UK Blogger Risks Jail Term Over Defamation of MFM General Overseer
In an order titled ‘Notice to the Defendant’, The Queens Bench Division of a UK high court of justice has threatened Maureen Badejo, a UK-based blogger, with jail term if she fails to obey an existing court judgement against her for defamation of Daniel Olukoya, the General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM) and his wife, Shade.
Maureen was given up till Thursday, November 4, to obey the court judgement or be found guilty of contempt and risk being sent to prison.
Back in October 22, it was reported that the court ordered the blogger to pay the sum of £65,000 to the MFM general overseer and £35,000 to his wife Olukoya as damages over defamatory publications.
As a corrective measure, she was also ordered to publish a summary of the judgment across her social media channels for a period of 10 consecutive days so “misguided and misinformed audience” get to know about the court’s decision.
The court had directed Jonathan Price, Olukoya’s counsel, to draft a two-page summary of the judgment for the blogger to post on her social media pages.
However, parties could not agree on the said draft as Badejo said she could not publish a summary of the judgment on all 10 social media accounts identified by the complaint counsel.
The judge, however, directed Badejo to publish the judgement summary on some of her platforms which have large followership.
The notice added that the defendant may be found guilty of contempt of court and risks imprisonment or fine or her “assets may be seized” if she fails to obey the court order.
