High Court awards £20,000 in damages to parish clerk over defamatory Facebook posts by councillor

A parish clerk has been awarded £20,000 in damages after defamatory social media posts by a parish councillor, who was “consumed with a very strong personal dislike” of the clerk, were found to have caused serious harm to their reputation.

In Miller v Peake [2025] EWHC 453 (KB) (28 February 2025), HHJ Parkes KC described the case as one of "local animosities in rural Norfolk, stoked by the ill-advised use of social media".

It centred around claimant Dr James Miller, a Cambridge-educated economist who was clerk of Fleggburgh Parish Council from 2019 until his resignation in September 2021 and the defendant, Andrew Peake.

Cllr Peake is a resident of Fleggburgh and was a member of the council when Dr Miller became clerk, and remained a councillor until he resigned in April 2021.

According to the High Court judgment, Peake was elected in 2017 with a mission "to end what he saw as the ‘obvious secret decision making’ at the council”, and to make the council open and accountable.

During his time as a councillor, Peake attended training sessions for councillors, became chairman of the council, and oversaw the introduction of standing orders, a code of conduct and a finance policy.

HHJ Parkes KC described Peake as "a man who is resolutely focused on process".

He added: "He is insistent on full compliance with the procedural norms of parish council operation.

"He told me that he was on the autistic spectrum, and that he tends to see issues in polarised terms of black and white. That was clear from his evidence."

Dr Miller's claim centred on 26 separate posts made to Peake's Facebook account, 'the Fleggburgh Eye'. By the time of the hearing at the High Court, the focus had narrowed to 12 publications.

The posts, which were not removed until February 2023, accused Dr Miller of lying about numerous things, including training council members and whether or not he had written a social media post for the council.

The posts also claimed he had threatened people.

The clerk's solicitor initially sent a letter before claim requesting the posts be taken down, among other things.

However, in response to the letter, Peake said he had "a great deal of evidence to support the public statement that your client Dr Jimmy or James Gordan (sic) Miller is a liar, he is a dishonest, scheming, devious and threatening liar".

The response added: "He lied orally in meetings, in emails to me, he lied on the telephone to my barrister, he compounded those lies with emails.

"He threatened me, another Parish Councillor and an elderly resident of Fleggburgh when he emailed her using her personal email address for which he had no right to use (sic), then by visiting her in the evening to discuss a complaint she was planning to submit to his employer - this is proof absolute that the statements cannot be defamatory".

In April 2022, Dr Miller commenced proceedings with a stated damages limit of £20,000, claiming defamation and malicious falsehood.

In considering whether the posts were defamatory, HHJ Parkes KC said he had "no difficulty in concluding that all the posts bear meanings that tend to lower the claimant in the estimation of right-thinking people generally and attribute to his behaviour which is contrary to the common values of society, and would have a substantially adverse effect on the way that people would treat him".

The judge also found that although it was impossible to say how far the allegations percolated, the posts on Peake's Facebook page caused serious harm to Dr Miller's reputation. “Serious harm is not, as has been said, a numbers game.”

Peake meanwhile relied on the defence of truth in accordance with section 2 of the Defamation Act 2013, the public interest defence (section 4 of the 2013 Act), and the defence of honest opinion (section 3 of the 2013 Act).

In considering Peake's defence, the judge said: "It was my impression that both men were doing their best to give truthful evidence to the court.

"However, I have to say that Mr Peake was plainly consumed with a very strong personal dislike of Dr Miller, which is evident in his posts."

He also noted that Peake appeared to find it difficult to allow Dr Miller any margin of error.

"To him any false statement by Dr Miller was a lie; any statement capable of being regarded as a threat made him a threatening person; any error showed rank incompetence", the judge said.

He continued: "As Mr Peake told me, he is on the autistic spectrum, and he tends to see issues in polarised terms of black and white.

"In my judgment, that difficulty has led him to make accusations which are not justified by the evidence which he regards as proving them."

He concluded that the plea of truth failed.

The judge also rejected Peake's public interest ground, noting that: "Since Mr Peake said almost nothing in his witness statements about the s4 defence, I should record his evidence that his posts were made 'in truth, in the public interest – of a public servant taking payment for very poor behaviour from the parishioners for whom I was elected to serve'.

"I do not doubt that he believed that, and, as I have said, I accept that he believed his posts were all made in the public interest.

"The question is primarily whether that belief was a reasonable one. That question […] I answer in the negative."

The judge dismissed Dr Miller's malicious falsehood claim, noting that he believed the claim was pleaded as a "fallback" in case the libel claim failed to surmount the section 1 serious harm threshold.

In considering whether to award damages, the judge noted that the purpose of compensatory general damages in defamation "is to compensate for injury to reputation, to provide vindication, and to compensate for hurt feelings and distress".

He noted that Peake did not apologise to Dr Miller, appeared "unrepentant", and still regarded himself as justified in doing what he did.

The judge also said Peake did nothing to take the posts down until he was forced to do so in the spring of 2023, "which can only have increased their readership and the distress suffered by Dr Miller."

He added that Peake had initially ignored an order obtained from Lavender J in September 2022, requiring him to take down all of the posts within seven days.

Peake claimed he did not understand the order, but HHJ Parkes KC said "it was quite apparent to me, as he gave that evidence, that his explanation was untrue".

He added: "I have no doubt that he decided to carry on regardless until he was forced to change course."

In addition, HHJ Parkes KC took into account the degree of distress caused to Dr Miller, who reported being shocked by the posts and very worried about how his friends, family, council members and members of the community would perceive him.

The judge ultimately found that the claim for damages succeeded, and awarded Dr Miller damages for defamation (including a small amount by way of aggravation) in the sum of £20,000.

Adam Carey