the same way as her columns for more traditional media.
“This is Twitter. It’s the wild west of social media,” he told the court. Unlike Hopkins’ columns for Mail Online, or previously for the Sun, which would be checked by lawyers, “if she makes allegations on Twitter, that immediately changes the context and the credibility, because Twitter is not somewhere where one goes to make well-reasoned, well-legalled arguments … We are very far removed from a traditional media publication.”
Hopkins tweeted messages to Monroe, initially in error, on 18 May 2015, shortly after an anti-austerity demonstration in central London during which a war memorial was defaced with graffiti. Afterwards, the New Statesman columnist Laurie Penny tweeted that she saw no problem with the graffiti as a form of protest.
Mistaking Monroe for Penny, Hopkins publicly messaged the food blogger, writing: “Scrawled on any memorials recently? Vandalised the memory of those who fought for your freedom[?] Grandma got any more medals?”
Lawyers for Monroe have told the court that the message was “a particular affront” because part of the blogger’s identity “is as a member of a family closely involved with the armed forces”.
Hopkins deleted the first tweet after two hours, but refused to apologise, writing instead: “Can someone explain to me the difference between irritant @PennyRed and social anthrax @MsJackMonroe?”
Monroe’s lawyers argue that the second tweet bore a “defamatory innuendo meaning” that the blogger “approved or condoned of the criminal vandalism of the women’s war memorial”.
Price told the court on Tuesday that the messages should be seen in the context of the columnist’s frequently provocative statements.
Hopkins was “known for making political points in a colourful and controversial way, and for political debate and abuse”, he said. “The ordinary, reasonable reader of the first tweet, in context, would have understood it to be political [and] would not have understood it to be making a revelatory allegation that [Monroe] had in fact committed criminal damage.”
It was important to note, he added, that Monroe was also outspoken on Twitter, expressing provocative political views “publicly, aggressively, on an almost daily basis”.
Both Hopkins and Monroe were “Marmite individuals” who polarised people, he said. While Hopkins provoked outrage by stating “quite extreme positions”, Monroe sought to do the same by “using vernacular and profanities”. The blogger had “an arsenal of dirty insults” and was “not an unwilling participant in this circus”.
Price said the original tweet had not attracted much attention until Monroe vowed to sue. “What gained traction was this colourful episode, a little Twitter bust-up that might lead to the tantalising prospect of them facing each other in the high court.”
In contrast to Monroe’s evidence to the court on Monday that the case had been “an 18-month, unproductive, devastating nightmare”, Price argued: “We say [the tweets] affected the claimant not at all” other than to allow the blogger “to continue [a] crusade against my client”.
The case continues.
