STEPHEN TAN HOCK SAN v CHAN YEOK PHENG & Anor

Facts

The claimant, Stephen Tan Hock San, was formerly secretary of the management council of the management corporation of Sim Lim Square (MCST 1440). The first defendant was the council's former chairman, and the second defendant was a director of the company that had been the managing agent. In July 2023, during a dispute over the management office, the second defendant filed three police reports dated 10, 13 and 17 July 2023. Among other things, they said the common seal had gone missing and accused the claimant and the treasurer of breaking into the management office without authority. A letter dated 19 July 2023, signed only by the "Management", referred to the same events.

On 20 July 2023 copies of all four documents were handed out in print to some owners and occupiers in the building by two people who were never identified. The claimant sued both defendants for defamation in Magistrates' Court Originating Claim No 6027 of 2024, alleging that they had arranged the distribution. Both defendants denied any part in it and also raised other defences.

Issues

1. Whether the claimant proved that either defendant was responsible for publishing the four documents by arranging for them to be distributed.
2. Whether an adverse inference should be drawn against the defendants for allegedly withholding documents.

Holding

The District Judge dismissed the claim against both defendants because the claimant had not proved that either of them was responsible for publishing the statements. The other issues, including whether the words were defamatory and whether any defence applied, did not need to be decided. The parties were directed to file submissions on costs.

Reasoning

Publication is an essential element of defamation and the claimant had to prove it. He accepted that he had no direct evidence: he had not seen anyone distributing the documents and could not link either defendant to the two distributors. Both defendants consistently denied involvement, and memory lapses or inconsistencies on unrelated points did not justify rejecting that evidence.

The circumstantial case was weak. The chairman said he had not seen the police reports before they were circulated, and nothing showed otherwise. His later remarks at a council meeting, including that the whole building would get a copy, were too ambiguous to amount to an admission. As for the managing agent, the reports were kept in an office that many people could enter, so others could have taken them, and nothing showed he wrote the unsigned letter. The claimant's distrust of the defendants was not proof.

His other arguments failed too. Shared ordinary words such as "saga" did not show who drafted the letter. Calling one defendant the other's puppet did not help when neither was shown to have distributed anything. An adverse inference would only reduce the weight of the defendants' denials and could not supply missing proof of distribution, and it was not clear that any documents had been withheld. An earlier case involving the chairman carried no weight because it was never put to him in cross-examination, as the rule in Browne v Dunn (1893) 6 R 67 requires.

From the judgment