On 22 May 2026, judgment was handed down by Griffiths J in the libel claim Rodoy v Optical Express Ltd [2026] EWHC 1219. The judgment is significant for its consideration of the extent to which evidence of a person’s historic conduct can be relied upon in support of a truth defence about allegations made considerably later in respect of their conduct (in this case, some twenty years).
Background
The claim arose from a website operated by the claimant, Ms Rodoy, called ‘Optical Express Ruined My Life’. Ms Rodoy had never had laser eye surgery herself, but nonetheless continued to express on the website what she considered to be, the serious dangers of laser eye surgery at Optical Express. Between 2020 and 2021, Optical Express Ltd was in correspondence with four customers who had complained about their treatment, and who had referred to Ms Rodoy’s blog. Optical Express Ltd wrote to those individuals between July 2020 and November 2021 stating: “The individual concerned is a vexatious individual, who is a self-confessed and known fraudster, currently using the name Sasha Rodoy, however she has previously been known as Sasha (Susan) Hutchinson. The individual was not treated by, and has never been a patient of, Optical Express. [The/This] person unfortunately does troll Optical Express and many of our team online. In the past, this trolling has been to such an extent that we have had to involve the police in the interest of employee safety.”
Ms Rodoy brought a claim for libel upon discovering these communications by Optical Express Ltd to customers. Optical Express Ltd advanced defences of truth and qualified privilege under the Defamation Act 2013. At a preliminary issue hearing on meaning, it was held that the statement complained of bore meanings that:
- Ms Rodoy is a fraudster. Her dishonesty extends to using different names or aliases;
- Ms Rodoy trolls Optical Express and many of its staff online; and
- At times, the trolling has been to such an extent that there were reasonable grounds to suspect that Ms Rodoy was placing the safety of staff members at risk.
Issues
The key issues for Griffiths J to determine were:
- Did the Statements cause serious harm to Ms Rodoy’s reputation?
- Were the defamatory allegations substantially true?
- Were the defamatory allegations protected by qualified privilege?
- Did Optical Express act with malice such that no qualified privilege can be claimed?
Held
In summary, Griffiths J held that:
- The defamatory statements had caused substantial harm to Ms Rodoy’s reputation;
- However, the statements were substantially true;
- The statements were protected by qualified privilege; and
- That qualified privilege was not lost on account of malice.
Did the Statements cause serious harm to Ms Rodoy’s reputation?
Griffiths J did conclude that the statements had caused serious harm to Ms Rodoy’s reputation. Optical Express Ltd was a credible and substantial source, being such a large company. Allegations of fraud, dishonesty, and being a troll went to the very heart of Ms Rodoy’s reputation. Crucially, she was unable to defend herself at the time because she was not aware that Optical Express Ltd had sent some of the letters to third parties, for example to Mr Hind, having only discovered this on receipt of a Subject Access Request.
Were the defamatory allegations substantially true?
The next consideration for Griffiths J was whether Optical Express Ltd could rely on a defence of truth. They sought to rely on the fact that in the 1990s, Ms Rodoy had assisted a wife in deceiving her husband in order to obtain evidence for her in divorce proceedings. Ms Rodoy proceeded to sell numerous stories to the press following this. She falsely claimed to journalists that she had founded a new business called ‘Decoy Dolls’ which specialised in “tracking and trapping philandering husbands”. The business did not in fact exist, and so Ms Rodoy had to employ friends to pose as employees and clients of the business in order to sell her stories to the press. She continued to do this for many years.
During cross examination, Ms Rodoy was asked the following:
Q: “Do you regret what you did in those false interviews about Decoy Dolls?”
Ms Rodoy: “Only to the extent that I have to sit here and answer your questions. Other than that, it was such a small, a small thing in my mind”.
Q: “So you do not regret it.”
Ms Rodoy: “Only because I have to answer your questions. That’s my only regret. It was so unimportant to me”.
Q: “Would you do it again now?”
Ms Rodoy: “I think I’m a little bit too busy to do anything else other than the work I do now.
- Let us imagine that you were not too busy”.
Ms Rodoy: “I can’t imagine it. My life is what I do.”
Griffiths J held that the allegations were substantially true because her conduct in the 1990s did amount to fraud, and although historic, her present character had clearly not changed since then, stating at paragraph 182 of her judgment: “I find that Ms Rodoy is, in this respect, the same person today as she was 20 or 30 years ago. She was described in the letters as a “fraudster”, which was a description of her as a person; it was a description of her character as much as of her actions…She was a mature adult then and she sees Decoy Dolls in the same way now as she saw it then. She says there was nothing wrong with it then and she says there is nothing wrong with it now. She thought and thinks that there was nothing wrong with her perpetrating an elaborate fraud for money and getting away with it. Therefore, the description of her as a “fraudster” is in my judgment an apt description of her now”.
Did Optical Express act with malice such that no qualified privilege can be claimed?
Optical Express Ltd also sought to rely on a defence of qualified privilege. Griffiths J concluded that that Optical Express had not acted with malice, and therefore could rely on a defence of qualified privilege for the reasons that:
- Mr Moulsdale, Chairman of Optical Express Ltd, and the person who was the publisher behind the statements complained of contained in the letters to former patients, honestly believed the defamatory statements to be true;
- his belief was based on knowledge he had acquired from press reports of the ‘Decoy Dolls’ fraud;
- based off his evidence, Griffiths J did not consider that Mr Moulsdale was motivated by personal spite towards Ms Rodoy; and
- Mr Moulsdale was a qualified optician, with good standing within the General Optical Council. He honestly and reasonably considered Ms Rodoy’s beliefs relating to laser eye surgery to be contrary to mainstream professional and regulatory opinion.
Key takeaways
This case is significant for demonstrating the weight that court is prepared to apply to someone’s past conduct when considering whether allegations made about them in the present, can be held to be substantially true. Griffiths J made clear that any defence of truth turned on whether Ms Rodoy “remained in 2020 and 2021 the person she had shown herself to be in the late 1990s”. Clearly from Ms Rodoy’s cross-examination, she did not recognise or regret her actions in from the 1990s in relation to ‘Decoy Dolls’.
Defence lawyers will be comforted by the fact that they may rely on conduct by a Claimant that is considerably historic.
Claimant lawyers on the other hand will need to ensure that:
- they take full instructions from their client in relation to any relevant conduct, irrespective of how historic it is; and
- if any historic conduct could be problematic and support a defence of truth, advise their clients that if they fail to properly demonstrate serious remorse for those actions and change, particularly in their evidence and on cross examination, the court may find that those allegations continue to apply and are therefore substantially true when considering their present conduct.
You can read the judgment here.
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