An Accra High Court (Commercial Court 10), presided over by Justice Jennifer Abena Dadzie, has awarded damages of one million cedis against controversial social media commentator, Kelvin Taylor, for defamatory statements he made against the Senior Partner of Accra-based corporate law firm, Africa Legal Associates and public figure Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko.
Mr. Taylor has been consistent in criticizing Mr. Otchere-Darko, a cousin of President Nana Akufo-Addo, and a member of the ruling New Patriotic Party.
Mr. Taylor accused Mr. Otchere-Darko of being a beneficiary of the PDS transaction, which was incidentally abrogated.
Mr. Taylor also accused Mr. Otchere-Darko, who has strong links with London, of owning a property in the plushest part of London, Mayfair, with insinuations that the lawyer bought the property with proceeds from PDS or a similar transaction of a questionable nature. Mr. Otchere-Darko denied owning a property in Mayfair, Central London.
In October 2019, Mr Otchere-Darko directed his lawyer, Kissi Agyebeng of Cromwell Grey LLP to sue Mr Taylor in respect of such defamatory statements made on Mr Taylor’s social media broadcast ‘With All Due Respect’ and on his Facebook Wall.
Due to the fact that Mr. Taylor is known to operate from the United States of America, on October 28, 2019, the High Court in Accra granted an application by the lawyers of Mr. Otchere-Darko to issue a writ of summons and serve notice of same out of the jurisdiction on Mr. Taylor.
The Order of the Court specified that the notice of the writ should be served on Mr Taylor, by expedited courier service, DHL through his own indicated address.
However, the DHL courier service could not serve Mr. Taylor at his own indicated address.
The courier service tried all it could and even called Mr Taylor on his own indicated telephone number but he denied being the person on the other end of the line. Checks made by the lawyers confirmed otherwise.
Mr. Agyebeng prayed the court to vary its earlier order for the notice of the writ against Mr. Taylor to be served out of the jurisdiction.
The High Court, Accra being persuaded by the argument of lawyer Kissi Agyebeng, on 16 March 2020 ordered that, in the alternative, the notice of the writ be posted on the Facebook wall of Mr Taylor and also same forwarded to the WhatsApp number of Mr Taylor.
Mr. Taylor, even upon service of the court processes on him, neither entered an appearance nor filed a statement of defense to substantiate the allegations he made against Mr. Otchere-Darko.
The lawyers for Mr. Otchere-Darko complied with all the orders of the court and even filed witness statements to support their case.
Mr. Taylor then resorted to making disparaging comments on Facebook against an associate of Kissi Agyebeng who affected the service of the processes on him.
On October 12, 2020, Mr. Otchere-Darko mounted the witness box and gave his evidence. He then called Samuel Attah-Mensah, the former Vice President of the Ghana Independent Broadcasters Association, to testify on his behalf.
The Court today gave judgment in favor of Mr. Otchere-Darko. The court found that Mr. Taylor had, without any basis, whatsoever, made very serious defamatory comments against Mr. Otchere-Darko.
His lawyers did not specify the number of damages in the writ. However, the Court, in its wisdom, awarded damages in the sum of One Million cedis in the favor of the plaintiff, due to the seriousness of the defamatory matter published by Mr. Taylor.
In giving her short judgment today, Tuesday, October 27, Justice Jennifer Dadzie added that the full judgment will be available a week later, on Tuesday, November 3.
