Appellate courts should reassess trial court findings when there's insufficient judicial appreciation of evidence and legal principles in defamation cases.

[1] This is an appeal arising from the decision of the learned Judge of the High Court at Kota Bharu dated 24th January 2016 which dismissed the Appellant's claim for defamation with costs of RM10,000.00.

[2] After having perused the appeal records, the written submissions of the respective parties as well as hearing the oral arguments on the issues raised, we allowed the appeal with costs of RM20,000.00 herein and below. We also ordered damages in the sum of RM70,000.00 to the Appellant.

[3] Our reasons for doing so now follow.

[4] For ease of reference the parties will be referred to as they were described in the High Court.

Brief Background Facts

[5] The Plaintiff, Abu Hassan Hasbullah was at all material times a senior academician/lecturer and political analyst and also the Dean of the Faculty of Creative Technology and Heritage ("FTKW") at the University Malaysia Kelantan ("UMK"). The Plaintiff was the superior of the Defendant in FTKW.

[6] The Defendant, Zukeri Ibrahim was at all material times a lecturer on probation in FTKW.

[7] The Plaintiff had commenced an action against the Defendant for the tort of defamation. The Plaintiff claimed that the Defendant had authored two (2) offensive emails dated 29th October 2014 and 30th October 2014 respectively ("the impugned emails") (see pp 841- 844, Part B of Appeal Record ("AR")) and caused the same to be published via the Defendant's UMK email address ie zukeri@umk.edu.my to various groups of people namely:

(a) All academic staff of FTWK at the email address of academic.ftkw@groups.umk.edu.my;

(b) All administrators of FTKW at email address of admin.ftkw@groups.umk.edu.my; and

(c) The FTKW at email address at ftkw@groups.umk.edu.my.

[8] The Plaintiff contended that the words in the impugned emails as underlined, in their natural and ordinary meaning, were defamatory of the Plaintiff and in their natural and ordinary meaning meant and were understood to mean as described in para 9 of the Statement of Claim (see pp 36-38 of Part A, Vol 1 of AR).

[9] These impugned emails were calculated to disparage the Plaintiff and were issued with malicious intent and published and circulated to the above-stated groups.

[10] As a consequence of the publication of these impugned emails which was likely to be circulated and read by the recipients of the above-stated addresses, the Plaintiff suffered distress and embarrassment and his personal reputation and that of his office have been adversely affected and had caused him to be despised and injured and brought into public scandal, odium and contempt.

[11] Between 28th October 2014 to 31st October 2014, the Defendant too had sent various text messages from his mobile phone to the Plaintiff, inter alia threatening to have the Plaintiff sent to jail and falsely accusing the Plaintiff of cheating on his grading.

[12] The Plaintiff had also come to know on 4th November 2014, a group of lecturers and students from his faculty had assembled and signed a memorandum demanding for his removal as the Dean of the FTKW.

[13] Subsequent to the said impugned emails and text messages, there had been a barrage of articles, news, reports, stat