The judgment establishes that breaches of undertakings in defamation cases can lead to injunction orders, but claims for inflated damages require substantial evidence.

Introduction

[1] In March 2020, the Plaintiff had filed a defamation suit against the Defendant in Shah Alam High Court No: BA-23NCvC-16-03-2020 ("Suit 16") before YA Tuan Tee Geok Hock in SAHC NCvC 10.

[2] For Suit 16, the Plaintiff has filed an injunction application against the Defendant whereby the Plaintiff sought to, inter alia, injunct the Defendant from making defamatory statements towards the Plaintiff.

[3] On 7 July 2020, the Defendant subsequently gave an undertaking to SAHC NCvC 10 in the following terms:

(a) to remove all the impugned statements complained of by the Plaintiff as pleaded in the Statement of Claim dated 12 March 2020 respectively from the Defendant's Instagram account "@serina redzuawan" and the Defendant's other social media accounts; and

(b) not to repeat publication of or cause to be published words of similar effect or nature with the impugned statements pending the trial and disposal of the encl 1 ie writ action.

The Relationship Between The Plaintiff and Defendant

[4] The Plaintiff is a British citizen and has lived and resided in Malaysia from 2001 until today. The Plaintiff has embraced Islam on 20 November 2006 under the Muslim name "Salahudin Ghaffar". The Plaintiff owns a sports company with a regional business throughout Southeast Asia called "Football Focus Asia" with over 15 years' experience in marketing football campaigns as well as building football academies.

[5] The Defendant is an actress, TV host, entrepreneur and model. The Defendant is the daughter of a celebrity chef, Datuk Redzuawan Ismail or Chef Wan.

[6] The Plaintiff was married to the Defendant on 20 February 2010 and they were blessed with 2 children. The marriage ended on 1 August 2017 by a judgment pronounced by the Syariah Court.

Statement Of Claim

[7] Paragraphs 7 to 21 in the statement of claim pleaded and had detailed out the defamatory statements made by the Defendant.

[8] The Plaintiff pleaded that the Defendant has breached the undertaking by refusing to remove some of the postings which she has made previously against the Plaintiff and has proceeded to upload defamatory postings via the Defendant's public Facebook accounts by names "Serina Redzuawan" and "Serina Datuk Redzuawan" and also via the Defendant's Instagram account "@serinaredzuawan". Both the Facebook accounts and Instagram account are under the Defendant's full care, control and supervision.

[9] The particulars of the defamatory postings were reproduced in the table in para 9 of the statement of claim. There were 6 postings.

[10] The Plaintiff pleaded that:

- all the 6 postings clearly refer to the Plaintiff whereby the Defendant has referred to the Plaintiff as "Gavin", "Bekas suami saya", "daddy dia", "My X Husband".

- the Defendant's massive number of followers on the Facebook accounts and Instagram account knew and understood the context and the background information that the Plaintiff and the Defendant were once married and had 2 children before they got divorced.

- the natural and ordinary meanings as well as the innuendo meanings of the 6 postings contained the defamatory statements. The Plaintiff stated that the defamatory statements are allegations as follows:

(i) that the Plaintiff was involved and guilty of close proximity "khalwat".

(ii) that the Plaintiff had denied the Defendant's access to the children.

(iii) that the Plaintiff does not observe and adhere to the Islamic way of life and that the Plaintiff does not provide/is unable to provide adequate Islamic teaching to the children.

(iv) that the Plaintiff's negligence had caused injury to the eyes of their daughter.

[11] The Plaintiff pleaded that the Defendant is not entitled to the:

(a) defence of jus