The Court dismissed defamation proceedings for want of due despatch where the plaintiff failed over three years and multiple opportunities to plead material facts establishing any defendant's liability as publisher or authoriser of an anonymous defamatory email. The Court held that a bare assertion of 'authorisation' without pleading the underlying material facts is fundamentally defective, and that there is no principle rendering a person liable for defamation merely because they fail to disown a publication not made in their name. The Court declined to grant further leave to amend, finding that repeated failures to regularise proceedings despite judicial urging, combined with the plaintiff's failure to join or seek discovery from the identified likely publisher, warranted summary dismissal.
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